<p>Penn-CAS vs. Cornell-CAS vs. Northwestern-CAS – which one will be the easiest to survive four years as premed?</p>
<p>Any pros and cons for each of the above schools – your comments will be appreciated. Especially by those in the premed program in the upper class of college or anyone with knowledge. Thanks.</p>
<p>not cornell!
my tour guide at cornell was an aspiring pre med who dropped out. scared the cr*p out of me. i hear horror stories of people jumping off of the beautiful gorges and whatnot…yikes!</p>
<p>penn or northwestern. you have hospitals nearby + great research opportunities.</p>
<p>penn has the best research opportunities available (especially by funding) and the best proximity to hospitals / medical centers</p>
<p>at northwestern you have to go from evanston to the med school in downtown chicago
and at cornell you’d have to go from ithaca to the med school in nyc, which is pretty much not doable; even the closest hospital to cornell is like 20 miles away</p>
<p>Crystal – thanks. We will visit Cornell this Friday and make sure to attend the pre-med presentation. A relative of ours finished Cornell premed with 3.75 or so GPA and is currently in the med school. </p>
<p>tenebrous – Yes the proximity of hospital and research opportunity was a concern for us. Although most premeds may want such opportunity, how many of them will actually end up doing it? We saw students from Penn, NU, and Cornell spending summers at their home, going to local hospitals for volunteer or shadowing or going to library to prep for MCAT. The nearby presence of hospital is important to consider. BTW, all three schools have similar grade inflation, which is important too! One problem we had with NU was both local students who went there for premed dropped out of the program.</p>
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<p>The case of a man jumping off a gorge was years ago and I don’t even think he was a student at the time. I’ve visited Cornell and students there are truly, truly happy. You should visit these schools if you can and see what they have to offer. </p>
<p>Also, I think any classes/programs are doable if you work hard enough and study, as well as MANAGE YOUR TIME. </p>
<p>It’s not that bad, trust me.</p>
<p>(:</p>
<p>many many students here do research or volunteering at the hospital / med school during the school year</p>
<p>in fact certain courses center around that clinical / research experience</p>
<p>“It’s not that bad, trust me”</p>
<p>Really LightBright? How would you know from just visiting? If you were a student there, I’d be more willing to trust you, but you’re not.
I visited too, and my tour guide gave me the impression that Cornell was an uber-competitive school. She told me her intro chem class had 700 studenst, and she’s no longer pre-med.</p>
<p>And also, I wouldn’t throw around the word “■■■■■■” lightly like that. just saying…</p>
<p>uh, lightbright, the person who jumped off the bridge who wasn’t a student was only a few months ago…</p>
<p>and please make your judgments about the difficulty of college courses once you get there - i hope you do find it appropriately challenging, but some courses can be just downright evil</p>
<p>tenebro --grade inflation among those three schools are quite similar (for 2004 when the data is available for all three, gpa for entire univ. was 3.32 for cornell, 3.36 for nu, and 3.44 for penn). Some courses are brutal regardless of the school you are in – such as organic chemistry which weeds out so many premeds at wustl and nu and probably other places also. when the premed is downright cutthroat competion at nearly all universities, the academic culture of the general university may matter less – if anything, environment such as in cornell may in fact be better for premeds because the entire university is like that and you are less affected by the easy-going nature in the rest of the school. just a speculation.</p>
<p>okay, agreed - but i’m not sure what point you’re trying to make?</p>
<p>my point was that since lightbright has not yet gotten to cornell, (she?) has not yet had the personal experience to make a judgment on the difficulty of courses</p>
<p>and i agree in principle with the statement that discipline leads to good grades, but just pointing out that there are sometimes exceptions to that rule</p>
<p>my point was generic in nature that the premeds are cut throat at nearly all schools; that some required premed courses (such as organic chemistry) are brutal independent of schools you attend; and that finally the atmosphere of cornell can actually be a plus for premeds. So, for premed students, you can not really argue against cornell in favor of other schools because of their competitive academic culture.</p>
<p>CrystalPineapple, if you did your research you’d know that someone jumps off one of the gorges maybe once every 20 years, and compared to most colleges (where suicidal students shoot or hang themselves - isn’t that just as horrible?) Cornell has a very low suicide rate. </p>
<p>You chastise people for making assumptions since they don’t go there…do YOU go to Cornell? No, hypocrite.</p>
<p>Trust ME, my parents both went to Cornell and as a recently accepted student, I’ve done my research, and all research points to CrystalPineapple = idiot. Cornell is a great place to be, some people are just jealous.</p>
<p>i highly doubt your research indicates anything about the actual cognitive abilities of an individual you’ve barely met on the internet.</p>
<p>moreover, resorting to ad hominem attacks does nothing to help your cause. cornell stands on its own merits as a fantastic institution and your bashing does not make cornell look any brighter.</p>
<p>be proud of your school-to-be, but don’t let your typical pre-freshman excitement overpower logical argument.</p>
<p>for example, you could have said that cornell, in 2002, implemented a new policy that has cut the suicide rate by approximately half, and increased counseling services considerably to make sure people get the help they need, even if it’s not related to suicidal ideation.</p>
<p>I think that your choices are great. I say definitely Penn. My Penn inteviewer was pre-med and he loved it. He now diagnoses Alzhemiers’ and says that the campus life there was engaging and exciting. Cornell is good for other stuff. You will not die if you go to either one of them and if you like your major greatly then you will not change it. You seem like a passionate student or else you would not have tried so hard in school so don’t let a little hard work intimidate you, it doesn’t seem that it likely will. I say Penn is a great school. Go for it!</p>
<p>tenebrousfire,</p>
<p>no, my “research” does not indicate the cognitive abilities of an individual, as you so eloquently put it, it was an exaggeration of course! forgive me for doing so, but when i read such a blatant exaggeration…nay, untruth, i can’t help but get fired up. i simply meant that the facts about cornell contradict what crystalpineapple claims to be true. and cornell isn’t necessarily my school-to-be, but people work hard to get into this elite institution, and i think it is inappropriate for someone who doesn’t/didn’t even go there, to unnecessarily attempt to drag its name through the mud. wouldn’t you agree?</p>
<p>by the way, you’d be wise to do some research of your own. the closest hospital to cornell is far closer than 20 miles away…that’d just be crazy. ;)</p>
<p><em>soothes ■■■■■</em>…now please leave</p>
<p>haha shrug i just know my brother had to get a drug test done for an internship and the county hospital was pretty far away</p>
<p>why does cornell have its medical school in NYC instead of ithaca?</p>
<p>Cornell actually has a pretty large presence in NYC through a number of programs, as well as overseas. They’re really pushing to make it the first transnational university. </p>
<p>I think the administration recognizes that being in an isolated city of 100,000 (which, by the way, has a hospital) is an unnecessary hurdle mirroring the unearned benefits Columbia receives from simply being in NYC (thus, why Columbia changed their name to include NYC in the name). I believe Cornell’s really bolstering its presence in NYC primarily to compete for the best admissions and faculty. Especially at the graduate level, fewer people are willing or able to live in a city like Ithaca.</p>
<p>Cornell has a partnership with Columbia in running the hospital, but I’m not sure which came first, Weill or the hospital. </p>
<p>There’s a whole section on the website about the Manhattan campus.</p>
<p>^Yes, but as of right now, undergrads are still going to Ithaca…so nothing you said really matters.</p>