I am not disagreeing that Cornell has a top program and probably doea place more grads in tech. The question is whether or not it is worth a substantial cost difference and debt. It may or may not be. UVa’ s Commerce School is also a top program. UVa’ s engineering school is not as prominent as Cornell’s but if is still well regarded. Systems and Information Engineering is a very good program there and may have been a decent fit for the OP. But the OP clearly wants to go to Cornell so I hope it will work out with as little debt as possible. The only anecdotal exprience I have with Cornell’s ORIE involves my other son, who was in Industrial and Systems Engineering at VT. He interned on the same project with a Cornell ORIE student. I know it’s a great program .