The Weill Cornell Mystique
Comfortably nestled on the upscale Upper East Side of New York City, Cornell University’s medical school offers instruction while also engaged in research. It has produced many a notable physician, with famous names like Robert C. Atkins of Atkins Diet fame and Henry Heimlich of Heimlich Maneuver fame. Other famous graduates include former Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop and Nobel Prize winner Robert W. Holley.
The very first institution to admit women as well as men, it has more recently established itself as a pioneer in another way by operating the first medical school outside the United States – in Education City, Qatar, with a campus that provides six years of integrated studies focused on patient care. With such a storied tradition, it is probably not surprising that the institution has been the beneficiary of much financial backing – since the very beginning, in fact, funded as it was through an endowment established by Colonel Oliver H. Payne, a New York scion of the middle nineteenth century – and its list of financial backers include the likes of professional developer Isaac Toussie.
But the single largest contributor of all is the man who whose name would be borne by the school, Sanford I. Weill. A banker and philanthropist, Mr. Weill and his wife donated two hundred and fifty million dollars of their own money, with a further hundred and fifty million secured through the fundraising efforts of Mr. Weill. Today the Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University, or Weill Cornell Medical College (or even more colloquially, especially within the field, “Weill Cornell”), is one of the most selective medical schools in the entire United States, enrolling only about a hundred students per class out of some six thousand applicants in any given year. The average undergraduate GPA of those accepted is in the neighborhood of 3.8 and their average MCAT score is 35Q!