<p>I don’t think you can completely generalize about either college. I believe that the University of Chicago attracts a high proportion of learning-for-learning’s-sake students because of its reputation, and because it’s not just reputation, there’s substance behind it. But I’m sure there are plenty of students at Chicago who are there for the prestige and for a leg up on the next stage of their brilliant careers. Cornell’s undergraduate programs are, collectively, more than twice the size of Chicago’s, and Cornell pulls in a very wide range of students, including many who may be brilliant students and great human being but who wouldn’t even think about applying to Chicago because it wouldn’t meet their needs (e.g., people who know they want to be engineers, architects, veterinarians, farmers, hotel managers, union organizers, etc.). Does Cornell have pre-professional grade grubbers? Sure. Is that all it has? Of course not.</p>
<p>I have a really high opinion of Chicago; it’s one of the great universities of the world. But so is Cornell, without question. It has many, many students who are thrilled to be there and to have a chance to learn there, and many, many students who get turned on to the excitement of high-level learning while they are there. Chicago’s commitment to intellectualism may be a point in its favor (or not) for any particular student, but any comparison to Cornell isn’t a question of night and day. It’s really a question of a place with one dominant (but not universal) style, vs. a place where there are all sorts of different attitudes and styles.</p>