UVA or Cornell

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Virginia
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<p>I’m trying to decide where to apply ED at the moment. My main choices are Cornell, Dartmouth, and UVA. I’m a NY resident and the state college price would be tempting at Cornell as would the price of UVA. I'm not too optimistic about Dartmouth because i don't think I could get in there, even ED. Therefore my main choices have been narrowed down between UVA and Cornell. Both would be about the same price for me. The question is, which has better academics/social scene/prestige. </p>

<p>I wish to be a biology major, with possibly a double major or minor in history. My stats are...</p>

<p>SAT I: 760-Crit, 710-Math, 710-Writing (Any thoughts on whether to take it again in the hopes of raising my math score 30 points and breaking 2200 and 1500?)
SAT II's: World History-770, U.S. History-800, Math IIC-770</p>

<p>GPA: Not sure on the 4.0 scale exactly but probably around a 3.85. My grades are also on an upward trend. I slacked off a bit fresh and sophmore years, being happy with A-'s. Junior year I had about a 3.9. </p>

<p>Classes: AP Euro-5, AP American-probably 5, AP Chemistry-probably 4,
Will be taking AP Bio, AP Econ, AP Literature, AP Calc BC. I have taken honors courses in all of the solids, except for Spanish, (I am in regular Spanish) which I will have taken 5 years of when I graduate, ( I had a bad freshman Spanish experience).</p>

<p>Extracuriculars: Varsity ski racing, 9-12, will be captain as a Senior and have been All county since 10th grade
JV skiing - 8th grade.
Varsity tennis-11th grade.
JV tennis - 8th, 9th
150 hours Comunity Service
Elected Class Secetary for the senior class
NHS
Two internships with a thoracic surgeon and an orthopedic surgeon the summers before my Junior and Senior years… (possible essay topic?)</p>

<p>Oh yeah, almost forgot, do you think I would get into the Echols program at UVA?</p>

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<p>Both schools are similar with regards to academics. Social scene - I do think UVa would be a funner place than cornell, but I've heard no bad experiences about it. One thing that does matter is that cornell will get much more snow than uva...and snow does hinder social scenes...no one wants to go out in the snow at night. Prestige wise, I think most people would think that cornell is more prestigious because it has that Ivy name attached to it, but in all practicality they're pretty much equal. It most probably would come down to the program you attended (i.e. cornell engineering being looked at as better than uva engineering, while say uva commerce seen better than the equivalent cornell program - including the hotel school).</p>

<p>History and biology are strong at UVa from what I know...history especially, which is my major.</p>

<p>Onto the problem. Unless your gpa puts you like in the top 5% i don't see you getting into cornell or uva...let alone echols. Your sats are in the middle 50%. Also, being from new york...which sends a ton of kids to UVa you are at another disadvantage. Hopefully your gpa makes you in the top few people in your class.</p>

<p>Good luck</p>

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<p>I'd go to dartmouth</p>

<p>uva out of state is not as smart decision. In state kids can get in with lower stats like 1350 SAT and pay very cheap tuition. why u wanna do all that and pay high tuition is beyond me</p>

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<p>Likewise, the same could be said for Cornell and Dartmouth.</p>

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<p>there's no instate tuition for those schools and it's not easier if ur instate</p>

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<p>Why are you even talking about instate? It's not relevant here.</p>

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<p>i'd go to uva if i were instate but if u can go to dartmouth #2 ugrad after princeton i'd do that instead as it is worth the price</p>

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<p>Actually UVA out of state is still far cheaper than Dartmouth/Cornell...about $25,000 versus $32,000 or so. Besides, it's not like the in-state kids are retarded and the out-of-state kids are geniuses. Plus, Dartmouth has NOTHING. There is no town anywhere near Dartmouth. All anyone does is drink because there isn't much else to do.</p>

<p>By the way, Echols is not about stats. Those are better than my stats were (out of state) and I got Echols. They even tell us that Echols is all about demonstrating intellectual curiousity and being eager to learn and having raw intelligence, not grades and test scores. The main factor they use to decide it is your essays and your teacher recommendations.</p>

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<p>"i'd go to uva if i were instate but if u can go to dartmouth #2 ugrad after princeton i'd do that instead as it is worth the price"</p>

<p>Like I said, Dartmouth and Cornell are not necessarily worth the price, especially since they actually cost more than OOS UVA from what I remember (you might argue that they are, but you might argue that UVA is worth it as well). If we were talking about harvard, yale, princeton, MIT, Chicago, it would be a different story.</p>

<p>Most people in the end do take Dartmouth over UVA OOS if not only because of the higher ranking, though if they can get into Dartmouth they probaly also could get Echols here, which may lead them to go to UVA instead.</p>

<p>As for the OP, it would be helpful to know your class rank or estimated class rank. 3.85 UW is a good GPA to have, but it's hard to base the rank off of that since many schools use a weighting system and such.</p>

<p>Edit: Echols is mostly about stats. It's primary function is to attract kids who may go to other top schools to UVA instead. Essays are important, but they aren't the primary factor. If they said so, they are probably just making stuff up, because writing well is not an ability restricted to those with 1450+ SATs and rankings in the top several percent in their classes.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the advice... to answer your question I'm fairly certain I'd be in the top 5% of my class if my school ranked or gave out that information. I'd say only about 1 or 2 people in the entire class have a 4.0 UW or close to it and the class is composed of about 250 students. As for me being in NY, it does matter because of the 3 state colleges I could attend at Cornell. At these colleges the tuition would be $18,000 a year, not including room and board. I'm not sure exactly what the price of UVA is but I think it's similar to that, correct me if I'm wrong. Basically what it boils down to is which school better prepares you for the MCATs and med school and which school is more fun, (theres also the fact that I'm not sure if there are many attractive girls at Cornell...).</p>

<p>*Just want to make sure of this... is my GPA really not going to help me in admission to UVA? I thought I was significantly above the mid range for UVA, in fact I thought my SAT's were in the mid range for the students who got into the Echols program.</p>

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<p>If you're in the top 5% of your class you're in good shape to get into UVA. Typically Echols are within the top 2 or 3%, but that's not always the case. I only know one Echols here whose SAT was lower than yours (on the old V/M scale; I'm sure there are more- obviously I don't know every Echols scholar), but these kinds of differences can be considered insignificant. You will probably be at least a candidate for Echols. </p>

<p>The premed classes for Cornell and Dartmouth will probably be smaller (Intro Bio, Intro Chem, etc). UVA's are fairly huge, so there's a strict curve and it's competitive to rise to make the higher grades. That's because tons of people come in wanting to be premeds, and in the end a lot of them find out they dont want to/do not have what it takes to go to medical school. I wouldn't recommend going somewhere because of their premed curriculum, though, since that aspiration is probably the one that changes the most in college. If you're absolutely sure you want to do medicine your best bet is to apply to a guaranteed med program anyway.</p>

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<p>sv3a: I was wondering why you listed Chicago as one of them. Dartmouth wins the cross admit on that one.</p>

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<p>Probably because Chicago is, academically, a notch better than Dartmouth.</p>

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<p>true (10).</p>

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<p>cav did you just pull that statement out of your ass...</p>

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<p>No? Chicago excels immensely in all fields and disciplines, and is definitely one of the forefront schools for academic studies. Dartmouth is a great Ivy League, but Chicago tops it out and basically any other school in the quality of its academic programs except say Harvard, Princeton, MIT and maybe one or two others.</p>

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<p>sv3a, no offense, but you are just making stuff up. i'm happy that according some rankings out there chicago is a superior school to dartmouth. but the fact is, if you think someone coming out of chicago is going to perform better than someone coming out of dartmouth, or that he or she got a better education, you're out of your mind.</p>

<p>the difference in quality between dartmouth and chicago is about the same as the difference between a new bmw in new hampshire and a new bmw in illinois.</p>

<p>I do like how people on this website who have no experience with 99.9% of the schools in this country besides perhaps a tour can make judgments such as "chicago tops [dartmouth] out and basically any other school in the quality of its academic programs"</p>

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<p>jags, I didn't pull that out of my ass. The University of Chicago is one of the nation's finest schools in nearly every area. In nearly every department, it is more highly regarded than Dartmouth. Dartmouth may be more competitive at the undergraduate level (and it certainly has many high quality students) but, as an institution, Chicago has a bit more academic prowess.</p>

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<p><em>sigh</em></p>

<p>i'm well aware that chicago is one of the best schools in the country - but so is dartmouth. its just a shame that people think things are so cut and dry as in that "chicago is a notch ahead" when in reality, the difference is negligable - if any.</p>

<p>i know i have gotten into this debate a while ago. people disregard general rankings of schools such as the usnews rankings because they make a school seem better because it is 1 or 2 spots higher. then people start remarking about departmental strengths...which nearly everyone here gets there idea of what schools have strong departments from that nrc ranking. but why are departmental rankings more important then overall rankings? i think thats bogus. the truth is dartmouth ranks higher than chicago in practically every major ranking of schools - this isn't a mistake. I don't think dartmouth is a "notch ahead" of chicago - i just don't think chicago is "a notch ahead" of dartmouth.</p>

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<p>In terms of pure academic gravitas, I would say that Chicago wins out. Do you know anyone in academia? Family members? Friends? Talk to them. Dartmouth is well regarded as an undergraduate institution and it has a number of fine graduate programs, but many of Chicago's departments are academic leviathans. For an undergraduate, the schools would probably be about even, though.</p>