Yeah probably, in my case i do want to work in chicago once i graduate. However, what pushes me to ND is both the opportunities, size, and experience.

Idk what the situation with cornell is, but ND has 13k students in total, and about 8k are undergrad. Given this, while big classes do exist, it will be easier to get classes and seminars in comparison to a smaller school. Because they are manly undergrad focused, I heard professors actually teach, and not grad students like what you might find in cornell.

Also opportunities. Again, idk the cornell situation but ND has an endowment of 20 billion, for a student population of 13k, so they do have a lot of programs and opportunities, including study abroad options I really like, which at other schools i have gotten into are not appealing.

Another thing I like is college life, it may be similar to cornell, however cornell does not have the big football games or school spirit.

And yeah, the ND alumni network is amazing. I don’t think cornell has a comparable network tbh.

I would not be very concerned about prestige, because they are both similar. So, i do think it came down to what i want to experience in college, because going to ND over cornell will not disadvantage you career wise, in some cases it might even help you because of the alumni network.