Cornell vs JHU vs Williams

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
1

<p>I was just accepted to these three schools ~ the former two for Bioengineering, and the last one for biochemistry and molecular biology program at the last one. </p>

<p>I am definitely torn between a business related job and a medicine related job...at Cornell, I'd be in CALS, hopefully double majoring in AEM and Bioengineering. At hopkins, I'd be double-majoring in Bioengineering and Applied Mathematics and Statistics, and at Williams, I'd be double majoring in Math and the biochemistry and molecular biology. Which one of the options would give me the best chance of getting into a top 10 med school or b-school? Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Cornell’s bioengineering and AEM are two of the best programs, both are ranked extremely high. I think Cornell is your best bet for those two programs.</p>

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<p>highly doubt double majoring in anything or bioengineering will help you get into med school though.</p>

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<p>@DarkIce - thanks, I have been kind of leaning towards Cornell from the get-go.
@Colene - I know double majoring itself won’t get me into a med/b-school. I just wanted to know which of the 3 options was most conducive towards having a great shot at a top med/b-school. </p>

<p>I read that somewhere that 89% of all Cornell people with a 3.4 GPA or above made medical school, but I also read that Williams has the 5th best placement in top 15 law/b/med schools (behind HYPS). That’s why I’m torn atm</p>

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<p>Cornell. But seriously, if you want to go to med school, perhaps the other two are comparable with acceptances, but Cornell has better job placement, is in the Ivy League (very conducive to getting a job in these economic times, believe it or not), and is definitely the most practical option with AEM if you don’t necessarily like BioEngineering. Also, these two programs are both incredibly high ranked, and at JHU only one of those programs is esteemed, and Williams job placement is sorely lacking/doesn’t have either of the programs you’re looking for (applied math/bioengineering).</p>

<p>Pick Cornell '16</p>

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<p>Cornell is about 80% at 3.6 gpa and above. I would say go with williams. Cornell sciences is not to be taken lightly at all.</p>

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<p>Go where you would be happiest. Williams’ placement (as reflected by the dated-but-I’m-sure-still-accurate WSJ study) at top-tier grad schools is superior, actually, to Cornell or JHU, and Williams has the best undergrad math program in the nation (the school, despite its small size, recently finished in the top ten in the Putnam competition, and the faculty features THREE professors who recently won NATIONAL professor of the year awards). That being said, all three are enormously respected in the sciences, so to choose on the basis of “which will better serve my future” is simply not relevant. If you do well at any of the three, you will have no worries whatsoever. But what LolCows said about Williams is simply, demonstrably false. Of course, as a liberal arts school, Williams does not have an engineering major, so if it is important to you to have an engineering component to your studies, Williams may not be for you. </p>

<p>Some links to peruse on math and science at Williams:</p>

<p>[Admissions</a> – Williams College| Science and Mathematics Research](<a href=“http://admission.williams.edu/bigpicture/difference/research]Admissions”>http://admission.williams.edu/bigpicture/difference/research)
[Math/Stat[/url</a>]
[url=&lt;a href=“http://math.williams.edu/alums/]Math/Stat[/url”&gt;http://math.williams.edu/alums/]Math/Stat[/url</a>]
(gives a sense of what typical math alums end up doing post-college)
[url=&lt;a href=“http://science.williams.edu/report-of-science-at-williams/2011-report-of-science/science-department-news/chemistry-2011/]Chemistry”&gt;http://science.williams.edu/report-of-science-at-williams/2011-report-of-science/science-department-news/chemistry-2011/]Chemistry</a> 2011 | Science Center<a href=“look%20to%20bottom%20to%20see%20an%20example%20of%20the%20types%20of%20jobs%20and%20grad%20schools%20last%20year’s%20grads%20are%20destined%20for”>/url</a>
[url=&lt;a href=“http://www.williams.edu/feature-stories/slider-stories-archive/spotlight-on-student-research/]Spotlight”&gt;http://www.williams.edu/feature-stories/slider-stories-archive/spotlight-on-student-research/]Spotlight</a> on Student Research | Williams College](<a href=“http://math.williams.edu/putnam-exam-dec-3/]Math/Stat[/url”>http://math.williams.edu/putnam-exam-dec-3/)
[Susan</a> Loepp Wins National Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics | Office of Communications<a href=“five%20faculty%20members%20have%20won!”>/url</a>
[url=&lt;a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”&gt;Growing Scientists at America's Top Liberal Arts Colleges | HuffPost College]James</a> M. Gentile: Growing Scientists at America’s Top Liberal Arts Colleges](<a href=“http://communications.williams.edu/news/susan-loepp-award-2012/]Susan”>Susan Loepp Wins National Award for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics – Office of Communications)</p>

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<p>Really, demonstrate it please (comparisons). The Cornell faculty is just as distinguished; their website is simply worse organized. The only thing Cornell loses out on is its larger size, but with that, you have more choice in the breadth of your study across many highly ranked and highly regarded departments.</p>

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<p>The only source available, that I know of, that has ever compared Williams directly to Cornell in this regard (other than Forbes which, while dubious in its methodoly, does rank Williams well above Cornell, overall, and includes salary potential as a ranking criteria), was the WSJ feeder school ranking (which presumably correlates with elite employers as well as top grad schools). Now, that list is outdated, but I doubt the numbers have changed materially, and here were the top ten:</p>

<p>Top Ten Elite Professional School Feeder Schools

  1. Harvard
  2. Yale
  3. Princeton
  4. Stanford
  5. Williams
  6. Duke
  7. Dartmouth
  8. MIT
  9. Amherst
  10. Swarthmore</p>

<p>I am not sure where Cornell ranks, but it was certainly substantially behind Williams, and I am confident still would be. Moreover, just look at the type of jobs and grad schools Williams Math and Chem grads are obtaining, as noted in the links I posted. The burden should be on the person claiming that Cornell has “better job placement” and that Williams’ “job placement is sorely lacking” to back up those claims. This person, apparently, is not even in college yet, so I sincerely doubt they have any insight whatsoever into Williams’ job / grad school placement relative to Cornell, other than favoring Cornell because they happen to be going there. I’ve also seen that Williams ranks much better than Cornell (along with virtually every school outside of that WSJ top ten posted above, plus Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, Pomona are also in the running) in terms of per-capita number of students earning NSF fellowships and earning admission to Phd science programs, but I don’t have that data at my fingertips.</p>

<p>My point was not to say that someone should definitely attend Williams over Cornell. As I said, both are strong enough that you should go where you would be happiest. My point is that someone who says that Cornell is “better” than Williams for job / med school placement is simply misinformed.</p>

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<p>Cornell’s undergraduate business program, AEM/Dyson, is ranked 10th in the most recent USNWR list, and it stands at an impressive number 3 on BusinessWeek’s most recent ranking. Cornell’s economics department, which draws upon university-wide resources including AEM, but is run out of the Arts and Sciences college (CAS), is also very highly regarded.</p>

<p>Both Williams and Cornell are fantastic schools, but they are none-the-less very different from each other. Williams is a well-filtered and manicured beautiful pond, while Cornell is a gorgeous lake with an incredibly wide range of multi-hued aquatic fish.</p>

<p>What distinguishes Cornell is its incredible range of academic communities, and sub-communities, that generate a tremendous amount of energy. For a few this breadth of opportunity is too much, but for most this diversity and energy is exactly why they chose Cornell. Cornell rewards independent minded students who are adept at decision making without an excess of handholding.</p>

<p>Cornell is an Ivy League research powerhouse that nevertheless maintains an undergraduate focus. Not many universities can claim this interesting attribute. Cornell research is involved in everything from: nanotech to anthropology, resort management to veterinary medicine, medicinal mushrooms to molecular biology. You will, for the most part, be taught by the Profs who are at the forefront of this kind of research. And because the lion’s share of the Ithaca community is undergraduate focused you will find abundant opportunities to interact with innovative scientists and professors.</p>

<p>Cornell properly promotes the “depth and breadth” of the high caliber programs it has to offer. This is because it has 14 semi-autonomous colleges – it is a world-class university in every sense of the word. It is not a small – though fantastic – LAC like Williams. I’d advise OP to visit both campuses, and to determine which of these two great, but very different, schools fits best with his personality.</p>

<p>_</p>

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<p>Forbes uses Ratemyprofessors.com. It’s hilarious how bad the methodology is.
Let’s talk about the methodology of WSJ:
<a href=“InPathWays - Discover latest hot new trending topic, insights, analysis”>InPathWays - Discover latest hot new trending topic, insights, analysis;

<p>They simply divided the number of people attending “15 select grad programs” for each college by the undergrad class size (ignoring the major choices of the undergrads completely). Obviously, Cornell would lose out in such a methodology - simply because not everyone is doing business and med (we have an architecture school, a hotel school, and many other traditional/niche programs such as nutrition, fashion design, physics, engineering - a very large school proportionally in Cornell by itself - (all left out by the 15 top of the top grad schools- which is barely representative of medicine, business, or law. The sample is too small) nd such that constitute a majority of cornell. Cornell is known for its diversity of programs and the students who enroll in these different programs. Naturally, Cornell would lose out due to its stress of breadth. The methodology, therefore, is flawed as well. As for rankings of individual programs, what I said earlier and colms added is there for you to consider - not that rankings are completely accurate, but Cornell’s programs are definitely among the very top of the top.</p>

<p>I agree with what you said though - educationally, job placement-wise, and grad school placement-wise, Cornell and Williams are definitely comparable. OP should choose the school based on his own preference - whether it’s a LAC or a national university. LACs would have smaller class sizes, tighter knit groups; national universities would have more choice in studies and research opportunities.</p>

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<p>This thread has made me more confused x_X…I was leaning towards Cornell, then JHU, then Williams…but posts seem to disregard JHU as an option…Cornell 2016?</p>

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<p>The following is a re-post of monydad-- who was an excellent, and well informed, CC (emeritus) contributor. His thread included the third party of Emory, in addition to Williams and Cornell. It relates to Ephman’s problematic claims in this current thread:</p>

<p>

</p>

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<p>Your choice. Just letting you know now that it’s going to be tough.</p>

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<p>I really want a challenge ~ my school is quite the antithesis of Cornell (small, catholic, very conservative, not many opportunities, and uncompetitive…kind of claustrophobic here)</p>

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<p>Well let’s just say that the change will be very big.</p>

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<p>Ephman, with Williams being my 2nd choice, I researched into it extensively. I can say with 100% confidence they obviously do not have an engineering program, and he was looking for bioengineering (note bioengineering is a type of engineering). Further, the job placement is INDEED behind cornell, which ranks top 5 on wall street. Williams grad school placement is indeed superior, but it is a smaller school and has less interdisciplinary and research opportunities, something which ZaZa94 clearly shows an interest in (Bioengineering and applied economics/management, both of which are NOT at Williams). If you read my post you would see that I didn’t talk about grad school placement, because it is comparable or better at Williams, but on Wall Street (which I’m sure ZaZa94 is interested in with his double major in AEM) Cornell >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Williams. Now tell me what’s demonstrably false and maybe we could sort it out, but you really haven’t proven any points. Your only arguments were straw men, I never tried to compete about grad/med schools with Williams, I just explained my rationale for Cornell: it has better job placement (specifically on Wall Street) and it has the majors he is looking for. There are empirical stats backing what I’ve just said up, and what you’ve said has some shoddy methodology from Forbes AND didn’t address my statement.</p>

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<p>LolCowz does make an extremely valid argument…Ahh! So TORN!</p>

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<p>^ ZaZa, you are torn because each of your options is, though different, good. Each one has its unique strengths. You need to decide which school fits your academic plans, personality, and expectations. Visiting the respective campuses could really help (if you haven’t done this yet).</p>

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<p>LolCowz, you (and for that matter, no one else posting on this thread) still haven’t cited a single source for any of your claims about Cornell vs. Williams. The only thing you have said which is actually CORRECT, as I myself stated, is that Williams has no engineering program, so obviously, if you want to be an engineer, that would be a big issue. That has ZERO to do with job placement on Wall Street of course, where Williams certainly does NOT lag behind Cornell. Williams has a tremendous undergrad Econ and Math department, which tend to be Wall Street feeders, and I can state from experience that many of my friends has no trouble landing plum Wall Street jobs. </p>

<p>Williams alums, despite the small size of the alumni body, are very prominent throughout the upper echelons of top-tier consulting and banking firms. Williams is as highly regarded as any school by Wall Street. You simply saying Cornell is better does not make it so. There is simply no way In terms of securing a career in Wall Street, based on many people I know who have actually worked in that arena, I’d say other than HPYS, Wharton, and MIT, Williams is the best choice you can make. There is simply no chance that Cornell ranks above that group, so I don’t see how you place it in your top five. Google the likes of Chase Coleman, Herbert Allen, Herbert Lehman, James Lee, Andreas Halvorsen, John D’Agostino, Michael Eisenson, James McCoy, Mayo Shattuck, Bo Peabody, Steve Case, and you will get a sense of just how, frankly, overrepresented Williams alums are among the elite leaders on Wall Street, and business in general. And Williams alums are known for being very, very loyal. So, other than just claiming it, what EVIDENCE do you have that Cornell is even equal to Williams in placement on Wall Street, let alone superior, let alone FAR superior as you claim below? </p>

<p>Your point on research is at best arguable, and I’d say incorrect, check some of the links I’ve posted. At Cornell, you will be competiting with grad students for research opportunities. You will also be competing for access to professors. Williams, all of them go to undergrads. That is simply a HUGE advantage for Williams. Williams has a MUCH higher endowment per student, so it can devote a lot more resources, on a per-person basis, to undergrads. </p>

<p><a href=“Pixeum:The Digital Gallery”>Pixeum:The Digital Gallery;

<p>You have first dibs on all the best equipment at Williams, which is very, very good, even if not, of course, at Cornell’s level. Ten percent of the Williams undergrads, or something like that, spend a summer doing paid research on campus. I could go on and on but don’t want to belabor the point. Cornell is a huge university that has more high-profile research happening on campus, but that in no way, shape, or form means that you have a better chance of doing high level research with a top professor in their field at Cornell vs. Williams. And that is borne out by the tremendous success Williams grads have in terms of placement at top-tier Phd programs. They aren’t gaining acceptance to those programs because they are doing crappy work as undergrads. </p>

<p>Listen, I’m not trying to diss Cornell. It’s obviously a greaet school (in fact my cousin went there, and had great research experiences, and now works as a scientist). I am just trying to debunk the false idea that Cornell will give you an advantage over Williams in terms of EITHER job or grad school placement, save for a field that Williams simply does not offer (like Agricultural studies or Engineering). It’s just not true, and you’ve given no support whatsoever for all the exaggerated claims you are making. All that being said, it comes down to, go to whichever school you will be happiest at. But if you prefer the Williams environment, and instead choose Cornell out of concerns about future job or grad school prospects, or fears about ability to conduct science research on campus, that would be a huge mistake. But by all means, if Cornell is more your cup of tea, you should go there.</p>