<p>Silly, narcissistic exercise. The colleges mentioned have no “fearful downsides” and absolutely nothing to “loathe” or “fear”. </p>
<p>If the OP is offered admission at ANY of those colleges, he should be pleased and excited. If he has the opportunity to choose between two (or more) of them and the handful of other peer colleges, he can consider potential dislikes, which will be minor in the grand scheme of things but are a valid way to choose among otherwise equivalent choices. But most of the downsides mentioned in the post are just misinformed high school sour-grapes folklore. Only two of them seem, from my experience, to have any glimmer of reflection in reality: Cornell (and Penn) has a more active greek community than most of the others, and some Harvard students make themselves feel anxious comparing themselves to classmates and Harvard alums. BFD.</p>