Cornell College

Location: Mount Vernon, Iowa (pop. 4,460)

Size: small (fewer than 5,000 students)

Description: Cornell College, a selective liberal arts college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, attracts a colorful community of diverse, empathetic neighbors—students, faculty, staff, and alumni—who care about each other. Professors and their students focus on one class per 18-day block. It’s the innovative—some might say ingenious—foundation of every Cornellian’s education. Flexible, experiential. Cornell has been living, learning, and teaching on the block plan, One Course At A Time, since 1978 when it left the semester plan behind. 

• Total student population: 1,074

• Population (undergraduate): 1,074

• Average high school GPA of admitted students: 3.12

• Average class size: 

• Approximate cost: $61,000

Popular majors: (1) Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2) Kinesiology-Exercise Science, (3) Engineering (4) Computer Science (5) Politics

New & improved: Newly constructed and renovated athletics facility as well as a new business center, complete with stock market ticker. 

What makes us special: Cornellians have been living, learning, and teaching on the block plan, One Course At A Time, since 1978 when it left the semester plan behind. Each 18-day course—as well as research, internships, and service opportunities—can take students and professors off-campus and even out of the country due to the block’s flexibility. That’s one reason Cornell is included in “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges.”

Visit us at: www.cornellcollege.edu| Virtual Tour