Weill Cornell Medical College

Annie Yau describes mornings from 8am to 1pm in problem-based learning, small groups, and lecture, with afternoons for anatomy lab in the first semester, a clinical preceptorship, electives, or study. First year leaves real downtime, and Annie calls the pass/fail curriculum "a godsend."

Clinical training builds on that foundation. The eight-week surgery clerkship, for example, splits four weeks at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell with four at NewYork-Presbyterian/ Queens, Memorial Sloan Kettering, or Houston Methodist.

Weill Cornell sits beside two research giants on Manhattan's Upper East Side. With Memorial Sloan Kettering and The Rockefeller University, it runs the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program, and the Hospital for Special Surgery is connected by skyway.

Annie says interview day stressed exactly this: the school's relationships with MSK, Rockefeller, and HSS translate into abundant research and clinical opportunities.

The core teaching hospital is NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Students also rotate at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the Hospital for Special Surgery, NewYork-Presbyterian/ Queens, NewYork-Presbyterian/Brooklyn Methodist, and Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas.

MSK, directly across the street, is the world's oldest and largest private cancer center, which gives students unusual exposure to oncology.

With just over 100 students, the class is tight-knit, and most first-years live in the same building, Olin Hall. Annie found that close class made moving to a new city easy.

Then there's New York: museums (which students can visit through an Art and Medicine elective), discounted theater, Central Park a short run away, and endless food. Annie's only complaint, as a native Californian, is the winters.