DARDEN VS. CORNELL

i think it's time to add some meat to this discussion, i am currently going through this process and figured I would impart my impressions for the community:

Cornell is an excellent MBA program located about 4 hours from NYC (as a NYC resident who did the drive, it is remote). Ithaca is in beautiful rural country-side, but the town itself is a bit run-down. It definitely has a college vibe, but it just had a dull-gray overtone, closed businesses, eclectic-disjointed school architecture. I attended a few courses including finance and strategy. As an undergraduate business school student, I thought that while the courses were well taught, the information was the same coursework that I learned in undergraduate school (actually very similar to NYU Stern imo). Since it was a first year course, I imagined it would be so, but since they would not allow me to attend a second year course, which I think would have actually been helpful in making a decision it was my only point of comparison. What I think was more disappointing was the seeming lack of preparation of the students. As the professor reviewed the cost of capital formula the students seemed to really struggle with the concept. I imagine like many classrooms, some of the brightest students do not feel the need to speak out, but it was a bit disconcerting thinking that I would have to spend about half of my tuition dollars on repeat education. Now for the flip-side, if you are not coming from a business environment, I think this is the best possible teaching methodology. Reviewing and discussing financial principles in lecture based coursework is a great way to learn the fundamentals of business. The case methodology can distort fundamentals and can fail to teach very essential aspects of business skills that have very practical application. With Cornell, the application process was also a bit disappointing, I felt that the third essay question was unique, but did not add to proving the applicant's candidacy - it almost felt like a forced, "see we're trying to be unique". After interviewing with a student and being asked the stock questions and getting the response, "yea, the adcom thinks your application is excellent and you're a consultant, so I thought you'd interview well, but your gmat's a little low, so we'll see what happens" it seemed like the school basically looked at the application as a series of checkboxes. IB/MC background, check; can write intelligibly, check; some community service, check; speaks coherently in interview, check; over 700, check. Again, not materially different from a lot of schools, but I guess that's the disappointment, for $80 K and a steep opportunity cost, I am expecting a unique value proposition. I think Cornell is the answer if you believe that Ivy brand is chiefly important or if you are returning to b-school to get a general business education.

Virginia is a very different environment, I was thoroughly impressed with the application process. I think the interview question, "you have 40 minutes, tell me about yourself" is actually a very telling question. It requires candidates to be able to maintain a logical flow, demonstrating where you've come from and where you're going while incorporating while Darden in the answer and in a more tense interview situation. This is a question that might not have been as prepared for and is a far better judge of a candidate's potential to think logically in a pressure situation (just my opinion). Also, the case methodology requires a lot of work, to learn from this methodology, you really need to spend a lot of time reading, sifting through a lot of issues, digesting and reviewing a lot of data and honing in on the important decision-making criteria to make the best possible decision (this I find to be very much like the real business world). However, if the concepts are unfamiliar to you, this can be a very challenging and less rewarding learning style - it's really a matter of what you're looking for. You will get a great education at both, the question is how you are looking to learn. Now, I do think Charlottesville is a more lively town, certainly a very pretty area of the country. Proximity to DC is of little value if you are going into business and seven hours by car to NY does make it limiting (actually I think this is probably a large component of it's current ranking). However the tight-knit community of the Darden alumni appears to make up for a bit of this proximity gap. As I have seen the speed of the alumni networks side by side in action from my colleagues, the Darden alumni network seems to be a bit more productive in helping each other, there just seems to be a bit stronger sense of community. Perhaps this is less of a concern as a NYC resident, so I am biased, but again that's my impression. On the point of banking and consulting, I think you will find both schools have very good representation on wall street and in excellent consultancies, any difference in numbers here really just comes down to the person and not the school (and this quite frankly is largely true of most schools in the top-15 of whichever ranking you look at). It is very hard to look at one school and say one places 25% in banking, the other 30% therefore the 30% school is more of a banking school than the other, these become less statistically significant as you dig into the material behind the data. Lastly, I think I was generally more impressed by the students and faculty I met at Virginia than at Cornell. Again, this is a "feel" point, but the level of poise and professionalism of those I met at Charlottesville just left a greater impression on me than that of Cornell, maybe it was just a bad day in Ithaca, but I really think you need to visit both to make the decision.

This diatribe is a bit of stream of consciousness (some run-ons in there I'm sure), but I thought I would share my impressions for the group. Personally, as an associate in an MC who has conducted cases at Columbia, NYU and Northwestern and someone who is surrounded by HBS, Booth, Kellogg, Columbia and Wharton grads, at this level of business school, it largely comes down to who you are as a person and a professional. There have been years we take more from Darden than Wharton and years we take more from HBS than Booth, as long as we're visiting your school, you've met the "business school caliber" bar, now it's up to you to prove your value one way or another. Ok, I'm sure I have in some way offended many people or inspired hot rages of passion one way or the other, so let the responses flood in. . .cheers!

Best of luck to all in this process and remember - choosing between the University of Virginia and Cornell University is not a predicament, it's a privilege.