Another thing you might want to consider is the physical location of each school. When my son was visiting schools he too, as well as his mom and I, loved the Cornell campus, more so than College Park. Unfortunately, Ithaca is not the easiest place to drive to or fly into making travel to and from the university, particularly in the winter and/or around holiday times quite difficult. Although he was accepted into the COE at both Maryland and Cornell, he chose to attend another BigTen university (GoBlue) (graduated last week) because it just felt right to him. Cornell and Maryland are both excellent schools and as Maryversity said, it’s entirely up to the student to fully take advantage of everything each university offers