<p>pinegood, here is a link that provides the latest numbers (slide #5) from 2011-13</p>
<p><a href=“Career Services | Student & Campus Life | Cornell University”>Career Services | Student & Campus Life | Cornell University;
<p>I am not sure who you talked to at Cornell but it is hard to believe that Cornell doesn’t have staff to put these numbers together. :)</p>
<p>IMHO, there is no point comparing the fundamental strengths like academic program, research opportunities, pre-med advising etc (it is a given for these top institutions) so that wasn’t our criteria for selecting Cornell over Wash U. The main factors that tilted my kid towards Cornell was:</p>
<ul>
<li>DIVERSITY - Cornell is a very diverse environment from racial, socio-economic, professional interest perspective. It is very hard to replicate this diversity brought about by Cornell’s motto of “any person any study” on such a large scale. </li>
<li>Campus vibe - Cornell is big and that energy of a large class on a sprawling campus is infectious (even during the terrible winters). You need to just experience this to believe this. </li>
<li>Opportunity for personal growth - Socially you learn a lot given Cornell’s size and diversity. The number of social opportunities (30% students are involved in greek life), clubs (ranging from academic to performing arts to athletic), service/leadership opportunities within Ithaca are overwhelming at the least. You also need to seek help (which is very readily available from all types of advisors but you won’t be served things on a silver platter like typical small private colleges can) by taking initiative and owning/running your mission. This is part of growing up beyond high school and Cornell forces you to do that. </li>
</ul>
<p>If I may suggest, please make your selection for the right reasons. Where will you be happy? I know that is difficult in these very result-oriented (vs process oriented) times and especially when you spend $250K for your undergrad education. </p>
<p>In the end, I can’t claim to have read every word of all the posts here but fact is that Cornell will NOT offer the same amount of clinical opportunities as Wash U (given the proximity to its medical college) during school year. But Cornell offers:
- Extern program and mentorship programs during school year (Spring break, winter breaks) and you can always get clinical experience during Summer months
- Urban semester for summer as well as Fall or Spring semesters - you can shadow, do research internship and a service project in NYC for an entire semester
- Access to any type of research (great choices for hard core science or even interdisciplinary research, you can also work with professors in vet school which is on-campus)
- Access to a lot of pre-professional groups/clubs (GlobeMed, Medical Brigades, pre-med frats etc.)
- Excellent humanities courses in addition to strong pre-med courses
- Global Health minor (field experience in Africa/India)
- Health policy minor</p>
<p>And even if you consider just the numbers, you do NOT know the impact of including DO numbers to Cornell’s acceptance rate. Seems like the requirements for DO are not as stringent as MD programs.</p>
<p>Good luck with your decision as you can’t go wrong with either place!</p>