We are in NY and my D is down to these 3. All are great schools but very different. She has been admitted to one of the state colleges at Cornell, so tuition is lower for us. WashU has given her some money to bring cost down to around UVA. UVA has not given her anything,
At this point the front runner for her is UVA, She loved it when we visited. She likes the social atmosphere and the school vibe.
WashU is great, but it is further and as a D3 school seems to have less school spirit.
Cornell is our top choice for her, but she has reservations. She is concerned about the competitive/cut throat reputation, the grade deflation, and the heavy NY student body (she knows a lot of people who will be attending and she is not sure she wants to be involved with the same social groups in college).
Then there is the issue of which school gives her the best chance to get into Med School.
Of course we will visit all of them over the next month, but it is a bit confusing for her.
I don’t know that any will give a specific advantage in going to Medical school. That pretty much comes down to great grades and MCATs regardless of where you go. (I think WashU has a reputation for having a pretty high percentage of pre-med, though.) School spirit is often associated with athletics, but I’ve found there are lots of schools that have extremely supportive alumni that do not have big time sports. In fact, the top schools in terms of alumni that give back are usually not top athletic schools. It is a different type of school spirit they have.
A quick Google search seems to suggest that overall acceptance for med schools in 2016 was about 40%, so it seems Cornell gives you quite an advantage there. I’m not sure how that will compare to the other schools on your list, but you may be able to find those percentages as well.
Also, for what it’s worth, my experience at Cornell has not been competitive or cutthroat at all, and nobody I know (including pre-meds) has described it that way, either.
30% of the undergrads are from NYS. Upstate NY is quite different from downstate, so while there are certainly a lot of students from NYS, they come from varying backgrounds.
There were three other students from my HS graduating class when I was at Cornell. I never interacted with them socially. It is a big place with many different groups, so unless she knows that she will be on the same debate team or the same singing group, she may not see her HS classmates all that much.
I find it hard to believe that she would know a lot of students who would go ther.
Cornell is extremely competitive school for that matter.
The main Cornell’s advantage over UVA is the possibility of multiple minor choices in case she fails to go to med school. You will have less # of gen ed courses required in Cornell so you may take more classes outside of your major to be more competitive
Cornell student here. I’m not pre-med, (pre-vet actually, so same course prerequisites), but many of my friends in my classes are pre-med. In terms of the cutt-throat behavior, it really is less pervasive than I had anticipated. Of course, everybody feels the crunch during prelims and finals season, but I have not experienced anybody who is actively seeking to better themselves at the expense of others. Cornell students are a good bunch.