Switching Undergraduate Schools At Cornell
I was recently accepted into the Nolan school at Cornell for Hotel Administration, but I'm really not sure if that's what I want to dedicate my life to.
Does anyone know how exit opps are out of there, have any experience with the school, or know how easy/hard it is to transfer into Dyson or CAS for Econ?
Should I go?
Thank you!
Dyson’s hard because there are extremely few seats and the program is basically reserved for athletes and wealthy international legacies. Econ is easy to switch into but the major itself is hard. Major doesn’t matter at Cornell, everyone gets the same OCR so I would stay put if I were you.
I am going into college this fall, my other options also include:
Northwestern (Econ)
Umich (Ross) and
Georgetown (McDonough)
Should I choose these over Cornell considering I’d be going into Nolan?
Not set on any place right now and would love opinions.
Depends on what you want to do. Cornell is the best in finance followed by Ross and McDonough (same tier) then Northwestern. Consulting will be the opposite. Northwestern is the best for consulting followed by Ross and McDonough (same tier) then Cornell.
You should also consider where you want to be geographically. Cornell has a strong presence in NYC, Northwestern has a strong presence in Chicago. UMich has a strong presence in Chicago and NYC but will not be as well received as Northwestern or Cornell, respectively, in either. Georgetown has a strong presence in DC and NYC but will not be as well received as Cornell in NYC.
These are also very different schools so think about who you are and who you want to be. Cornell and UMich will provide more true college experiences with their isolated campuses with strong Greek life and good sports for Michigan. Georgetown is right outside of DC and has no Greek life so the social scene is a little different. Northwestern is in a suburb and is arguably less fun than the other schools? You don’t really hear much about the school spirit there so I’m inclined to think it’s not great.
I would pick based on what you want to do, where you want to be in the medium to long term and what experience you want.
I go to Cornell and would say that in terms of recruiting, your college or major does not matter. That said, there is an advantage to being around students with similar career goals as you because it will keep you focused.
In terms of transferring and the different colleges:
- Arts & Sciences: you can walk into Arts & Sciences after freshman year as long as your grades are fine. Not sure why you would do this unless you want to study the liberal arts. Economics is abstract, challenging, and not particularly relevant, so unless you have an interest in it I would avoid. There's also a ton of other course requirements from the college.
- Dyson: this is the semi-straight-forward business school (that arose historically out of agricultural economics). I know plenty people who transferred in, but you would need a good reason and good freshman year grades. Not sure why you would leave the Hotel School for Dyson though, unless you were a NY state resident and could pay less for Dyson.
- Hotel: I am not in Hotel, but Hotel is one the coolest academic programs. Placement is great - lots of students do banking and consulting, but a bunch also do REPE or work for hotels. The only kids I know going to PE firms out of undergrad are from Hotel and going into RE groups at Apollo, Blackstone, KKR, etc. The experience as a Hotelie is also drastically different from the other colleges- it's very tight-knit, you take cooking and hospitality classes, etc. Hotelies love the Hotel school. You'll get IB without much difficulty if you're set on that.
I wouldn't worry about placement chances when deciding whether to stay in Hotel or not, it really doesn't matter. Pick the vibe/experience that resonates with you.
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