<p>I think Cornell’s about as good a premed school as any other Top 20 university, no more, no less.</p>
<p>Cayuga Medical Center is a short bus ride away and the volunteer director, Cal Wood, is really cool and fairly accomodating (if, for instance, you want to be put in a specific department).</p>
<p>I do think Cornell offers perhaps two advantages over some other schools, although these advantages are minute:</p>
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<li><p>It has two formal programs (a Mentorship and an Externship) to pair Cornell premeds with doctors to shadow. It can be a little awkward/daunting to find physicians to shadow so it’s nice that Cornell does it for you. The Externship one pairs you with a Cornell alum and most of them are really cool. Mine drove out of his way to pick me up on his way to work, took me out to lunch every day that I shadowed, and even offered me a few of his Cornell hockey tickets. Plus, he got me in to see an emergency C-section on one of the days. It wasn’t his call since he, as the pediatrician, wasn’t performing the surgery but he talked to the OB/GYN and the family for me and got me in.</p></li>
<li><p>Cornell has a premed committee (which many other schools do as well) which writes you a letter and allows you to bypass med schools’ specific LOR requirements. Usually this isn’t a big deal but it can be if you’re like me and have trouble getting good LOR’s.</p></li>
</ol>