<p>It sounds like you made up your mind. There are some mild differences between the places in terms of student culture, but Northwestern and Cornell are more similar than not. The biggest difference is the trade-off between Ithaca and Chicago.</p>
<p>There will be a fair amount of work associated with any engineering program, Northwestern or Cornell, and as long as you have a fairly strong work ethic, Cornell shouldn’t pose a problem for you. Every engineer I know was more than able to balance their workload with a whole bunch of extracurriculars – club sports, a capella groups, research opportunities, etc. Cornell wouldn’t accept you if they didn’t think you could do the work.</p>
<p>One of the reasons why some engineering students choose Cornell over a place like CMU or MIT is because they like the fact that Cornell offers a much more well-rounded undergraduate experience.</p>