I am blessed to have been accepted to both Cornell and Northwestern for the class of 2022. I have been having a hard time deciding on which school to attend in the fall. I would like to study Biomedical Engineering but I may change my mind to another field of engineering later on. I am also interested in taking classes in business. I live in Chicago, Illinois and have lived in the city my whole life. Please help me I have to commit to a school before May 1st.
There’s a lot of great threads on NW and Cornell as options.
NU has a slightly stronger BME department, but Cornell is slightly stronger in Engineering is general. Cornell and Northwestern both offer ample business programs for undergrads, Cornell through Dyson and Northwestern through the Kellogg Certificate programs. Dyson offers a double major option, or a Minor specifically for Engineers. Kellogg offers one-year certificate programs in Financial Economics (great for Investment Banking) and Managerial Analytics (great for consulting).
You really cannot go wrong. We are talking two of the greatest universities in the nation. Is one of those two options more affordable? If there is no financial element to consider, go with your gut.
The financial aid at both schools are almost the same its just Cornell’s offer was slighty better.
Cornell is not more prestigious than Northwestern, and that’s coming from a Cornell alumnus. To any educated person, those two universities are equally prestigious.
For BME, I would go with Northwestern. Their department is better than Cornell’s, and then you have many huge biotech firms in and around Chicago, including Baxter (Chicago area), Stryker (Kalamazoo, Michigan) and Medtronic (Minneapolis).
But why focus so narrowly on BME? Why not major in Electrical or Mechanical, and specialize in graduate school? In such a case, I would recommend Cornell for EE and both roughly the same for ME.
Agree, Cornell is not more prestigious - they are equivalent in prestige/reputation. (Northwestern’s USNWR ranking is one notch higher, if you care about that sort of thing.) I think your parents are just experiencing “familiarity breeds contempt” syndrome. Families who live near Cornell probably think Northwestern is more prestigious.
Going far from home for college can be broadening, but if you want to end up working in your home region after graduation, a far-flung school can make that much harder. (My own kid is currently working in another region, when she would rather have returned home after graduation, for exactly this reason.) If you go to Northwestern, you’ll likely get internships in the area that will in turn lead to employment prospects. If you’re certain you want to go to grad school or settle in another part of the country after graduation, then this isn’t such an issue.
Also, many students underestimate how much of a change of scene it will be to attend even a nearby university. It’s one thing if you go to the same college with a whole mob of your classmates; that can make it harder to reinvent yourself in college. But Northwestern would bring the world to you; even though you’d be near home, you’d make friends from all over the country and the world. How connected you’d remain to home during that experience would be totally up to you.
As I understand it, the teaching in lower-division STEM classes at Cornell can be pretty impersonal and hands-off. I don’t know how Northwestern compares, but that would be a good factor to look at.
If you were IN LOVE with Cornell after your visit, I would absolutely say GO FOR IT! Or if you sounded stir-crazy and yearning for a change of scene, I’d say to go with that too. But you seem like you’re mostly trying to talk yourself into Cornell because you feel like you should. There’s no reason you should unless you truly prefer it. The travel will be grueling and, in winter, prone to weather delays on both ends. The associated expenses could well cancel out the small difference in cost. If you had absolutely no preference, I would say to err on the side of convenience. There are times when being near home is incredibly handy. You can always get your change of scene by studying abroad. (Northwestern’s overall rate of studying abroad is higher than Cornell’s, and it appears that they make an effort to make this possible for engineers. who often have the most difficulty fitting study abroad into their academic programs https://www.northwestern.edu/studyabroad/prospective-students/choosing-a-study-abroad-program/subjects-and-disciplines/engineering.html ) As I said, if you truly prefer Cornell, go there! But if you’ve visited and liked it, but not more than Northwestern, don’t in any way feel that Northwestern is an inferior or less daring choice.
@opportunity456 - NU has Engineering First Program: http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/students/undergraduate/first-year/engineering-first-coursework.html
I am also from Chicago area, and have 2 kids that are McCormick grads. I was able to go and watch them present at the Engineering First Program end of session presentation, and it was a great experience! All first year engineers are assigned to a group and given a real-life problem to work on to help a local disabled person or organization.
It’s fun, collaborative and I was extremely impressed by the solutions. Both kids made friends from across the country and loved their time at NU.
Good luck with your decision!
Hi. Tomorrow is the deadline and I still can’t seem to decide between these two awesome schools! I planning to major in biomedical engineering and maybe take a minor in something business related. I live in Chicago, Illinois so going to Northwestern will be extremely convenient and I love the campus. But I have also thought that maybe a change in atmosphere would be nice. When I visited Cornell through their admitted students program I loved the people I met and the time I spent there. My parents also think think that Cornell is somewhat more prestigious as it has that Ivy League name attached. My dad said that it would be a shame to let an opportunity like that go. Although going to Ithaca will take a plane or an 11 hour car ride. All these things are making the decision so hard! PLEASE HELP!!!
My D2 started college very close to us.
It was great. We parents loved it. She could still come home whenever, and occasionally see her high school friends (the ones that were still around). She introduced her high school friends to her college friends, and they all became friends. For the holidays she brought a whole group of her college friends over and we fed them.
Still, like OP mentioned, a lot of people want to have new experiences and go someplace different for college.
Most of the features/pros/cons people have mentioned above are true, but really aren’t that important in the big scheme of things. IMO. There’s no right or wrong here. I think it really depends on what you want to do.
If you want to go away and have a different living experience, go to Cornell. Otherwise, go to Northwestern.
IMO.
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(BTW it would be nice if you let people know what you decide).
I will copy what I wrote in another thread. Both are great schools but I think Northwestern has the slight edge due to its ‘more talented’ student body on average.
@prezbucky - I agree with prezbucky’s grouping. Based on attending Stanford for my MBA and living / working in NYC at a prestigious investment bank / mega private equity fund: my ranking would be.
Tier 1A: Duke / Northwestern / Brown / Hopkins / Dartmouth / Cornell CAS and Engineering
Tier 1B: Cornell (rest of Cornell) - I put this here because its selectivity is significantly less than the others. Ask anyone in a high-prestige job in NYC on Wall Street or ask students at top private prep schools (Dalton, Horace Mann, Trinity, Andover, Exeter, etc, ), they will put Cornell a step below the others. As of just a year ago, the average SAT at Cornell was almost a 90-100 points lower than Duke and Northwestern. That’s significant. Cornell is really a hybrid of a private ivy league and a top tier public university like Michigan, given its state subsidized schools. Part of prestige relates to exclusivity and selectivity and Cornell is the least selective of the schools in Tier 1A and 1B.
Being very familiar with both schools, I would say that you generally have 2 types of students admitted / enrolled at Cornell. Student A is choosing between Cornell, Michigan, Emory, CMU - many of these students were denied or did not have a chance at JHU, Duke, NU, etc. Many of these students are enrolled in the NYS state colleges at Cornell, which provides easier admissions to NYS residents because of the state funding. And Student B is choosing between JHU, NU, Wash U, Duke, etc. You will see less of this distinction at the other schools listed in Tier 1A, where more cross admits will be choosing between the Tier 1A schools.
Tier 2: Georgetown / Vanderbilt / Rice / Wash U / CMU
I would choose Northwestern. And to support the prestige argument in Northwestern’s favor – one of the most prestige driven industries out there (Management Consulting) has Northwestern as a Tier 1 target and Cornell as a Tier 2 semi-target. Check the recruiting pages for McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting and see where they do active recruiting / on-campus recruiting, presentations, and national placement. Good luck.
Mom of current HS Jr. interested in Engineering colleges here. This thread popped up during a general search as we’re creating/editing his college list.
I just checked ABET Accreditation for Biomedical Engineering for both, and it seems NU IS accredited and Cornell is not. http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx
Of course, if you do change your engineering concentration, which is probably likely, that may not matter. But, since you did specify it for now, we’re being advised that ABET definitely matters.
My D, who is a freshman at another college, was a Theater “Cherub” at NU during the summer and she absolutely loved Evanston. (She applied ED to NU and was rejected and pretty heart-broken for awhile, but is thrilled where she landed.) It’s easy enough to avoid Chicago, and yet it’s right there whenever you want all it offers!
I grew up in WAY upstate New York. It was, and still is, pretty economically depressed. I’ve lived in NJ, very near to NYC for 30 years. For someone who grew up in a major city, upstate NY might be boring for you. An upside to that could be that you’ll be much less distracted from your engineering workload. 
For whatever it might be worth, I encourage you to proudlly attend Northwestern. I’d be thrilled if my son were accepted there, especially if he hadn’t applied ED - the admit rate for regular admission is just nuts!
You have an enviable choice to make - congratulations to you!
That’s a really good point, @LuvsLabs . If OP is set on biomed, choosing the ABET accredited program should be the default, unless there’s some compelling reason to go the other way.
Unless something has changed, what I understood is that most actual employers in that field want masters degrees. With an EE or ME undergrad so they have more expertise in those disciplines.,
relating to some posts above:
- It’s true places like Binghamton have hit hard times. But Ithaca is fine. Its economy is more stable due to the two major higher ed institutions. It is beautiful there. Look up my old “Some Pictures” thread on the CC Cornell sub-forum.
-Lots of people come there from big cities and love it there. It’s a big school, there’s a lot to do in and around campus. And Ithaca is a college town.
-Cornell’s reputation in engineering is not less strong. I would say it’s stronger actually.
When engineering employers are deciding where to interview they are not saying “forget Cornell because the Hotel or Ag school students have lower SATs on average”. They are not interviewing the hotel school students. (Who by the way have other excellences, but that’s another matter). They care about the engineering school students. Who are very strong.
If you want to go away there’s no reason not to pick Cornell IMO.
But there’s no reason to go away specifically for Cornell if you otherwise wouldn’t want to.
Congrats on having the amazing options! I’ve visited both schools, and I can vouch that Ithaca and the surrounding area is absolutely, stunningly gorgeous. Excluding reputation (I hardly know anything about engineering), if having a major city close by is a must, then Northwestern is obvious. But if you love the outdoors/like the vibe of a college town “bubble” atmosphere, Cornell all the way! And even though Cornell isn’t near a major city, I feel like it has an especially strong connection to New York City that Northwestern might lack in comparison (and vice versa for Chicago obviously). Best of luck.
No wrong choice; you have two great options !
@opportunity456 , what did you decide?