Cornell vs UVA (Debt vs No Debt)

monydad
Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:32:09 +0000

"Also remember that part of Cornell is a state school as well "
Actually no, though sort of, it’s complicated. But not like UVa is a state school.
(or I should say I wouldn’t think so. I actually don;t know how UVa is structured)
It has “statutory colleges” that get state funding
. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_college
But OP does not plan to attend any of the statutory colleges in any event

".and that viewed from an academic perspective, these two would be considered peer institutions. "

In many areas, no doubt. I haven’t seen many CS type lists where these two are listed as academic peers in that particular field though. If I asked somene in the field of Computer Science, or Operations Research, to name Cornell’s five closest peer schools in those particular areas I don’t think UVa’s name would come up . At least I don’t recall ever seeing it on such a list. It is a great school though, one of the nations; elite public universities.In general. Maybe not in particular though.

“Cornell’s students aren’t appreciably better than UVa, if at all”
Don’t know about Arts & Sciences, didn’t look, but they certainly seem to be better on the tech side, where OR and CS - areas that OP indicated interest- reside:
http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/6527/screen/19school_name=University+of+Virginia
http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/6574/screen/19school_name=Cornell+University

“We have friends in New York. Their son’s first choice for college was UVa but he wasn’t accepted there. He ended up having to settle for Cornell.”

This is actually not that uncommon. One of my daughter’s HS teachers had the same experience. However,her alternative at Cornell was not the Art & Sciences college, it was one of the statutory colleges. When tales like this are pursued one finds this is often the case. UVA, and I think UNC are selective schools generally, but they are or at least were, particularly selective for out-of-state applicants.
My daughter;s HS teacher was probably not pursuing studies in CS or Operations research,