<p>Stanford and Cornell both have student bodies that are among the best in the US, both are medium-large sized schools, both have extremely strong academics especially in the sciences and engineering fields and both have large grad programs for PhD's and professional schools for students to take advantage of such as law, business, and medicine. Dartmouth lacks most of these. </p>
<p>Stanford is closer to Cornell in everything except this "chilled out" student body people talk about. Cornell is more "work hard play harder" type of attitude ... big efforts bring even better rewards come weekend time. Besides, Cornell students are usually too involved in activities outside of academics to be "chilled out" all of the time. </p>
<p>Also, it's not a good idea to go through an education at Cornell without collaborating with people. Students realize this and the result is a highly cooperative environment of students who typically work together. I've never had a page missing from a library book when I've needed to do research, and neither has anybody i've ever met on campus. This is just a false stereotype of Cornell students, but rest assured it is far from the truth. Though, based on all of my friends at the other ivy's, Cornell is certainly up there on the "students work hard" ladder. </p>
<p>So, if you're looking for this "chilled out" atmosphere as the only criterion for selecting other colleges, then maybe look at Dartmouth and Brown. If you're looking for a school where the academic offerings for both undergraduate and graduate (grad. is usually important for research opportunities) are similar, then look at Cornell.</p>