Vanderbilt or Cornell? Really grateful for both these opportunities, thankful for everything.

No merit/need-based aid in both schools. COA is about the same, Vandy about 30k more expensive at the end of the day.

Cornell Pros:

- NYC, high density of patients and heavy patient diversity for training

- Subsidized housing (including utilities $1000-1300$/month in NYC upper east side Manhattan)

- Ivy League Prestige? Both are similar in rank though

- Next to many other top names in Medicine (Columbia, Sinai, NYU, Einstein, etc.)

- Affiliated with NYP, Sloan Kettering, Rockefeller

- No MSPE Adjectives

Cornell Cons:

- Internal Rank that is only used for AOA (Internal Rank is not shared/used outside of AOA selection purposes)

- Graded Clerkships (H/HP/P/F)

- Potentially slightly more competitive environment

Vandy Pros:

- Big name in the south, Vanderbilt is the #1 name in that region

- Nashville is a great city with a great music and food environment

- P/F clerkships

- Better/more reputable student environment

Vandy Cons:

- MSPE Adjectives used

- No subsidized housing (have to go off campus to rent as an M1 and beyond)

- Harder to differentiate in class if everything is true P/F? Not sure

- No other big name institutions around it tbh

- Many match internally at Vandy (however, I want to live in the northeast long term)

- COA is slightly more overall at the end of the day, and a car is recommended (currently don't have one)

My long term goals is to have a high ceiling for my medical career. I'm not sure what speciality I currently want to do (going to use pre clinicals to figure that out), but have had interest in cardiology, oncology, and potentially dermatology. But I really have an open mind for specialities, so not sure yet. Ideally, I want to stay on the east coast as well and be able to match into big names in that region.

What do you guys think? Thanks so much, I really appreciate everyone's insight here. :)