<p>I see Cornell, Penn, and Northwestern as fundamentally very similar, albeit with important differences that distinguish them. What’s similar is that they are all first-rate private universities (although some individual schools at Cornell are government-supported), somewhat larger than their peers (i.e., 10,000 - 12,000 undergraduates, whereas most of the other elite private universities are more in the vicinity of 5,000-7,000). In general, they are seen as just shy of the very top institutions in the country, and they get very high-achieving, ambitious students, some of whom may have extra motivation because they feel disappointed at not having been chosen by one of the tiny number of schools at the highest prestige level. They all have a strong arts-and-sciences core, but all have multiple focused schools (Communications, Business, Nursing, Engineering, Journalism, etc., and at Cornell Agriculture) outside the mainstream academic core. Because of that, they have a lot of diversity among their students, and also their overall spirit tends to be more practical and career-focused than that of the other colleges with which they compete. All of them have strong fraternities and sororities that dominate social life to some extent, but that are not necessarily as narrow-minded as such institutions are elsewhere.</p>
<p>What’s different among them: Penn is smack in the middle of a largish city (walking distance from my office). Northwestern is on the edge of a very large city, part of its transportation grid. Cornell is in the middle of nowhere, a lovely college town on a large lake in a beautiful region known for summer cottages and vineyards. Cornell and Penn attract lots of students from the New York City area; Northwestern is more of the Midwest. Northwestern is part of a big-deal athletic conference; semi-professional college sports are a bigger deal there. Cornell has somewhat more economic diversity among its students (a lower percentage of very affluent students), and somewhat less geographic diversity (more weighted to the New York region).</p>
<p>Virginia is almost exactly like those colleges, too, and the same size, except that it is a public university in Virginia, so it has a lot more Virginians (many of whom come from the Washington, D.C., area, and so are not really southerners, but many of whom ARE really southerners, which is to say probably more conservative, more religious, and somewhat less cosmopolitan). Virginia (and Michigan, too) has a greater range of abilities among its students, and much more economic diversity than the private universities, but it has lots of first-rate students, and Virginia especially (more than Michigan) has an air of affluence and privilege. Virginia is in a lovely college town in the mountains, but feels less isolated than Cornell. </p>
<p>Michigan and Virginia are two of the strongest American public universities, especially Michigan, whose faculty is on a par with the very top universities in the world. Michigan is much larger than the other colleges you mention, with a lot more diversity of student abilities and economic circumstances. It is in a small, somewhat depressed city not far from Detroit, a much larger, very depressed city. Like Northwestern, it has a Midwestern character, although it attracts plenty of students from the Northeast (not so much, I think, from other regions). Michigan has a more democratic, less elite feel than the other colleges on your list, and will almost certainly be the most politically to the left.</p>
<p>College sports at Michigan and Virginia are very big-time, professional. (Michigan and Northwestern are in the same athletic league, but Michigan tends to care more about its teams winning.) Fraternities and sororities are important at both, although lots of students choose not to belong to them and live perfectly happy lives.</p>
<p>Emory is a smaller private university at the edge of Atlanta, a prosperous, cosmopolitan Southern city. It attracts a fairly national, mainly affluent student body; I think people in Georgia view it as a school for Northerners. In terms of general academic reputation, it is probably a quarter-step below the other colleges you mention, but not more than that. Very much a place full of talented, ambitious, achieving students, and part of the cohort of strong regional American private universities (along with Northwestern) that have benefited from the inability of the traditional Northeastern elite universities to satisfy demand. I have a young cousin who just graduated from there. He grew up in Paris, and went to high school at Exeter, an ultraprestigious, competitive boarding school; his father is an international lawyer, and his grandfather was a famous economist. He was deeply disappointed not to have been accepted at Harvard (where his father and grandfather went to college) or Stanford (his mother’s college and father’s law school). But he thoroughly enjoyed his time at Emory, learned a ton, and has been doing really exciting things since then (working with NGOs in Madagascar and Vienna). One of my partners’ granddaughters also just graduated from Emory, and has a very desirable job in finance in New York City. </p>
<p>I may be wrong, but I think of Emory as being less a collection of disparate schools and more focused on a traditional arts-and-sciences curriculum than any of the other colleges on your list. Sports and fraternities, etc., I think are less important at Emory than at any of the others as well.</p>
<p>Students at Penn, especially, and Emory, and Northwestern maybe to a little less extent, spend a lot of time off campus in the city, doing the things one does in a big city. At the other colleges, everything really revolves around the campus, and the university itself is by far the most important institution in the area and generates most of the excitement, jobs, and cultural life.</p>