WSU vs Cornell

[ev1881]

Hi everyone! I am currently accepted as an OOS candidate for Cornell and WSU (Pullman campus). I am currently interested in wildlife medicine, but I would like to go to a school that is fairly well-rounded since I anticipate I will change my path over four years. I've had interviews with 3 other schools (including my IS) and I am waiting to hear back.

How should you balance initial tuition cost vs the total amount a school gives in institutional financial aid? For example, OOS tuition at Cornell over four years is much more expensive compared to WSU (since I can establish residency after the first year), but Cornell gives an additional 2.6 million more in scholarships to its students. Is this something to factor in or should it be ignored because scholarships aren’t a given?

For those who go to WSU- how is living in Pullman? I’ve always lived in cities of >250,000, so I am a little nervous about how rural Pullman is. Are there fun things to in the city or nature things nearby?

Any other insights would be great 🙂 Thanks so much for the input!

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[JaynaAli]

Unless they’re offering you a significant guaranteed amount of money in scholarships at Cornell right now that would bring the costs down to comparable amounts, in my opinion you should ignore it. You aren’t guaranteed to get a scholarship later on. If the economy tanks scholarships may not even be donated. At my school, quite a few people got smaller 1000-5000 one-off scholarships that do help a little, but in the grand scheme of bet debt are pretty negligible. It tended to be vet same people at the very top of our class who got big awards every year. Those of us at the middle to lower end of the class got very little financial support. Go to your cheapest option, especially if you want to pursue a lower paying specialty like exotics/wildlife medicine. Looks like Cornell is like 100k more than WSU…are Cornell students routinely being given 100k scholarships? 2.6 million in scholarships divided by 400 students (100 per class) is only like $6500 each. And I know it probably isn’t actually divided equally and not everyone gets one but scholarship dollars don’t go far.

 

[ali9280]

Congrats on your acceptances! I always advise going to the cheapest option especially if you are going to be taking on loans/debt. I know some of my classmates who have received scholarships already as there are scholarships that are only available to incoming students. There aren't enough scholarships out there at any vet school that can cover enough of your tuition for that to be a factor in decisions. The WSU VTH has a great exotics department and they have taken in wildlife cases in the past and starting day one you can sign up for days to "shadow/observe" them along with other departments in the hospital. Its a great program and I have signed up for a few days last semester.

I've lived in Pullman for undergrad and now vet school (~5 years) and you can absolutely find fun things to do and I have lived just outside of Seattle. There are cute coffee shops, stores in Pullman and Moscow (town in Idaho about 15 minutes away), seasonal farmers market, some hikes and trails nearby like Kamiak Butte or Moscow mountain, wine cellars/bars are downtown too, and there skiing if that's your thing like Spokane Mountain or Schweitzer. I also recommend joining clubs no matter what school you choose as some of them host events like lunches, dinners, and socials!

 

[supershorty]

Scholarships are by no means guaranteed, and even those that are given are usually a drop in the bucket.

You know what is guaranteed? Tuition.
Go to the cheaper option.