Cornell vs. University of Pittsburgh

<p>Which is the better choice, Pitt pre-medicine or Cornell biological sciences?? I know Pitt has an outstanding Medical School and Cornell is an Ivy League, but im not sure which is the better pick since Cornell does not have a pre medicine program.</p>

<p>If you get direct admission to Pitt Med, that’s the obvious choice.</p>

<p>If not, you need to wait for financial aid awards. Med school is expensive and you should save money if possible.</p>

<p>The right answer is the one that the student is happiest and most comfortable with, because that is probably where they’ll do better too. Cornell vs Pitt really isn’t going to make one bit of difference on a med school application. The medical shadowing/volunteering and undergrad research opportunities will be easier to take advantage of at Pitt because its medical center and biomedical research facilities, already larger and more varied than Cornell’s, are right on its undergrad campus, whereas Cornell’s medical center is four hours away in Manhattan. If the student can get accepted to Cornell, he/she is likely going to receive significant merit awards from Pitt, making it significantly cheaper to attend.</p>

<p>Cornell does have a pre-medicine program.</p>

<p>[Pre-Health</a> Advising](<a href=“http://as.cornell.edu/academics/advising/Premed/index.cfm]Pre-Health”>http://as.cornell.edu/academics/advising/Premed/index.cfm)</p>

<p>Cornell is a better choice by far for many reasons.</p>

<p>Pitt is a better choice by far for many reasons. Here are a few (sorry about repeating some points made earlier):</p>

<p>If you can get admitted to Cornell, you would likely receive merit aid at Pitt (partial or full tuition or Chancellors Scholarship full ride). Medical school will be expensive. Avoid debt for undergrad.</p>

<p>Pitt is by no means easy but you’re likely to have higher grades at Pitt than at Cornell (making medical school admission easier).</p>

<p>If you are a top student, you might qualify for Pitt’s guaranteed med school admission program (to its highly rated medical school).</p>

<p>Pitt’s medical school and world class medical centers are located on campus. (Cornell’s are in NYC.) There are opportunities for undergraduates to do medical research and gain experience.</p>

<p>You might prefer Pitt’s urban location to Cornell’s isolated location. </p>

<p>Pitt Arts affords you free or discounted tickets to cultural performances in the city of Pittsburgh.</p>

<p>You might like the diversion of Division 1 football and basketball and professional sports in Pittsburgh.</p>

<p>I don’t think there is any way you could say a student would have higher grades at Pitt.</p>

<p>That point was not based on a thought that Pitt is easy; it isn’t and attracts many top students from their respective high schools. However, a top student in high school might find it more challenging to be a top student at Cornell where everyone was a top student in high school. </p>

<p>The point was more related to rumored grade deflation at Cornell:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/992748-premed-cornell.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/992748-premed-cornell.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>What if I do not get guaranteed med at PITT, i got into their pre-med, i wont find out about guaranteed for another 2 or 3 weeks. would ivy league make a difference when I apply to Medical school???</p>

<p>^If you applied to the guaranteed med program at Pitt, you wouldn’t find out if you got in until the spring and it requires interviewing there, etc. Don’t bet on it though, it’s pretty tough to get into such a program.</p>

<p>That’s true, so my question is what’s better Cornell or PITT pre-med???</p>

<p>You’re not listening to what everyone is saying. The answer is the school YOU can afford and where YOU think you can perform the best. They are both very good schools with very good pre-med programs. </p>

<p>You won’t learn about Cornell admittance until the end of March, which is also about the time you will learn about the Pitt Guaranteed Med School program, of which Pitt only gives out about 10 a year. Why the big anxiety at this time? Apply to both and see what happens.</p>

<p>The SAT scores in Cornell Arts and Sciences are about 150 points higher than at Pitt. You’ll be surrounded by much smarter students at Cornell. Professors can teach the pre-med courses at a higher level. You’ll probably score higher on the MCATs. So, I would say Cornell is better for pre-med courses. Their pre-med advising is good.</p>

<p>

<em>citation needed</em></p>

<p>I’m just helping you get that 6000th post… ;)</p>

<p>My 6000th post will simply be a tribute to your great sense of humor, noimagination!</p>

<p>

Most of the time, an Ivy won’t make any difference in applying to med school. Your GPA, MCAT, volunteering, research, etc is what makes the difference. I also completely disagree that there is some major difference in “pre-med courses” between Cornell and Pitt, not that I have direct experience at Cornell, but I do at other Ivies, and Pitt is very good, and better in some cases. 99% of the time, the quality of the class is simply dependent on the individual professor.</p>

<p>If you do subscribe to the notion that Cornel classes will be better preparation because you’ll be surrounded by students with 150 higher SAT scores (the reality is it is closer to 130), then you should know that the honors college at Pitt, which you’d be able to take classes in, actually has a SAT CR+M scores that average over 60 points higher than Cornell, so you’ll actually be surrounded by “smarter students” at Pitt. But honestly, the idea that higher SATs of students translates into better prep for med school is mostly garbage. Pitt isn’t a community college; the classes will cover the same things and be just as in depth. In the case of certain majors like Neuroscience, they would be better at Pitt. Things like environmental sciences/botany, better at Cornell.</p>

<p>Let’s get some misconceptions out of the way. In full disclosure, I am a former Cornell premed and now a 3rd year medical student at a top 20 medical school. I interviewed at 12 other medical schools as well.</p>

<ol>
<li>Cornell is not grade deflated. </li>
</ol>

<p>[Median</a> Grades on the Rise | The Cornell Daily Sun](<a href=“http://cornellsun.com/node/23297]Median”>http://cornellsun.com/node/23297)
[Cornell</a> University](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/cornell.html]Cornell”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/cornell.html)
[Cornell</a> University Registrar: Median Grades](<a href=“http://registrar.sas.cornell.edu/Student/mediangradesA.html]Cornell”>http://registrar.sas.cornell.edu/Student/mediangradesA.html)</p>

<p>Median grades from every class at Cornell for the last 13 years, all published online. I’m not sure what more proof people need.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Who cares if Pittsburgh has a prestigious hospital center? A great hospital means something if you are a resident. If you are premed or even if you are a med student, it’s largely irrelevant. As a premed, you will use the hospital to gain clinical experience and shadow doctors. That’s pretty much it. Stapling papers and pushing around patients is the same whether you do it at a community hospital or at Johns Hopkins. Hospitals become prestigious because of many factors that are totally unrelated to premed. Most premeds do not do clinical research at the hospital because they have zero clinical knowledge and not enough statistical aptitude to do clinical research. They do basic science research because that’s what they learn in college. You don’t need a hospital to do basic science research and there is certainly no dearth of basic science research at Cornell.</p></li>
<li><p>Does undergrad name matter? Yes. The more prestigious the med school, the more it matters. People who go around touting “undergrad doesn’t matter. only grades matter” usually have never actually applied to med school. The truth is that 50-80% of interviewees at prestigious medical schools attend a US News Top 20 University or Top 5 liberal arts college. I interviewed at around seven top 20 medical schools a few years ago and after looking at interview roster after interview roster filled with kids from Harvard, Hopkins, Cornell, Penn, etc. and literally only 1-3 kids per interview day from the rest of the country combined, I can only conclude that, yes, those old gray-haired docs who graduated from Cornell, Harvard, etc. themselves and now sit on the admissions committee do care something about prestige. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>You can argue that top 20 med schools should be overrepresented because they produce more top applicants. Of course. But, are 75% of the top applicants concentrated in only 20 colleges? I personally don’t believe so. </p>

<p>If you are an absolute academic and social superstar, you can make it into Harvard Med or Columbia P&S from any college. But, if you are two notches below that, you better be from a prestigious college. </p>

<p>Now, obviously there are other concerns as well such as proximity to family, fit, and finances. You must attend a premed school that you like. Never sacrifice fit for prestige. But, all things being equal or sort of equal, attend the more prestigious college.</p>

<p>I do agree with the notion that a top college won’t help your MCAT scores. The MCAT is more an IQ test than a test of knowledge. The information tested is very shallow. A good high school biology or physics course will provide you with enough knowledge to conquer the MCAT. The MCAT is difficult because of the nature of its problems (all very wordy and requires a lot of critical thinking) and the caliber of test taker you are curved against.</p>

<p>The advantage of top colleges isn’t in the boost in MCAT scores, it’s in the smaller classes, the more plentiful research opportunities, the challenge of being and competing among the best students, and the (usually) great advising. Cornell’s health careers advising is especially good with advice that is spot on and specific. When I asked Judy, the advisor, if a lot of students take time off b/w college and med school, she didn’t reply with a generality. She attends yearly conferences with premed advisors from other Ivy League schools and after attending these conferences, she knows 40-60% of applicants from Ivy League schools have taken at least a year off. I love the fact she can give me a specific percentage instead of saying “some” students take time off. If you’ve looked at the sheer volume of data available on Cornell’s website, you will see that it is a school that is very transparent with its statistics (you can find everything from median grades to how Cornell applicants with specific GPA/MCAT did in the med school application process).</p>

<p>Each year, she will also go over the AMCAS page by page so that we know exactly how to fill it out. She holds seminars on every possible topic from preparing your personal statement to what to do if you’re waitlisted. Don’t discount advice that is accurate, specific, and transparent. As I’ve already seen, there is a lot of misconception about premed on the internet.</p>

<p>As someone that has taught at Ivy and non-Ivy schools, and has some familiarity with admission committees for med and graduate schools at each, it is my experience that no, on average it will not make any difference the name on your undergrad diploma (within certain thresholds, and Pitt and Cornell are certainly within that threshold). Admission committees are made up of individual professors which bring their own personal biases. I’ve seen individuals be biased for and against Ivies, depending on their familiarity with certain schools or which are in their personal background. Those biases often cancel each other out. Typically, it doesn’t even come into play unless you are talking about borderline cases, and most all other things are equal at that point. So no, for the vast majority of most cases, having a degree from Cornell when applying to med schools won’t be any advantage over having a degree from Pitt. Maybe if someone was applying for a job or business position it would. What will make a difference when looking at similar GPAs and MCATs is the other things: volunteerism, demonstrated interest and aptitude in medicine, research, leadership, etc. And as far as research, there is no doubt that the variety and number of opportunities at Pitt are greater, not that Cornell is bad. However, there are just many more labs and funding, as Pitt has the fifth most NIH sponsored research in the nation, all located on its undergrad campus. Most medical school departments do a tremendous amount of basic research, and these are all available to undergrads, if the investigator is willing and able, and from my own experience years ago, I was able to conduct research, eventually published, in a clinical division for medical school professors and make contacts with department chairs as well as the head of the MD/PhD program there. So yes, there is a distinct advantage to having the med school/medical center on campus for greater research/shadowing/volunteering/and networking opportunities. Penn would be another great place with a similar layout.</p>

<p>i’m going to agree with norcalguy and say YES, it does matter, based on what my family friends (who are on various med school admissions committees) have told me.</p>

<p>i also think it’s important to go where you will be happy, as others have said. similarly, see what you and your family can afford, but also keep in mind that cornell gives great aid for students who qualify.</p>