Hey guys, I have to make a pretty tough decision between UC Berkeley and Cornell (received likely letter) for chemical engineering. I’m from CA and have been to UC Berkeley for 2 summers already, and always visit whenever I get the chance to. Never been on Cornell’s campus before but I will visit in April. Probably only thing I don’t like about Cornell is the weather. Other than that, I welcome a change of location and Ithaca’s scenery.
What I’m mainly concerned about is graduate school placement, research and other opportunities available for chem engineering, and individual attention. I know both aren’t small schools, but I’m very turned off by UCB’s large class sizes + the impersonal atmosphere on campus. I feel as though I won’t get as much support at UC Berkeley for chem engineering? Is that true? 
Also, does anyone know how the class environment is at both of these schools? Competition? Grade deflation? Quality of the professors?
I really hope to graduate with a high enough GPA with excellent exposure opportunities to get into a top grad school in chem engineering.
Thanks for all help in advance!
Oh and FA does not really matter for me because Cornell’s FA seems to be promising for me while I wouldn’t have much FA support for Berkeley even as an in state student.
Well, don’t count your likely letters before they produce actual admission and financial aid offers.
Here is UCB’s most recent career survey result for chemical engineering:
https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/Survey/2015ChemEngr.pdf
Other years and majors:
https://career.berkeley.edu/Survey/Survey
For Cornell’s most recent career survey result for chemical engineering:
https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/resources/career_services/students/statistics/upload/2014-Chemical-Biomolecular-Engineering.pdf
Other years and majors:
https://www.engineering.cornell.edu/resources/career_services/students/statistics/postgrad_reports.cfm
Class sizes can be looked up on the on-line class schedules at each school.
My D (now a ChemE freshman) faced similar question last year when researching schools and decided Cornell was a better choice than UCB due to the smaller size. Berkeley would be great choice for grad school.
Chemical engineering is in the private part of Cornell.
As far as size goes, it looks like the number of undergraduate students in chemical engineering at Berkeley is about one and a half times the number at Cornell, based on the career survey numbers for chemical engineering graduates.
Would the smaller size at Cornell prepare me better for grad school placement then? I was looking at their 2014 reports and found some hopeful signs 
Also, does anyone know how great Cornell’s chemical engineering is? I don’t know much about their department compared to Uc Berkeley.
Check here: profiles.asee.org. The profiles are prepared by the American Society of Engineering Education. It’s basically a common data set for engineering schools only. Note things like ratio of faculty to students, undergrad to grad, total research expenditures, etc.