<p>I CAN'T DECIDE! I plan to major in English, history, or journalism/communications. Any info/insight on these schools would be great... I know that they all have excellent programs in my areas of interest.</p>
<p>How much will each one cost you? Is cost an issue? What type of undergraduate environment would you prefer?</p>
<p>I can’t say about oberlin, but Cornell should be just as good as Berkeley for undergrad. The positives of Berkeley includes higher department (English) rank and is in California which has a better weather. You’ll be fine at either school though.</p>
<p>D1 went to Oberlin, D2 goes to Cornell.</p>
<p>Cornell and Oberlin are obviously very different environments. Oberlin is an LAC, it will offer much smaller classes and no grad student TAs. Plus it will have a more intimate social environment. Which is great if you find you fit in personally with the prevailing campus culture, but can be less than great if you don’t.</p>
<p>Cornell is a widely diverse university, it has an over 700 page course catalog. All sorts of people go there, not just one or a few types. This means you have more room to maneuver to find you best social niche, but then again you may have to maneuver to do so. Ithaca is beautiful and is a much better college town than Oberlin is. Getting bored, or disatisfied with what is available to you, is a lot more likely at Oberlin than at Cornell. Especially if you do not fit socially at Oberlin.</p>
<p>My impression is Cornell is a little tougher academically than Oberlin is. But that may be flawed, since it is based on my D1 who went to Oberlin and worked hard but not so hard, but she is brilliant.</p>
<p>There is a large cohort of left-of-liberal people at Oberlin, and if I understood my daughter correctly she felt this can impact the nature of discussion in certain history dept. courses to an extent. Later on she didn’t take certain courses for that reason. BTW she is quite liberal herself, and still felt this way. My reports are English courses are very good, both at Oberlin and Cornell.</p>
<p>IMO Cornell has more resources than Oberlin to help you get a job after you graduate. For one thing, hugely more recruiters actually come to campus there. Cornell has a huge array of courses, you will never get bored or stifled academcially there. And a huge array of extracurriculars.</p>
<p>I am not intimately familiar with Berkeley. It obviousy has much better winter weather, nobody could sanely argue otherwise. And it has outstanding graduate schools. There has been concern expressed on CC about class sizes, impact of California budget cuts, and ability to switch majors that you may want to investigate. Also from my brief visit it has a more urban, less college-centered feel to its environment. You might want to investigate relative living & social/entertainment costs, and degree of connectedness with the campus as focal point. There are advantages to a more urban experience that someone may prefer, ie more stuff one can do, but commonly the tradeoff is less sense of college community and high cost of these other activities in the urban environment. Whether this is the case at Berkeley I don’t know. But IMO one can reasonably prefer either type of environment.</p>
<p>To the best of my knowlege Oberlin does not offer journalism/ communications. Cornell has a communications major in the ag school, but IIRC the department is focused mostly on academic, psychology-related aspects. There are many extracurricular journalism opportunities there though. Many journalism careers have been launched from The Cornell Daily Sun. Oberlin also has some extracurricular opportunites, I imagine.</p>
<p>In summary, if you have visited and done overnights at Oberlin, thoroughly investigated and really feel feel you fit in really well and would love it there, you really prefer the intimate LAC atmosphere and small classes, Then by all means go with it. The key is, you have to be sure you really fit well there socially and temperamentally, and really, really strongly think you would prefer it. Otherwise, investigate those points I raised, and others, and pick according to your preferences.</p>
<p>Oberlin will give you the best undergrad experience a school can offer. Cornell and UC Berkley have the prestige, but if you actually want to learn and grown, then go to Oberlin.</p>
<p>for undergrad English, I’d vote for Oberlin. However, you really have come to grips with a small school, small town atmosphere… is it worth it?</p>
<p>-I’d pick Oberlin stricly on a broad, personal feedback intense academic experience in English
-I’d pick Berkeley for a vibrant college scene (town, sports and Ph.D. students), or if you want to focus on a narrow area of English early… hundreds of course offerings that truly cover the entire spectrum of research
-I’d pick Cornell only if you LOVE long cold winters. Did I mention LOOONNNGG and CCCOOOLLLDD?</p>
<p>If Berkeley is less expensive, that would cause me to favor it, so that you can save up a little for grad school. If they’re all relatively the same price, them my comments above hold.</p>
<p><a href=“National and Local Weather Radar, Daily Forecast, Hurricane and information from The Weather Channel and weather.com”>National and Local Weather Radar, Daily Forecast, Hurricane and information from The Weather Channel and weather.com, NY, US&sfld2=oberlin, OH&clocid1=USNY0717&clocid2=</p>
<p>Dunnin broke it down very well. Tough call though - I would be between Cornell and Cal - Oberlin is great but not quite the other two.</p>