<p>Hi CC Folks!
I was accepted to Cornell's College of Human Ecology and Tufts Engineering school.
At Cornell, I would plan on being a Nutritional Sciences major.
At Tufts, I would plan on being a Biomedical Engineering major.</p>
<p>I am a hopeful Pre-Med from CT and I don't know which school to pick. Does anyone have any insight on which might be the better choice? In terms of academics, community, residential, extracurriculars, food, research opportunities, access to cities, or any other factors - Which do I pick?! I love them both and am visiting both this month before I decide.</p>
<p>The human ecology school is awsome, smaller, and close knit. They have a really cool new addition to their school. The nutritional program at Cornell is one of the best and you can even do a dietetics program and be a registered dietitian upon graduation.</p>
<p>Your GPA in BME will likely be significantly lower than a GPA in nutrition science. Cornell has BME or at least a concentration in it so you could follow that path at Cornell too.</p>
<p>So much more work in BME. If you’re not going to be an engineer you should choose another major. I think one really has to be passionate about engineering to have the drive to do all the work.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the input - To kind of stimulate further discussion, can anyone elaborate on the idea/rumor that Cornell is the “least grade-inflated ivy, where tests are designed to get the smartest students a 90, and consistent 60s-70s for the rest”? Some have told me they didn’t choose Cornell for this idea that the curriculum is so difficult and that Cornell is rumored to be the “easiest Ivy to get into, the hardest to graduate from”.</p>
<p>Of course I don’t know the validity of any of these statements, so do not think that I am biased against Cornell, but what have current students or even admitted and committed students thought of this?</p>
<p>Some of these are old rumors circulated on cc and clueless high school seniors of the past. However, some of these rumors have some sort of basis to it so I’m going to talk about that.
Yes it is statistically easiest to get into (but you can well see that Cornell doesn’t just take the people with the highest stats and there are many people who get rejected by Cornell and get into other ivies and vice versa), but I highly doubt it’s significantly harder to graduate from than the other ivies. As someone said earlier, it’s probably because we have more whiners that people complain about the difficulty - shouldn’t be significantly worse than the other ivies. Graduating with a really good grade as a premed, though, is a different story.
Cornell is probably the 2nd least grade-inflated ivy next to princeton based on 2006 report i think, but then again it is really in the same ball park in terms of average gpa to the other ivies with exception of say, brown? Note that the student body is also slightly weaker than the other ivy counterparts overall (With the exception of say CAS and engineering), so it should balance out.
as for “tests are designed to get the smartest students a 90, and consistent 60s-70s for the rest” - I have never really thought about that because Cornell generally curves its tests by standard deviations if the mean is lower than say 80, and I have never really felt that way either. This is also probably a myth perpetuated by whiners.</p>
<p>The grades are curved so that the average student generally gets a B+ or A- while the best students get A’s and the worst students get B- or C’s. Very rare to get D’s or F’s. Pretty generous if you ask me.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t that be the most grade-inflated Ivy? Lol… or am I missing something there.</p>
<p>We’re talking about the other end of the spectrum - I’ve heard that Cornell’s best students get A-'s, the average students will get C’s and D’s, and the worst will get F’s. Anyone want to counter that claim, (please?)… haha :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the input Colene… it is very reassuring, I have a feeling some of my high school peers are trying to keep me away from Cornell</p>
<p>it’s slightly lower than what norcal says - usually it’s around B to B+ for average students. For premed or science classes ESPECIALLY at the intro level though they generally put it down to B or B-. Bs and Cs are not that uncommon in those classes. Those are also generally the most annoying/hardest classes.
Then again, that goes for most ivies - with the possible exception of brown.
Oh and norcal was referring to Cornell.
and no, NEVER in any class would they make Cs and Ds be the mean or median. Usually B- is the lowest of the low - reserved for intro science and math classes and some intro engineering courses - which is why premeds go through hell. Not just one hell (intro classes of one major), but several of them (intro classes of several science departments) where you are pitted against kids who are really in it for the grades and where the instructors don’t give much mercy.</p>
<p>Ah that makes more sense haha. The decision is tricky. I feel both curricula will be challenging at Tufts and Cornell. Anyone know a comparison of med school acceptance rates from these universities?</p>
<p>Med school acceptance rates really aren’t meaningful since different colleges calculate the rate in different ways. It’s hard to actually compare apples to apples. I think picking based on fit and finances makes better sense. All things being equal, the Cornell name will give you a leg up in admissions to the most competitive med schools but that’s assuming you are even competitive for top med schools.</p>
<p>Thanks to both haha. Finances are pretty equal from both schools - Both offered alot of scholarship/grant aid, which we are very happy about.
It will come down to fit, and fortunately I’m visiting both schools this month (for the second time for Tufts), and hopefully the decision will be easier with the visit to Cornell.</p>
<p>Made it to med school? Heck, I’m a month away from making it OUT of med school. I must be getting old.</p>
<p>I’ve made an extensive post before about different ways colleges try to artificially inflate their med school acceptance rates. I won’t go through the entire explanation again but I will list how it is done:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Broadening the definition of “med school:” We usually think of med school as US MD schools. Some colleges include Caribbean med schools, DO schools, Polish med schools, etc. in their calculations.</p></li>
<li><p>Using outdated statistics: Med school admissions is more competitive today than it was 5 or 10 years ago. Some colleges, instead of giving the most current acceptance rate, will quote their 10-year acceptance rate.</p></li>
<li><p>Screening out the weakest applicants: This is obvious. Some colleges, such as JHU, have panels that explicitly refuse to write recommendation letters for the weakest applicants, essentially prohibiting them from applying to med school.</p></li>
<li><p>Qualifiers: “We have a 99% acceptance rate!..for applicants with 3.9 GPA, 40 MCAT score, and Rhodes Scholarships.”</p></li>
<li><p>Liberal arts colleges: Any data on med school acceptance rates is absolutely worthless from liberal arts colleges. I have never seen so many no-name liberal arts colleges boast 100% med school acceptance rates. They have so few applicants each year (often just 3-4) that it is impossible to draw any kind of conclusion.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Sounds like a plan. If you like both schools equally, I think you should choose Cornell. If you like Tufts better, you should choose Tufts. I’m a big fan of living in a collegetown (ie Ithaca or Madison, WI) for college and then a cool city (like Boston, NYC, Chicago, etc.) for med school and residency. I feel the best way to get a true college experience is to be on campus, not out in the city. But, that’s my own bias.</p>
<p>@levniel, hi , congrats!!! nice to see a nutrition major here! am still waiting for my response~would you like to share ur stats? thank you! :-)</p>