Don't transfer to Cornell if you want to be a chemistry major or anything related to science

No bearing? Because in some classes a textbook might be required, but the student never uses it. At another school the same textbook might be required and they use it a lot. Those are the two extremes, but there’s also a bit of middle ground.

Even in the high school where I work, how much a textbook is used depends upon the teacher and what they choose to use from it.

There have been classes my middle son has had where the prof came in telling students that a lot of what they are going to learn is too new for textbooks. Does that make it a bad class?

No bearing - pro or con.