<p>I want to study premed. Would you choose Cornell or Duke?</p>
<p>Cornell pre-med is pretty harsh. My cousin did it and said she had a much bigger work-load than many other pre-meds at other schools. Cornell is also in the middle of no where and the weather sucks royally and can be depressing at times (according to my sister, who also goes there). </p>
<p>On the other hand, Duke's pre-med advising is widely known as extrememly helpful, the hospital is regarded extremely highly in medical circles, and the school has an 85% acceptance rate to medical school (much higher than the national average of around 50, I think). Plus, the weather doesn't hurt.</p>
<p>How much is state price</p>
<p>Purely looking at med school and setting aside money...beyond grades and scores, sn important aspect of med school admissions is demonstrated commitment. Clinical research helps bolster your candidacy</p>
<p>One of the strengths of pre-med at Duke (and Yale, Penn, etc) is the top tier med school and hospital on campus. You can rotate with physicians, conduct leading research, and demonstrate interest in a medical career</p>
<p>Weill Medical College (Cornell's med school) is in Manhattan, several hours away from campus. There's little interaction between the schools - largely due to distance - so you'll have to find a way to make something happen in the summer (maybe your hometown).</p>
<p>The difference in the quality of premed programs is negligible. Cornell is routinely around 75-80%. Duke is at 85% with a slightly stronger student body. Clinical research is not mandated for med school and most premeds do not have clinical research. You can get clinical experience by volunteering at the hospital or shadowing doctors. One of the difficulties premeds commonly have is finding doctors to shadow. Cornell actually has 2 formal shadowing programs that match you with a doctor (usually an alum or has some ties to the school).</p>
<p>As someone who just did his loan exit interviews this week, I would seriously factor cost into the equation.</p>
<p>the thing is though, cornell state price isn't through their big college of arts & sciences -- it's only through human ecology (which could be a great program, as far as i know), agriculture & life sciences, and ILR which you won't be attending if you're pre-med. state price cornell is a great deal (~$20,000) - but is it worth it to be in one of those schools? human ecology always seemed like the best bet for someone pre-med looking to use in-state tuition, but unless you're doing the human development track, seems much more ecological based (and honestly, policy based) than going to a college of arts & sciences and doing that traditional pre-med program. </p>
<p>i'm from new york - a good friend of mine from high school went into cornell human ecology school to be pre-med and enjoy in-state tuition. she's now switched into a&s, her parents pay normal tuition, but she feels it's much better for her wants & needs. i know nothing about pre-med programs from school to school, so look into the above posters. but do understand that in-state tuition at cornell does not correspond to every undergraduate school, and if you switch into one that's not covered then you pay the same price as duke.</p>
<p>You can major in whatever you want and still do premed. You can be a history major in Arts and Sciences, a BIO MAJOR in CALS (this is the exact same bio major as in CAS), a human development major in Human Ecology, an engineering major, whatever. The traditional bio major is in CALS which is one of the contract colleges. Plus, I think the human biology health and society (HBHS) major in Human Ecology is even better since it combines both traditional biology with some of the non-science facets of medicine. </p>
<p>My point is that having no med school nearby is not going to hurt you. Princeton routinely gets 90%+ of its premeds into med school (and Princeton doesn't even have a med school). Duke with slightly worse students get 85% of its premeds into med school. Cornell with slightly worse students than Duke get 75-80% of its applicants into med school. This is about what is expected given the strength of their student bodies. Only when there is a strong disconnect between the acceptance rates and the quality of the student body (as in MIT's case) would I suspect that there is something wrong with the premed program. In reality, there is no such thing as a strong or weak premed program since premed consists of a bunch of intro courses that can be taught by a high school teacher.</p>
<p>As an added bonus, the Weill Medical College campus actually includes Weill, Rockefeller University, Sloan Memorial Cancer Center (the #1 cancer center in the world), New York Presbyterian, as well as a second hospital for special surgery. As a Cornell undergrad, you often get first crack at any jobs in any of those facilities.</p>
<p>I don't think using the percentage accepted to medical school is a very good measure. Whether you get in or not depends far more on what an individual does rather than the school's record. And I say this coming from Rice where the acceptance rate to med school is over 90%.</p>