<p>Re the med school location: while my son is not a premed, friends of his are. They have found it very easy to do job shadowing and volunteering of the sort that is helpful for med. school applications because Vanderbilt Medical Center is right there on campus. This spring break (right now) a group of premed students is participating in an Alternative Spring Break program at a hospital in another city, a program sponsored by the university.</p>
<p>Hmm…it is true that Cornell’s medical school is nowhere near its undergraduates!</p>
<p>Academics - Cornell, but close enough
Financial - Vandy
Prestige - Cornell</p>
<p>oh wait this is the parents forum lol</p>
<p>Both schools will be fine for pre-med. The key is you getting great grades and MCAT scores and doing the other things pre-med students need to do to get into med school.</p>
<p>Given the debt you’re likely to have to take on for medical school, and the fact that you probably won’t be able to pay down much undergrad or med school debt until you’re finished residency, which is years later, your debt will undoubtedly grow. Not having $40K in undergrad debt by the time you get out of med school and residency could easily turn into $80K of debt just with accrued interest, plus whatever debt you incur in med school. Run the numbers and see what college debt looks like when you can’t begin repayment for years and years.</p>
<p>If you want to go to medical school, you need to look at the statistics of where the average student at both schools go after their undergraduate years. In no other profession is the name of the medical school so permanently affixed to your career opportunities.</p>
<p>That being said, I had the choice of an ivy, or picking a fine school with a program that was better suited toward my profession. It is now 30 years later, and though occassionally I think about what my life path would have been had I made a different choice, I met my business partner in college, still have colleagues with whom I went to college, and still have my connections to my undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>I didn’t choose the ivy. Life turned out just fine so far…</p>
<p>good luck.</p>
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<p>I do hope this poster is not a parent. What a short sighted view! Yeah, the college will be on your resume for the rest of your life, so what? And why do have to keep explaining… “Oh, sorry, I went to Cornell and I am not qualified to work for Bill Bain”? Or, Bill Bain meets you and he’ beaming, “Oh, yeah, I went to Vanderbilt and, look, I can’t see the end of the line where those Ivy League graduates waiting to work for me.” If you don’t know who this guy is, look it up.</p>
<p>And also consider - it may be 10,000 this year, but can that figure change? Is it just FA or an outright scholarship? If FA, then Vanderbilt, because it may be more than 10,000 next year.</p>
<p>Great options, jamaica! More students should have such a dilemma 
Have you visited both campuses? If you can afford the $10,000/yr I’d lean towards Cornell. It has a world-wide reputation & fantastic alumni network. You have to realize you can’t really go wrong here.</p>
<p>I live in Central New York and know lots of kids at Cornell and currently have a daughter at Vanderbilt. Both are terrific schools, but have a very different vibe. Have you visited both? If you are outdoorsy, like outdoor/adventure activities, then Cornell is a better fit. Vanderbilt has the SEC athletic culture and a vibrant social scene. It’s beautiful campus is located in a city with all the things (lots of music in particular) a city brings. But it also has a Southern culture, which may not be for everyone.
Interestingly, both schools suffer grade deflation, particularly in the sciences, so it will be a tough road at either insititution. Personally, I think the academics are equal. It’s a matter of whether social atmosphere makes a difference to you and whether that difference is worth $40,000.</p>
<p>I am a parent of three kids. Only one goes to Cornell. The fact that you know where Bill Bain attended college proves my point. (I did look up Bill Bain. I assume you meant the consultant and not the wrestler or football player.) </p>
<p>As I said, your college is on your resume for the rest of your life. Which college is more well know around the world? Which college has a better network? (There is a Cornell Club in NYC, LA, Washinton DC, Boston, Chicago, London, etc.) </p>
<p>I believe you can get a great education at both schools. I believe you can get into a great medical school from either school. And I also believe you can be successful no matter where you go to school. I would still rather have Cornell on my resume. The OP asked, I gave my opinion.</p>
<p>anybody wanna chime in on differences in culture? academically and socially?</p>
<p>My daughter wouldn’t even send in an application to Cornell; on her visit, felt the academic environment was just way too cut-throat; didn’t help that she knew at least 5 people who had to change their majors because they couldn’t hack it (and these were top students in high school)…</p>
<p>Vandy ended up as one of her top choices; came down to that and another school in April…</p>
<p>I should add that “rankings” and “prestige” are not words that enter her (or our) voacabulary…“fit” is something we talked about ALOT</p>
<p>to the OP: net, net…go visit both schools and talk to the students…</p>
<p>Another thing to think about regarding the medical school angle: a lot of kids say they want to be premed, but the number who actually enter med school after graduation is much smaller. Nashville is home to many healthcare related companies (HCA, Healthspring, etc.) and Vanderbilt ends up working with a lot of these companies. So, if your child might want to work in a health care related business, they would make a lot more connections if they went to Vandy.</p>
<p>I will be visiting Vanderbilt in less than two weeks and Cornell the first week of April. The responses have been tremendous. Thank you everyone. I intentionally posted this on the parents blog, because I wanted the opinions of mature individuals with real life experience. Your feedbacks will have some influence in my decision.</p>
<p>One thing we don’t know is the current residence of the OP. Travel back and forth to school can be expensive – maybe not 10K a year, but it could make a difference. Say the OP is from NYC … it’s going to be less expensive to get to Cornell than to Vandy.</p>
<p>I’m a New Englander and Cornell parent – I really like the Cornell whereas I’d never heard of Vanderbilt until my S1 (the Cornellian)'s high school girlfriend chose Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>My husband and I had dinner recently with some old friends. DH’s father went to Cornell; both friends went to Cornell. Daughter of one friend is currently at Cornell and loves it. Vanderbilt might be a great school, but… I’ve met a lot of Cornell people and I really like all of them. (Can’t say that for MIT and Harvard. It is true of RPI, though.) Cornell seems to bring out the best in people.</p>
<p>10k x 4 years = 40k</p>
<p>Right now, Vanderbilt looks like the winner.</p>
<p>It has an excellent national reputation, and provided the OP doesn’t mess up whatever it is he/she has to do to keep that full-ride scholarship, I just don’t see any downside.</p>
<p>Yes, Happydad and I earned our graduate degrees at Cornell, and I have many fond memories of the university and the city of Ithaca, but golly the winters are long and dark. By any but Midwestern standards they are also very cold. Ithaca is not a major city, and consequently transportation can be tricky. Definitely things that you should take into account before spending an extra 40k for essentially the same product!</p>
<p>HappyMom has a point about transportation: the Nashville airport is about 20 minutes from Vandy’s campus & while you can’t get direct flights to everywhere, you can get almost everywhere with just one stop. Also, the Nashville airport personnel are the nicest I’ve ever encountered :)</p>
<p>I have no opinion between these two fine places, but let;s say you visit both and truly prefer Cornell.</p>
<p>I was thinking if Cornell is funding you for all but $l0K they might respond to your phone call to FA that you have to decide between these two schools, based on a $l0 K difference annually, and are keen for Cornell because…xyz. As well, you want to express a bit more that might not have been crystal clear on your FA application …x,y,z. </p>
<p>Ask, is there any way they can get you closer, even by several thousand? It can’t hurt and might help (it’s a stretch but I’m just suggesting it; don’t count on anything).</p>
<p>Only do that if you’re drooling for Cornell over Vanderbilt after 2 visits, OR have something compelling to add to your FA profile espec since you filed it (serious, for example, someone lost a job or became very ill), since both places have great qualities. </p>
<p>I think the reason folks are suggesting the visit is you’ll know by walking around and seeing key departments, plus the geography, if you perceive you’d be happier in one place or the other.</p>
<p>And here I am thinking, after the huge amount of debt medical school creates, what’s $40K more? I think in incremental differences, and would love to hear from an actual doctor (not just someone who plays one on TV) whether, over the lifetime of a medical practice, $40K MORE is a big or small increment.</p>
<p>I’m thinking: if she could just get them to change that to $5K/year, the increment would be just $20K. If she were considering a field other than medicine I wouldn’t be so cavalier here about “just” 20 or 40K over the course of a career.</p>
<p>Someone above mentioned what the finances might look like after freshman year, and I have the same question. I don’t know exactly what your scholarship entails at Vanderbilt (is it one of the three big named awards?), but if it is the same as my son’s, you are guaranteed full tuition (and maybe other fees) for all four years, even if tuition rises. Is that true at Cornell? What about the requirements for keeping the scholarships? VU generally requires a 3.0, which should be doable even for premed. </p>
<p>10K, 15K per year–these numbers carry different significance for different families and individuals. I don’t think it is a completely insignificant amount for anyone, especially given the equivalent nature of the schools. I spent 15 years in the academic community of Massachusetts, and it is simply inaccurate to suggest that Vanderbilt is unknown outside of the south; that should not be a factor. However, if you utterly hate Nashville and Vanderbilt, then the additional debt might seem worth it to you. If you are like most people, you will be favorably impressed upon visiting, though. (I have known a couple of students who just could not see themselves there. I’ve known several others whom I predicted would come away from a visit saying “not for me” but who loved it and put it at or near the top of their lists.)</p>
<p>Paying3Tuitions: “And here I am thinking, after the huge amount of debt medical school creates, what’s $40K more? I think in incremental differences, and would love to hear from an actual doctor (not just someone who plays one on TV) whether, over the lifetime of a medical practice, $40K MORE is a big or small increment.”</p>
<p>But it isn’t $40K. $40K in undergrad debt, built up (with interest accruing) over four years of undergrad, and then left to accrue interest during 4 years of med school and 6 of residency turns into 70K if you assume that the interest rate stays at 5%, which, imo, is unlikely.</p>
<p>If the student will need to finance med school, a modest debt (living economically) would be $50K per year for 4 years. By the end of med school, that debt would have grown to $221K, and then by the end of 6 years of residency, it would have grown to $298K. Add the undergrad debt of $70K, and you now have $368K in college debt to pay back. </p>
<p>If you try and pay off that loan over 10 years, you’re looking at a MONTHLY payment of $3,903. That’s a gulp. So spread it over 20 years – that’s $2429 per month, and if you finish your six year residency at 33 (pretty common, age wise), you make your last student loan payment at age 53. </p>
<p>And that’s if interest remains a flat 5%, and I don’t think that’s going to be the case. Compound interest is a killer.</p>