I was lucky enough to get accepted to The Dean’s Scholars Honors Program at UT Austin, to Cornell University, and to Stanford University. I’m planning on studying physics with a minor in French. Unfortunately, I’m not from Texas, so UT gave me no money, so Texas would cost ~$50,000 a year. So even though their honors program is phenomenal (especially for physics) they’re pretty much off the table. That leaves Cornell and Stanford. Cornell hasn’t released their financial aid decision, but I doubt they’ll be more generous than Stanford. Obviously, I’m leaning very heavily towards Stanford, but does anyone know of anything that would put Cornell or even UT above Stanford that I don’t know about? Thank you all in advance.
Of those choices I think Stanford is way above in terms of rankings for physics. If you got a full ride to one of the others that might make more thought go into cost analysis. I think it is very hard to rationalize oos tuition for any pubic university except maybe CS @UT or UC Berkeley.
Cornell, like Stanford, is good at virtually everything. Stanford holds the lead in prestige, but both have plenty of quality and prestige, so cost and fit are what you should base your decision on.
To that end:
- Would you prefer a suburban Bay Area location or the woods and lakes of upstate new york?
- Would you prefer four seasons or the california monoseason?
- Do you prefer the more classic gothic look of Cornell’s campus or the Spanish Revival look of Stanford?
- Are you a big sports fan – would you prefer the big time D1 sports scene of Stanford, or the smaller, but still competitive, Ivy sports scene at Cornell?
These are some practical queries that should help you decide.
Both have plenty of quality and prestige to get you a great education and good job or grad/PhD prospects.
Having just been to Cornell for a football game, its beautiful but so dang hard to get to. No easy place to fly into and a long drive. Just something to consider. Having had a kid at Columbia, ease of travel might be worth considering. Also, depending on what you plan to do with your physics major ie grad school, your access to interesting research might be worth considering.
Not looked at it lately, but Cornell is very big on physics. I interviewed there twice. Beautiful area. World renown with the likes of Carl Sagan, etc. I suggest you look at what area in physics is most appealing and use that to help you decide. You have a good “problem” to decide!