Cornell vs Bowdoin for a liberal arts education: which is better?

For the kind of liberal arts experience you described, Bowdoin is the more natural fit. Its whole academic model is built around small classes, close access to professors, and broad engagement across the humanities and social sciences, while Cornell can absolutely offer excellent liberal arts courses but does so inside a much larger research university structure. If discussion-heavy seminars, frequent professor interaction, and a campus culture centered on undergraduate teaching are your top priorities, Bowdoin lines up more directly with that vision.

Bowdoin tends to suit students who want most of their academic life to happen in intimate classroom settings. At a place like Bowdoin, seminar-style courses are not a side feature of the experience, they are the core of it, especially in fields like history, government, English, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology. Faculty relationships also tend to develop more naturally because undergraduates are the clear center of the institution, not one part of a much larger university ecosystem.

Cornell fits students who want a liberal arts education with the scale and resources of a major university. Its College of Arts and Sciences has serious depth in humanities and social sciences, and you may find more course variety, more specialized subfields, and more research infrastructure than at a small college. But the tradeoff is that your experience can vary more: some classes will be personal and discussion-based, especially at the upper level, while others may be larger and less intimate, particularly earlier on.

If what you mean by “stronger” is breadth plus university resources, Cornell has a compelling case. If what you mean is the purest version of a close-knit, discussion-centered liberal arts education, Bowdoin is hard to beat. For your specific priorities, I would lean Bowdoin unless you also want the scale, academic sprawl, and research-university energy that Cornell brings.