NEW YORK, April 7 (Reuters) - Sanford "Sandy" Weill, the architect of Citigroup Inc (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research), has accelerated a $170 million gift to Cornell University's medical college, the university said.

Weill and his wife Joan are making the gift sooner than they had planned at the request of the university's president, David Skorton, Cornell said in a statement.

The medical college, known as Weill Cornell Medical College after a prior gift from Weill, is in the middle of a $1.3 billion fund-raising drive.

The New York Times reported that Weill had planned to give $250 million to Weill Cornell Medical College when he died.

Weill used a small consumer finance company based in Baltimore as a platform for acquisitions, building what ultimately became Citigroup in 1998, when Weill's Travelers Group merged with Citicorp. He stepped down as chief executive in 2003.

Citigroup is now shedding assets after recording more than $85 billion of write-downs and credit losses and receiving more than $45 billion of government help. (Reporting by Dan Wilchins, editing by Carol Bishopric)