Beat The GMAT a GMAT & MBA community

Congratulations on your acceptance into two fantastic programs! While I cannot speak to any pros/cons of NYU, I can speak a little of Cornell. Both Cornell and NYU EMBA programs are in the city (Cornell EMBA is in Queens, Cornell's full time and accelerated are in Ithaca).

I am primarily interested in Entrepreneurship and I have recently committed to attending Cornell's full time program in Ithaca, not the EMBA. I also applied to Berkeley and was waitlisted there, but for as good as Berkeley appears on paper, I feel that Cornell has the edge academically, and for me, entrepreneurially as well. The Business Week rankings put Cornell at #4 for teaching quality with an A+ so I feel like I will be receiving a top quality education (#8 in grad satisfaction, #6 in intellectual property, and #23 for recruiting...), and entrepreneurship has moved into high gear in the school. There is a new dean from Insead who is very tech-minded (Berkeley Ph.D. in computer science) and is partial to the one-year program, so the accelerated and EMBA programs should be getting extra attention in the coming years. The new tech campus on Roosevelt Island in NYC is very exciting with classes beginning this fall, and a new Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute which opens lines of communication between the business school and other schools around Cornell, such as the engineering school. Also the BR Venture Fund is an entirely student managed venture capital fund in the school. Not to say my startups will receive funding from it, but getting involved in the club certainly won't hurt and will aid tremendously with approaching VC in the future.

I didn't realize all this about Cornell until I visited and started digging. I believe Cornell is a hidden gem and I am very excited about attending. I feel the rankings unfairly represent Cornell. A large component of the ranking is the recruiter score, and since #1, Ithaca is 4 hours away from the city, recruiters don't like going there, and #2, most recruiting on campus is largely dominated by alums, hardly any of which are full time recruiters and thereby not queried in the rankings, and draw Cornell down numerically. Placement in IB at Cornell is very high with a lot of alums getting students in the industry, and PE is a jumping point from there. Good luck with your decision!