I got accepted to NU as a transfer student and I had a guaranteed transfer to Cornell, and I really can’t decide between the two. I’m a NYS resident at a contract college so Cornell is $5,000 cheaper per year, not including travel costs like flights. I’m intending on majoring in public policy, which Cornell is ranked highly for, but I haven’t taken a public policy class yet so I’m not entirely sure if that’s what I want to major in. Northwestern gives me much more flexibility in changing majors or double majoring, since I’m in NU’s Arts and Sciences college which has a lot of majors to choose from, while I’m in Cornell’s College of Human Ecology which is very niche. Cornell is an Ivy and is ranked above Northwestern in every college ranking list except US News, but Northwestern is also very prestigious, though I get so annoyed when people confuse Northeastern with Northwestern. Northwestern does have a higher endowment, is not in the middle of nowhere, and is roughly half the size of Cornell. If I want to go into academia then both have amazing research opportunities. If I want to go into finance then Cornell is too 5 in bulge bracket recruitment, but if I want to go into consulting, Northwestern is top 5 in MBB recruitment. I’m really not sure what to choose, they are exactly equal in my opinion.
They are peer institutions. If the money differential isn’t meaningful to your family choose the school you feel you’d be happiest at. A couple of notable differences offhand include location (upsatate NY v suburbs of Chicago) and semester v quarter system…
In other words, every other college ranking list based in the NE. 
They really are peers but unfortunately, you have home state and regional (NE) bias that says an Ivy beats nearly everything else. And of course, Cornell is easy thing for parents to tell/brag to their friends.
Public policy is generally a grad-level major, so I’d suggest that you major in something else. Personally, I’d head to Evanston for the liberal arts college experience. But, being a ~4 hour drive from home an also be appealing.
Not sure that Cornell is ranked all that high in pp:
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-public-affairs-schools/public-policy-analysis-rankings
here’s an article which has something thinking points about pp:
btw: what college did you attend as a Frosh? (obviously, you could stay there as well.)
Cornell doesn’t offer a M.P.P so of course it wouldn’t appear on that rankings list. It says on College Factual that Cornell is the 6th best school for Public Policy and the 2nd best when it comes to graduate outcomes.
I agree that these are peer schools (I’m a Cornell grad that lives a block away from Northwestern).
If you can afford the price difference, go where you think you’ll have the best fit. From what you describe, that sounds like Northwestern.
My older daughter chose Cornell over Duke, a distant relative chose NU over Cornell. Both of them went into IB and both of them are doing very well. My kid didn’t apply to any school in the midwest, and the distant relative wanted a school not in a middle of no where. I would go with the school where you would feel more at home because they are peer schools and you can’t go wrong with either one. I personally would choose arts & science at NU even though at Cornell you could still take a lot of classes in A&S, but at NU you would be getting a degree in A&S.
@markieff
Ranking in many cases aren’t all that important and is meaningless in this case considering not many schools even have the major at the undergrad level (for good reason IMO).6th out of say, 50 is no better than 100th out of 1,000. These are two peer schools.
@markieff - This should be an easy decision. I think Northwestern is an upper peer of Cornell Arts and Sciences with a slight edge to Northwestern. Northwestern has been more selective than Cornell for most of the last decade in terms of a lower acceptance rate and substantially higher test score averages. Before the recentering of the SAT a year ago, NU’s SAT average was almost 50 - 70 points higher than Cornell’s. As far as rankings, you can despise them all you want but for undergraduate rankings, US News >>>> than all of the others. University presidents care about US News and disregard the others as ‘noise.’
And Northwestern has been higher ranked than Cornell for most of the last 20 years. Northwestern is tied at No. 10 and Cornell is at No. 16. I suspect that Northwestern is here to stay in the No. 10 with the improvement in its 6 year graduation rate while Cornell has been in the 15-16 range for the last 5 plus years. Also, I know this is not a popular thing to say but the student caliber / quality in the Cornell contract colleges is materially inferior to that of the Cornell endowed schools in terms of objective measures. Up until 5 years ago, Cornell published SAT averages of Cornell CAS, engineering, hotel, human ecology, ILR, etc. With the exception of the Hotel school, the endowed schools had significantly higher test scores (over 100 points) and lower acceptance rates than the contract colleges. While you’ll have nice opportunities coming out of Cornell human ecology, the opportunities coming from Northwestern arts / sciences (especially economics) will be superior. Northwestern Arts / Sciences is considered more prestigious than Cornell Human Ecology by a significant margin. Northwestern Econ is top 5-6 in the world. Northwestern’s Kellogg school at the mba level is historically 4-6. Cornell is closer top 20 in economics and its mba program (Johnson) is usually between 15-20.
Why would you go to a back-door school at Cornell (ranked at No. 16) that gives out guaranteed transfers to many many NYS average high school students who do not have the stats to get into Cornell as a freshman when you have admission to a top 10 university (Northwestern) that is considerably more selective and more desirable. Even based on yield, Cornell’s CAS and engineering is about 40-45 percent while Northwestern is between 55-60 percent. This means that Northwestern is more desirable among top students with multiple top options. The contract colleges enjoy a high yield (higher than the endowed) because again, it’s a semi public school and is targeting ‘lower’ achieving students who share less cross admits at the top. If you have Cornell Human Ecology and UMichigan as an option, Cornell Hum Ec is going to win many of those cross admits. However, CAS Cornell competes with NOrthwestern and Duke and JHU - harder to win those cross admits.
Also, just look at the Naviance profiles for any top NY high school in West Chester or Long Island and you’ll see many students getting admitted to Cornell with average stats (sub 1400 sat scores) even in RD. This is not the case with NU - in the RD round, it’s acceptance rate is between 5-6 percent and you will see a lot less ‘average’ students getting in. Just talk to anyone from a top Long Island school or a top NYC private prep (dalton,’Horace Mann, trinity, etc) and ask them what is more impressive, Cornell or Northwestern and my guess is that 90 plus percent will say Northwestern. Cornell is a great school but its reputation as the very bottom ivy is more than justified.
If you look at the admissions difficulty even at the transfer level, NU’s acceptance rate ranges between 7-15 percent and Cornell ranges between 18-35 percent. Northwestern doesn’t give out guaranteed transfers.
I know my post is very direct but the truth is that the contract colleges are not viewed the same as the endowed CAS and engineering schools. Anyone who is familiar with Cornell will know this distinction. Even at Cornell, there are many many elitist students in CAS and engineering who look down on students in the ‘SUNY’ contract colleges. Keep in mind that ILR and Human Ecology are technically under the SUNY umbrella although the degree doesn’t have that.
Last thing, if you talk to students or alumni who are familiar with Cornell, they will know Cornell’s dirty secret of giving hundreds of guaranteed transfers to students who had no where near the stats you need to get into a top school. I’m talking about kids who had sub 1250 sat scores and decent grades who end up going to schools like Rochester, Binghamton and GW and Umiami. These students then enter Cornell in the masses their sophomore year via guaranteed transfers. This significantly dilutes Cornell’s brand because the school is as good as the students. When you’re taking a class in PAM at Cornell Hum Ec, don’t be surprised if the kid next to you went to a community college and the other went to Binghamton who both scored 1250 on their SAT. At Northwestern, you have a more uniform distribution of students who had their fair share of other selection options. Many students at Northwestern chose it over Cornell, Duke, JHU, Georgetown, Tufts and other lower Ivies like brown or Dartmouth. At Cornell, you will see that most students chose it over Michigan, Emory and CMU even in the endowed schools. The cross admit story is even worse for the contract colleges. Do your own research and you will see that Northwestern CAS is on paper a far better option than Cornell Human Ecology. Also, at Cornell for recruiting, you will be facing significant competition from Cornell Econ majors in CAS, Dyson students and Engineering. Northwestern has similar recruiting (slightly less in IB but still solid but far far superior in MBB consulting). You may ask why that is? MBB is very very concerned with prestige. Look at the top students at HBS, Wharton MBA or Stanford MBA - they are going to MBB in much much higher numbers than IBD. The fact that NU is a top 5 target for MBB at the undergrad level when Cornell is not even in the top 10 should say something. Lastly, Chicago >>>> Ithaca. Cornell’s campus is in the middle of no where and Evanston is beautiful - similar to Greenwich, CT with a 20 min train to Chicago. Northwestern’s campus on Lake Michigan is beautiful. Northwestern’s facilities are substantially nicer than Cornell’s in part that Norhwestern’s endowment is substantially larger than Cornell, despite NU being a smaller school. I suggest you visit both schools.
A lot of what the previous poster mentions is valid.
However feel free to ignore the elitist nonsense and dirty secret stuff. It’s just not factual related to post graduate analysis of grads or paths to a degree as suggested. No one will ever judge the candidates from these two schools in that manner.
If anything, people aka sophisticated employers respect grit, resilience and work ethic in their new hires. The more difficult path will be a badge of honor. However it may never come up except over time with colleagues. No one is going to do a post mortem or statistical autopsy of someone’s high school gpa and decide if they were deserving of the degree or a back door entrant. Sheer and utter nonsense. Never happen.
No one, except perhaps young or inexperienced posters would suggest such a thing.
Don’t compare or judge the students who fight their way in - they’re the ones to watch over time.
Also the classes are the classes. It doesn’t matter how you get there, you have to do the work or you don’t make it.
Cornell is actually one of the most intense academic environments in the country. That would be one of my data points. If you thrive in a competitive ecosystem. Cornell is your home.
But. Northwestern is no shrinking violet.
For my money the less expensive ivy is pretty appealing.
The peer level academics, the flexibility, the location and the school spirit at NU make it hard to pass up.
I would choose on personal fit and financial implications of the higher price tag, if it’s a reach for your family.
You will certainly never have to look down st your shoes when someone asks you where you went to school. Cornell especially well known, with NU nearly so
I never experienced anyone looking down at students in the contract colleges at Cornell. There is a lot of fluidity between colleges in terms of courses and most of the time you don’t even know your peer’s home college. In my early STEM courses we had students from Ag, Arts, Eng, and Hum Ec. A Cornell degree is a Cornell degree. Period.
And as noted above, Cornell is intense. Regardless of college.
“Why would you go to a back-door school at Cornell (ranked at No. 16) that gives out guaranteed transfers to many many NYS average high school students who do not have the stats to get into Cornell as a freshman when you have admission to a top 10 university (Northwestern) that is considerably more selective and more desirable.”
I’m assuming you went to NU or have strong connections there because every NU thread you post on the greatness that is Northwestern, which is totally fine. But you don’t have to disparage the other schools in question, which you also do every time. As privatebanker posted, the elitism is not indicative of NU students whom I’ve met, and I know a quite a few. And here’s the ironic thing, your posts would not get someone on the fence to go with NU.
IMO, these kind of comments would make me not want to go to NU
We had a student with a similar attitude doing part of the admission presentation when we toured NU. Total turn off and D didn’t even bother applying. (There were other reasons as well but that was a big part of it).
I was thinking the exact same thing. If that’s the kind of students/grads that they turn out…
StanfordGSB’s last par is pure rubbish (except for the part about NU being on a lake and a beautiful setting, a train ride from downtown).
My 2 cents:
Decide what you want to learn, and where you’d rather live for 3 (or whatever) years.
If you are fairly certain that the Hum Ec curriculum, including available out-of-college credits and Hum Ec distribution requirements, really meets your interests, you might want to pick that. All other things being equal.
Otherwise, suggest do Arts & sciences college and do a public policy program for grad school, if you still want that then.
Hum Ec has a specialized curriculum and even with liberal out-of-college allowances (which probably have been partly used up already due to transferring in) it is not identically the same as an Arts & Sciences curriculum. On the other hand an arts & sciences curriculum away from Cornell probably won’t have the same depth of upper level policy classes that interest you. (Though you should check that).
A few other opinions you may consider, all less important than curriculum:
- Based on reports from D1s alum friends who went there, Northwestern is probably not any easier than Cornell, academically.
-IIRC Northwestern is on a different academic calendar system that you may have feelings about.
-If all the allegations of #7 are correct, access to IB or consulting jobs would not not be easier to get from Northwestern, they would be harder, because everyone there you are competing with for those jobs is smarter. .
-In reality things are not so simple. Or weren’t, at least, at my department at my firm, in antiquity.
.We had no “quota” to take from any school. We took the best people we could get across all the target schools as a whole, period. These people were not “average” for many of their schools, they were exceptional. But IIRC our Midwest hires (eg Northwesten, U Chicago)were mostly targeted for our Chicago office - I lived in Chicago ( not the Chicago suburbs, but Chicago) and Ithaca, and I loved them both. For college, I would prefer Ithaca. . And for college I would not want to live in a suburb like where many students grew up. YMMV
- While A&S has a lot of majors to choose from, you won’t have a heck of a lot of time to make that choice, coming in as a transfer student, would you?
Nevertheless, in your case, based on what you’ve said I’d be leaning Northwestern. But you may not have said everything you feel just perfectly, so …
I think everyone is misinterpreting my response. Cornell HumEc is a great school but so are UMichigan, Emory, UVA and CMU. No one is disputing that statement. However, when you are objectively comparing one school to another, it is possible to make objective statements because Cornell Hum Ec and Northwestern A&S are in DIFFERENT tiers. This is an objective statement that can be substantiated by real numbers. Northwestern A&S has an SAT average that is close to 1480 - 1,500 and Cornell Hum Ec is closer to 1350-1370. Northwestern’s A&S acceptance rate is closer to 6-8% total and Cornell Hum Ec is closer to 20-25%. The average student from Northwestern A&S is more “accomplished” on paper. This doesn’t mean Cornell Hum Ec is not great but it means that NU A&S is superior by the numbers. For $5,000 more per year, NU A&S is a better return on investment. My logic is similar to comparing cars. If you were going to compare Mercedes with Aston Martin, I think it is safe to say both are great car companies but that Aston Martin is the ‘more prestigious’ brand. Same thing with watches. Breitling and Rolex. Both are luxury timepieces but Rolex on the average is superior to Breitling. I have tremendous respect for both Cornell and Northwestern. I did not attend either one but am very familiar with both schools through friends, colleagues and relatives. For the sake of anonymity, I can say though I went to Stanford for my MBA and worked in finance at the highest levels (bulge bracket investment banking and large-cap PE). I have unique insight based on my experiences in prestige-oriented industries (on both the west coast and east cost) and can confidently state that my opinions are my own but they are similar to many people I hold in very high regard. And @markieff - be careful what you read online. Half of the posters above who are criticizing my response are either Cornell loyalists (alumni or parents of alumni), disgruntled NU bashers (parents whose children did not accepted) or just high school students. Look at their older posts. And lastly, if you told me that another school like Columbia or Penn was in the mix here, I would likely encourage you to go to one of those over Northwestern (and definitely over Cornell). My opinion is not due to loyalty to NU - I am just being a realist. Good luck with 2 great options. You cannot go wrong but Northwestern is the better option in my opinion.
@StanfordGSB00 If you did not attend NU then why do you respond to so many NU-related posts, and even started NU Class of 2023 threads on NU’s CC page?
Our relative who went to NU was hired to the IB’s Chicago office. She had to wait a few years before she could transfer to their NY office.
Cornell doesn’t release breakdowns of scores by college so that data is way out of date.
OP, you don’t have a wrong choice here. You will be successful whichever school you decide to attend.
@StanfordGSB00: I can’t say I agree with your use of figures. Without supporting sources, they simply seem to represent nothing more than your opinion in quasi numerical form.
@StanfordGSB00 comments are filled with inaccuracies. First, according to parchment.com of the students that were deciding between Northwestern and Cornell - 53 percent choose Cornell. Both are choices a reasonable student would make, but more choose Cornell so you would be in good company. Second, those numbers from hum ec are wildly inaccurate. these numbers are not generally published but are likely at least 100 points higher for their current SAT averages. Cornell is one university with some majors stronger then others like every other school including Northwestern. Every school is extremely competitive to get in. I know one girl who got rejected at Cornell ED and is now attending Northwestern and I know another that had exactly the opposite result. GT students at Cornell are not “community college” students. They were generally excellent high school with top SAT scores and grades. The reason they were not offered freshmen admission is usually that their activities or essays weren’t quite as strong as those who were granted admission freshmen year. The undergraduate Policy Analysis program at Cornell is excellent. I don’t know much about Northwestern’s program. And while certain Cornell schools offer NYS students a discount, it doesn’t have anything to do with the SUNY system. And just my 2 cents - you have your whole life to live in the suburbs, why not spend 4 years in an amazing college town??