Stay at UC Davis or transfer to Cornell?

rhumbob · December 7, 2011, 8:36pm

blah blah blah. Everyone is projecting their own desires / prejudices. UC Davis is a great school that carries weight in CA and the western states. Cornell is a fantastic place (but the weather seems gruesome). Can’t go wrong at either place, but:

<ol>
<li>Why did you chose UC Davis in the first place?</li>
<li>What has prompted you to reconsider?</li>
<li>If “not UC Davis” then “why Cornell over every other school in the country?”</li>
</ol>

happymomof1 · December 7, 2011, 9:35pm

rhumbob -

I’m guessing that the OP wasn’t admitted directly as a freshman but was offered an automatic transfer after a successful first year at another institution. UC Davis probably was the best remaining option of the acceptances last April.

RML · December 8, 2011, 1:26am

You did not prove what I needed you to prove!

I said prove it that a 3.9 from UC Davis is viewed inferior to a 3.9 from Cornell, and that, with the exception of banking and finance industries, those 3.9 grads from UC Davis do not have access to where those 3.9 grads from Cornell have.

RML · December 8, 2011, 1:32am

I would argue that the vast majority of the top graduates do not seek to get employed right away. The vast majority of the most talented graduates enter grad school, law school and med school. The OP says she’s doing very well in her academics, she’s happy where she is now, she’s paying substantially less, and so I am assuming she’s going to reap more great grades in her final years at UC Davis, that would in turn allow her to get admitted to the best grad schools anywhere she wants. In short, for her case, it’s somewhat stupid to transfer schools (not HYPSMC or Wharton.)

Nefari · December 8, 2011, 1:37am

RML. While I don’t have an opinion one way or the other, what you are asking to be proved is a very subjective thing. How do you measure “opportunity?” Do you have numbers to back up your assertion that there is no difference? And an anecdotal story about how you know someone from Davis who was accepted to elite grad schools does not qualify as evidence.

RML · December 8, 2011, 1:38am

For you because you worship USNews ranking. But in reality, Berkeley is just as good as any school bar HYSPM+CW. I would even go far and say that the Berkeley brand name is superior to Cornell brand name. That said, I too, like you, think that Cornell is an elite school. Not HYPSM elite, because those are cut above the rest, but good enough to be labelled elite.

kadiefudge · December 8, 2011, 2:39am

thats exactly my position

RML · December 8, 2011, 3:16am

Nefari,

Why not? Take note that I was talking about a certain group of students – the best and the brightest of UC Davis, which we all know, don’t count a lot. By opportunity, I’m referring to access to a well-paying job and grad school application. A top UC Davis graduate would have access to those.

The OP said she’s getting great marks at UC Davis, which I believe, because I don’t think Cornell would even accept her in the first place had her grades were not impressive. The OP is not just a UC Davis student, but a top UC Davis student. And, from what I know, a top UC Davis student has access to where the best schools grads have, bar Wall Street. So, the premise that the OP would have limited access after college is wrong because she isn’t going to be just a UC Davis grad, but a top UC Davis grad.

bluebayou · December 8, 2011, 8:54am

Source please?

However, also irrelevant. The OP has indicted zero, zilch, nada interest in grad school.

Mostly true. Med schools, like Wall Street, consulting, and Government, tend to be prestige-driven. The Cornell name likely carries a little more weight in top med schools (with the exception of the UCs.) But also note, med school requires much more than gpa, i.e., ECs and recs, which I noted earlier. Now the REAL question is at which campus could both of those opportunities be maximized, assuming that you are correct in that the OP wants post-grad academic opportunities? (I don’t have an answer, but I can guarantee you that the opportunities are not the same. And is there any doubt that, in general, UC advising is worse than poor. Even earning A’s in a large lecture hall makes it difficult to obtain a rec, much less meet a Prof. And for med school and other post-grad opportunities (Fullbright Rhodes), Cornell has dedicated advisors to support your app.)

Without a financial aid award that is pure speculation. For most middle class families, even in the low six figure salaries, attending an Ivy is cheaper than attending a UC at instate rates.

RML · December 8, 2011, 10:10am

Blue, just check out where the top grads of Berkeley went every year so you would know that the vast majority of them went to grad school. Berkeley reports their top grads plans every year. Berkeley’s case isn’t any different from all the rest of the, say, top 100 schools, based on USNews.

Let me give your Berkeley’s top 5 this year: <a href=“Berkeley News | Berkeley”>Berkeley News | Berkeley;

Aaron Benavidez - heading to UPenn
Katherine Beattie - preparing for MCAT; plans to head to med school
Ivan de Kouchkovsky - preparing for MCAT; plans to head to UCSF med school
Sheel Jagani - heading to Oxford for PhD in Anthropology
Matthew Zahr - heading to Stanford for PhD in Ph.D. in computational and mathematical engineering

Again, Berkeley releases information like that every year.

UC advising could be poor if you don’t seek for it. But, by and large, advising at UC is available. It’s just there. The best students avail for it. Most top UC grads get into some of the finest postgrad, law and med schools. And again, the cases for top students are different from those of ordinary ones, and the OP is a top student, so it would be unfair for her if you advise her based on the premise that she is just an ordinary UC Davis student.

goldenboy8784 · December 8, 2011, 10:43am

All of this information is highly misleading since Ivan and Aaron haven’t been accepted into med school or graduate school. Volunteering and researching at UCSF and Penn is not the same as being a PhD student or Med student there.

UC Davis’s top 5 would be nowhere nearly as impressive as these individuals while Cornell’s top 5 would be jaw dropping. The top kids at Duke go to Harvard or Penn Med, win Rhodes/Marshall/Churchill fellowships and do PhDs at Stanford in Neuroscience and Electrical Engineering. I can’t imagine Cornell is any different.

Pizzagirl · December 8, 2011, 10:50am

You’re in California, and so you’re viewing everything through a California-centric lens, which overvalues all the UC’s and undervalues traditional east coast elites. The opinion of those in California isn’t universal. You can rest assured there are parts of the country where, indeed, Cornell has a phenomenal name and is easily viewed as one of the top schools. You just don’t happen to live there, so you assume your neck of the woods is representative when it isn’t.

bluebayou · December 8, 2011, 11:07am

And the plural of anecdotes is data?

Again, another SWAG on your part. (I make no such premise. I assume nothing other than what is presented by the OP.) OTOH, do you assume that a “top” Davis student could not be/would not be a top student at Cornell? (And before you respond, think about the ramifications of each answer.)

btw: Davis ain’t no Cal.

RML · December 8, 2011, 11:09am

You’re missing the point. The point is, top students wish to get into postgrad, med or law school. That’s the point.

You’ve got to be kidding me. lol

beyphy · December 8, 2011, 11:11am

Usually, being a top schools doesn’t depend what part of the country a school is looked at from.

Sure, most people probably haven’t heard of caltech, but those in the know know of its small student to faculty ratio, the fact that it was ranked #1 in research (above harvard and MIT), and that it’s pretty much the best university in the world to do research for undergrad. The rankings also support caltech being an amazing university.

I think the biggest problem here is ambiguity in meaning. By elite i mean top 10 universities in the U.S. or world (for either categories of which, i don’t feel Cornell falls into)

That doesn’t mean that Cornell isn’t a really good school, it just isn’t as good as the elites. So if you take elite to be a very small selection of ‘top schools’ and maybe take ‘really really good schools’ to also be included in ‘top schools’ then yes, cornell is a top school, but it isn’t an elite one.

Perhaps its ‘elite’ in some relative context when compared to the whole of U.S. universities, but not when they’re compared to the elite universities themselves.

But if you guys are bent on calling ornell an ‘elite university’ then i’ll just call the top 10 schools ‘super elite’ universities. Problem solved.

RML · December 8, 2011, 11:11am

Pizzagirl, please learn how to understand what you’re reading. Nowhere did I say/write that Cornell = UC Davis. Read my posts from the beginning.

ucbalumnus · December 8, 2011, 11:40am

If you want more help besides the typical school-prestige argument, you may want to specify what your reasons for Cornell are; your first post gave only reasons for staying at UC Davis.

Your intended major may be a hint, but you did not specify how strongly attached you are to majoring in environmental engineering, whether getting into that major at Cornell is guaranteed if you transfer, or whether what you want to study can be done under the civil engineering major at UC Davis and whether you can get into the civil engineering major at UC Davis.

RML · December 8, 2011, 11:45am

Then explain to me why some of the top grads of MIT are at their postgrad schools, if not at Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley and Caltech? Explain to my why a hundreds of Yale grads every year are in Yale/Harvard/Stanford law schools. Explain to me why Harvard’s med school is full of 4.00-ish students from HYPSM, Berkeley, the lower Ivies, NU, Chicago and the likes.

DunninLA · December 8, 2011, 9:00pm

Jeez, what a tiring thread reading nonesense from posters who have never been to either university.

Let me put my comments in context:

I went to Stanford, then UCLA, both undergrad
My wife went to Cornell, then UCLA, both undergrad (turned down Stanford …go figure).
We were both from CA, but I had also lived in Mexico City for 3 years, and she did Sr. year at Punahou.

<ol>
<li>It is good to leave your own region for awhile … see how the other half dresses, speaks, thinks, etc… especially New Yorkers at Cornell. It will be eye-opening.</li>
<li>the quality of conversation at Cornell v. UC Davis will be notably different. The Cornell students, due primarily to its location, will be generally more worldly, exposed, and energetic. this will change the way you think permanently.</li>
<li>The access to faculty, notwithstanding the fact that Cornell is actually quite large itself, will be much easier at Cornell. This is worth more than the cost differential between UCD and Cornell, to me. That’s a value judgement. However, I don’t know if that would be true in the Engineering Dept. at UCD v Cornell, perhaps not.</li>
<li>You will struggle at Cornell… 80% do, because everyone at Cornell is accostomed to A grades in just about every class they took in HS, including the most difficult. Things are better than thirty years ago (check out the website gradeinflation.com), but Cornell students still generally read and attempt to memorize the footnotes in their textbooks, not merely the large text!</li>
<li>The weather absolutely SUCKS. Mid-November through mid-March are not unlike the movie The Shining. There are the other five months of the academic year that are OK, with August, September and May actually being delightful most days. When the first flowers pop through the remaining layer of snow in April, people will skip class just to celebrate the occasion.</li>
<li>Undergraduate education at a UC is largely on the self-service model, and is also at Cornell but on a smaller scale. Slight advantage to Cornell there. This is not the case at the graduate level, which is really the raison d’etre for UCs.</li>
</ol>

Bottom line, I’d do it, but be prepared for a shock to your senses and self esteem. If you get through it, you will be a stronger person.

morrismm · December 8, 2011, 10:17pm

I agree with D-LA except 5 & 6.

The weather can be challenging. But winter can be a lot of fun. Skiing, sledding, skating and riding down the slope on a tray are all adored by students. The four seasons are incredibly beautiful. Most of fall semester is fall. It can be gray in the “spring” semester but gets pretty in the end.

No matter the weather, Cornell and its surrounding area is beautiful, campus and environment .

Cornell is hardly self-service. Because there are so many schools and majors , upper classes can be quite small and students can get to know professors quite well. They also get to know their fellow majors.

Cornell is not a big undergrad school where students are just a number in classes of hundreds or larger.

And no matter what you want to say, Cornell is a world renowned top rated institution of higher learning. No need to argue with you about what school is better, Cornell vs- whatever UC.

Here are the facts.
-Cornell is a national and international rated school.
-Cornell is an Ivy League school.

And some opinions -

Cornell is more prestigious than UC Davis and prestige is often important in the business world. (Not sure that matters in west cost)

I would go for Cornell. Why not experience something new? Why not broaden your horizons with a top school. It may be your once in a life chance!!!,

Stay at UC Davis or transfer to Cornell?

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