<p>^It’s quite funny how some colleges fare against others on that list (colby, washington and lee, boston college, emory, union college, and such schools all above columbia, cornell, and upenn? really?) That list is simply made to favor smaller schools.
I do agree that Williams and Amherst are always among the top liberal arts schools though. However, as I objectively said, choosing between two top schools of very large sizes and very good reputations is more of a personal preference thing.</p>
<p>@Eph
Like i said, those rankings you pulled up earlier really doesn’t show much. Cornell stresses its breadth and the students go for many different majors because they are given the opportunity to. I, for example, am not looking to do investment banking on wallstreet or any of those 14 grad schools in 3 fields. They’ve just wasted a spot on me according to that ranking methodology. If you really want to do objective rankings for THOSE fields, then count the number of people in those fields instead of including everyone else who isn’t interested, get a larger sample, and include more than just 3-4 top grad schools per field. There was a reason that those rankings never made it big.</p>
<p>As for endowment, we constantly USE the endowment for new buildings and such. We are in process of completing one and refurbishing one right now, and they’re finding ways to give more financial aid to the needy with that money. We have quite a lot of buildings because of the number of departments - <a href=“http://www.cornell.edu/img/maps/large.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cornell.edu/img/maps/large.pdf</a></p>