<p>Hiii! I am an international student really interested in Cell and Development Biology. I've been accepted in both Stanford and Weill Cornell for grad school but can't decide between the two (although I am leaning towards Stanford).</p>
<p>Both have faculty I am interested in working with, the grad students seemed happy, Stanford campus is gorgeous and you can find everything in New York. I can see myself living in both places.</p>
<p>Sooo I wanted to ask all of you if you could give me a few comments on both universities. If it were you, where would you go and why? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Congratulations on the acceptances, especially with your international status!</p>
<p>I would choose Cornell because I don’t like the Spanish architecture. Then again, I don’t like the concrete jungle of New York either… Which is to say, you have to make the decision and I can’t help you much. :P</p>
<p>Congratulations. Given no other information, I would say Stanford, since it is regarded as slightly more prestigious these days and I’ve noticed more ambitious research being done there (this is just my rough impression, I don’t know if it actually is like that).</p>
<p>In practice, it’s a very bad idea to make a decision “given no other information”. At the very least, you should have looked at what all the faculty members do at either school, and have two lists of potential rotation labs/future advisors. After all, you don’t do what you please in grad school, you work with one of the PIs. Then compare the PIs and their research, not the schools themselves.</p>
<p>Don’t forget that Weill Cornell collaborates frequently and extensively with other institutions in the area like NY Presbyterian, Sloan Kettering Memorial, Rockefeller and so on. If there’s research at any of these that you’d like to be involved in, you will probably have a lot of opportunity to do so while at Weill (that’s if you’re not already in the Tri-I program).</p>
<p>I’m guessing the aid package, compensation, etc. you get are not significantly different, if they are, consider this also.</p>
<p>Lastly, Weill is on Upper East Side, in the middle of Manhattan. New York City is a great place, especially if you like cities, but it can be quite expensive to live there, keep this in mind. I don’t know how Stanford compares. Also, consider living in NYC vs. living on/near the Stanford campus- after all, you’ll spend 5 years of your life there, and both places have their own unique features that are love or hate for some people.</p>
<p>Also, apologies if “you should have looked at what all the faculty members do” sounded patronizing - I meant that, you’ve probably already done this, so you might as well take another look at your notes about it. I didn’t mean to suggest that you haven’t.</p>
<p>If there aren’t any glaring differences between the two and you can’t decide, follow your gut. Sometimes we make unconscious observations that make us sway one way or the other. We can’t verbalize them, but we can feel them in our guts. So unless there’s some obvious thing you are ignoring about Stanford, you would probably be happier there.</p>