<p>According to the Cornell website, there are about 13,500 undergrads on campus:</p>
<p>[Cornell</a> University - Facts about Cornell - Statistics](<a href=“University Factbook - Institutional Research & Planning”>University Factbook - Institutional Research & Planning)</p>
<p>Chicago now, through recent expansion, has about 5000 undergrads. So Chicago is about 36-37% the size of Cornell. </p>
<p>I used to live not far from Ithaca, and visited numerous times. I agree wholeheartedly with tk89 - everything about Cornell just screams BIG. The frat scene is big, there are tons of D1 sports, all sorts of different schools (ag school, hotel school, lib arts college, ILR, etc.), big classes, etc. It’s a great school, but just totally different from Chicago. Some of my friends there felt a little anonymous and sort of just “in the crowd” at Cornell, whereas Chicago is just necessarily more of an intimate environment. Obviously, at Chicago, you won’t ever get thousands of people at a basketball game or an ice hockey game.</p>
<p>They are just two very, very different schools. As posters above have said, choose carefully.</p>