<p>Where should I go? Cornell is better, right? (except for the weather).
Would any of you attend Wm. and Mary if you had gotten an Ivy acceptance?
I'm OOS for both schools.</p>
<p>My d had the choice in 2001 and went for W & M. The schools are very different in atmosphere, and after doing an overnight at Cornell my d felt that W & M would suit her better. </p>
<p>Cornell is a great school and has more name value, particularly in the northeast. Cornell wasn't the fit my d was looking for because she wanted a smaller student body and what she found to be a more personalized, connected feeling at W & M. (Not saying that everyone would feel this way at Cornell, of course.)</p>
<p>Both schools have excellent faculties and well-deserved reputations for academic rigor. I don't think the surrounding areas are all that different - Ithaca is a great college town, but pretty distant from the nearest cities (Syracuse and Rochester); Williamsburg has a lot of options for kids who aren't looking for dance clubs or concert venues right next door, and it's close to Richmond, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach.</p>
<p>We're in NY, so Cornell would have cost less than W & M (she was admitted to ALS). We know a lot of Cornell students, because our hs is something of a feeder school - between 10-15 kids of ~400 usually enroll at Cornell each year. Several of my d's hs classmates told her that they needed a year or so to feel at home there (again, no slight intended).</p>
<p>You'll get a great education either way. I think it comes down to the kind of campus atmosphere you're looking for.</p>
<p>*Would any of you attend Wm. and Mary if you had gotten an Ivy acceptance? *</p>
<p>I can tell you that there are many many students at W&M with Ivy acceptances.</p>
<p>Actually, the 2 most important people in my d's college life chose W & M over Ivies :) : roommate chose it over Yale (financial as well as other reasons), boyfriend chose it over Princeton (which was just too close to home for him).</p>
<p>"Better?" This sounds like "troll bait" - an invitation to start a fight over which school is "better "- too much of that lately. </p>
<p>Since you ask sincerely, though - the "answer", as always, is "it depends", it depends on what you're looking for. Cornell has excellent programs in engineering, physics, business, chemistry, and pre-med in general. Overall, they almost certainly have more resources in those specific areas than W&M. </p>
<p>W&M is a LAC, has excellent programs in history, English, biology, and pre-med in general. Since it's a state, public school, it's not exactly rolling in the dough, but it does pretty well, academically and opportunity-wise. </p>
<p>Both are in kind of rural locations, though personally, I'd pick Wburg over Ithaca 8 days out of the week, I'm not really fond of Upstate New York weather. </p>
<p>Being OOS, the cost for Cornell isn't dramatically different from W&M's, but it is more expensive. </p>
<p>Really, it just depends on what you're looking for - if you want the small, LAC experience, with a diverse set of experiences, or want to major in history or English, it's obvious (to me). If you want engineering, or hard science or CS, the answer's again, obvious. If you want business or bio/pre-med, maybe not so obvious, the "prestige" factor may tilt to Cornell, but as to <em>your</em> actual experience, I don't know there's a lot to choose between the two, other than back to environmentals - class sizes, climate, etc. Either way, you really can't go wrong. </p>
<p>Oh, and yes, people turn down Ivies all the time for W&M - usually for "cost" or for the "environment"; for example, many of those schools are enormous, and filled with old money prep school grads, and many don't feel like they'd "fit" there, or would feel lost and overwhelmed in such a place, no matter how impressive the name. So, trust me, yes, it does. W&M has a reputation of being very accepting and egalitarian, and is a comfortably-sized school. (Oh, and not implying anything about Cornell's environment - I don't actually have a good sense of what kind of "feel" it has - so, that's left your judgment.)</p>
<p>Anyway, congrats and best of luck.</p>
<p>personally W & M fits me a lot better than any other school
and I am sick of people in New England, which is why I am going down south, of course that doesn't mean that everyone here is elitist or that everyone at an ivy league school is
it is just that my experience has been that it was easier to find good people who also work hard at W & M
plus if you want to go to grad school, get a solid education now, and go for big names like harvard and yale, if you need them, later.
everyone I have met from William & mary was warm, welcoming and smart. And everyone I know who went there loved it. I definitely can't say the same about any other school I know of. So yes, I would pick W & M over an ivy league, and any school for that matter.</p>
<p>Hey Dulce! I was choosing between Cornell and WM too. Crazy! Toughest choice of my life. I decided to go WM. Wish I could help you make your choice but i can't. I just woke up one day and said WM so I would stop stressing!</p>
<p>
[quote]
*Would any of you attend Wm. and Mary if you had gotten an Ivy acceptance? *</p>
<p>I can tell you that there are many many students at W&M with Ivy acceptances.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>this is, indeed, very true. Some of them have multiple Ivy acceptances too.</p>
<p>thanks guys. considering that I never even visited william and mary, I have chosen to attend Cornell. I might be sorry in the dead of winter, though.</p>
<p>Good luck, dulce. I met a man on Saturday who was a Cornell grad. His son wouldn't even consider his acceptance at Cornell once the W&M acceptance came in.</p>
<p>A kid in my hall transfered from Cornell spring semester as a freshman, I guess he preferred W&M over Cornell in the end.</p>