There are competitive students and cut-throat students everywhere. And certainly, at Cornell you cannot make any generalizations. There are seven different undergraduate schools/colleges, each with a different feel. I went to Cornell (way back when) and visited WashU on a college visit. I think Cornell is way more diverse in every way. WashU seems like a bastion of affluence. It was very “manicured.” Almost too much perfection for my tastes. Cornell has a certain wholesomeness to it that I didn’t see at a lot of the other colleges we visited.