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2010-2011 Cornell University (Weill) Application Thread
Started by ksmi117
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I've heard of people getting invites in very late February or early March (and ultimately being accepted).
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Congrats to all those accepted today! If you eventually find yourself unsure about where to matriculate feel free to PM me or email students you met at interview day.
To those who are still waiting: the vast majority of acceptances go out in the spring, so keep your hope high. If you were waitlisted, the waitlist does in fact move; many of my classmates got in off the waitlist.
To those who were unfortunately rejected: even though Cornell is the best med school in the world there are other good med schools out there 😉 ... best of luck with the rest of the application season!
To those who are still waiting: the vast majority of acceptances go out in the spring, so keep your hope high. If you were waitlisted, the waitlist does in fact move; many of my classmates got in off the waitlist.
To those who were unfortunately rejected: even though Cornell is the best med school in the world there are other good med schools out there 😉 ... best of luck with the rest of the application season!
Congrats to everyone that got accepted!
pre-interview rejection today 🙁
complete mid-sept
complete mid-sept
I feel like I'm dodging bullets from a machine gun here! Hopefully they won't just freeze me out in the end.
Sorry guys 🙁
Does anyone know how WCMC reviews their apps? Is it essentially random, in order of "complete" date, or do they kind of pick out ones they know what they want to do with and leave the the rest?
I just see a lot of people who were complete at the same time or later (in some cases, much later) than me being invited for an interview or rejected, so I can only assume it's somewhat random?...
I just see a lot of people who were complete at the same time or later (in some cases, much later) than me being invited for an interview or rejected, so I can only assume it's somewhat random?...
I doubt it's "random," but from our perspective it might seem that way.
for my other chances.
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Can any current medical students at Cornell answer a few questions please?
How much of the curriculum is lecture vs pbl? Do you have committed lecturers or do you have experts in the field come to teach you? I ask because we have MSKCC researchers lecture at my school frequently and they tend to get too excited about their research (really really minute details), and most of the time it goes over my head. I hope to not have to deal with this if I choose Cornell. How generous is financial aid? If there are any third year students, how do you feel the unique curriculum affected your board scores? With the short class duration, were you able to cover everything or did you find yourself teaching yourself things from scratch? I asked this question during my interview and the interviewer told me "we don't teach to the boards". I honestly don't know what to make of that answer. Thanks in advance
How much of the curriculum is lecture vs pbl? Do you have committed lecturers or do you have experts in the field come to teach you? I ask because we have MSKCC researchers lecture at my school frequently and they tend to get too excited about their research (really really minute details), and most of the time it goes over my head. I hope to not have to deal with this if I choose Cornell. How generous is financial aid? If there are any third year students, how do you feel the unique curriculum affected your board scores? With the short class duration, were you able to cover everything or did you find yourself teaching yourself things from scratch? I asked this question during my interview and the interviewer told me "we don't teach to the boards". I honestly don't know what to make of that answer. Thanks in advance
Hey JKomsi,
I'm not a student and am clearly not in a position to answer most of your questions except for the lecture vs. pbl one. If you go on the WCMC website under medical education-curriculum, you can pretty much see, hour by hour, how the curriculum is structured for the first two years. There's a ton of transparency on their website about what you're learning, when, and how and it's a resource that's definitely worth taking advantage of since I imagine it gives you a decent idea of what the day to day is like class-wise.
Here's the curriculum website in general
http://www.med.cornell.edu/education/curriculum/first/index.html
and here's a link to a pdf for the daily classes for first semester 1st years.
http://www.med.cornell.edu/education/curriculum/first/pdf/mgc_schedule.pdf
Thursdays are all blocked out for MPS-the intro to doctoring type course. You can go on that course website and see what MPS teaches and when/how it does so, as well.
Sure!
Lecture time can range from 1 hour up to 4, depnding on the course, and the part of the course. I'd guess the average lecture time is about 2 hours per day.
The rest of the time is PBL, small group conference (working through problem sets with your PBL group), and lab (especially significant in anatomy).
We usually have a handful of lecturers in a given subject. We'll get lectures from them repeatedly throughout the semester on the same subject. They are indeed experts in their fields (they have labs here and publish a lot). In past years we've had the problem of there being too much focus on their particularly research interests, but students' voices were heard. This past semester (I'm an M1) the focus was definitely on boards material, and I didn't hear much concern about random detail type of material.
Very. Tuition makes up only 2% of revenue here, which means that decreasing tuition income (e.g. through scholarships) has little impact on the overall financial picture of our school.
I doubt a third year will come on here to answer (very little time in 3rd yr), but from the conversations I've had with them, my impression is that we are very well-prepared for the boards. We tend to score well above average. I looked at some Step I review books after this semester and found nothing in there that was not covered in class. If anything, the courses go into more detail than required for the boards.
Your interviewer (probably a PhD, right?) was just trying to be idealistic about it by saying that the focus is on teaching us the science so that we should be good doctors, etc. At the end of the day, however, the result is that the course material doesn't veer too far from what is needed for the boards.
No problem, I hope I answered everything. If you have any more questions feel free to ask!
Fourth year students have plenty of free time, so I'll do my best to answer your questions. In general, we have excellent board scores. Most of what is tested is covered during the first two years. Anything not covered (or anything you forgot) will be learned during the 7 weeks you have off specifically to take the boards. I really enjoyed the shorter class time since it gives you the chance to take advantage of your afternoons. Nobody feels their boards suffer because of it, but most agree that life is better because of it.
The comment "we don't teach to the boards" is something I have heard often, often followed by "and our students excel on the boards anyway". It was initially a philosophy to offer a more well-rounded education rather than simply following a curriculum based on what the boards tested. However, it became an excuse used by faculty when students voiced concerns over the relevance of some topics. Many students came to resent this policy, especially since the boards are an integral part of your residency application. So while Cornell will never be a school that simply follows the boards, I'm happy to say they are making changes to be sure students feel supported in taking the boards. This is an active area for curriculum reform, even though our scores are still excellent, to help relieve some of the extreme anxiety that surrounds the boards.
As a recent victim of the mass-rejections, I can say they are sent via email.
Complete mid-late August.
Disappointed, but not terribly surprised. I remember thinking "there is no way they are going to think I'm a good match for the school" while I was researching them and writing the secondary. I guess I was right.
Complete mid-late August.
Disappointed, but not terribly surprised. I remember thinking "there is no way they are going to think I'm a good match for the school" while I was researching them and writing the secondary. I guess I was right.
Hi Jkomsi,
I think boaz has done a pretty excellent job of summarizing our system and most of us feel about limited lecture time and free afternoons. In re financial aid, I think the best answer would be "it depends." On average our indebtedness is very low compared to both public and private school averages (~150k and 170k nationally, give or take) and our endowment for need-based grant money and low-interest institutional loans is quite robust. Of those who applied for aid and took out loans, the average indebtedness of last year's graduating class was something like $122,000, and the average grant for this year, across all classes, was around $30k.
But, it's pretty individualized, and depends largely on your parents' (and their spouses') income and assets, no exceptions. My package was pretty bad compared to what I was used to in college, and there are a number of people I know taking out the full cost of attendance in federal loans. I have friends who wanted to come here but turned Cornell down because the difference in their aid packages was in the six figures compared to some peer schools. That said, there are many, many students receiving annual grants that approach the equivalent of full-tuition scholarships. I love it here and can't imagine being happier anywhere else, but had I gotten into a cheaper Cali school I would have had some thinking to do.
Yes. Revisit weekend is April 15-16.
Thanks for all the replies. Cornell sounds like a great place. I'm hoping to find out as much as I can during the revisit weekend also. I'm wondering if they have an informal student shadowing program. I would like to see what a typical Cornell day is like.
What is an appeal? (this is probably a stupid question)
Haha, basically a letter telling the adcom to re-evaluate your application, after being initially rejected ... usually not worth the effort, but some schools like UCSF seem to like those type of letters.
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Wow! That's crazy! I've never even thought of doing something like that. Though I would totally do it here if necessary 😛
Thank you for always giving me answers
Hah, yeah, seriously everybody I know at UCSF right now got in following a pre-interview rejection. They definitely work at some places if you're aggressive. Email admissions and see what they think, it certainly isn't going to hurt you now!
BTW my link for the status check page is down for some reason. Can anyone post the link they use? I use
https://s005.med.cornell.edu/osafstatus/WebObjects/osafstatus
https://s005.med.cornell.edu/osafstatus/WebObjects/osafstatus
Congrats ed! And that link still works for me.
Weird. It 's not working for me. Must be something to do with my computer. 🙁. Thanks though Cole
Thanks. Funny thing is, I'm still out of the country. I was just in an extremely remote part of the country where theres no internet service and cell phone service is quite spotty. I'll be observing prostate surgery on wednesday, tropical style. Should be exciting 😀
Cornell does not consider appeals. The admissions office very thoroughly reviews EVERY application before making their decisions, and that's why the email says decisions are final.
And to be honest (with respect to appeals), I don't think you want to be "that guy" that appeals.
Haha, if it were me, I would love to be "that guy." That means, I got in!
There is no shame in any acceptance. That said, I don't have 40+ MCAT. Maybe I will think differently then.
Same here... If i really loved a school (like i loved cornell) I would probably be that guy and appeal. Just as a last ditch effort. But I understand why you wouldn't want to/why cornell doesn't read them
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Oh no doubt, there's definitely no shame in any acceptance. Appeals just rub me the wrong way. In my mind, an appeal basically says "hey, I'm pretty awesome, and you guys clearly didn't recognize my awesomeness and messed up. Try again." That's not the message I would want to send. But then again, I might be reading too much into it.
wow so many high stats getting rejected. i guess im waiting for my rejection
actually does anyone know if january is already filled up? im staying in nyc for january... should i not bother with in the area email?
actually does anyone know if january is already filled up? im staying in nyc for january... should i not bother with in the area email?
Definitely send them an in-the-area e-mail. As discussed earlier in the thread, admissions seems to be very receptive to them.
still no news even though i was complete late august. sent an update letter but didnt hear anything. do they acknowledge update letters? does anyone know if there is anything else I should do?
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