How do Purdue and Cornell compare in admissions difficulty overall?

Cornell is tougher to get into overall. It draws a broader national and international applicant pool, includes several highly selective undergraduate colleges, and is viewed as a reach for many very strong applicants across a wide range of majors. Purdue is also competitive, especially in programs like engineering, computer science, nursing, and flight, but overall admission is less difficult than Cornell’s.

The clearest difference is the level of competition in the typical applicant pool. Cornell gets many applicants with top grades, rigorous coursework, and strong extracurriculars who are also applying to other highly selective private universities.

Purdue is more uneven by major. In other words, Purdue can be very hard in certain areas, but Cornell is harder in the overall, school-wide sense you are asking about.

For building a realistic list, most students should think of Cornell as a higher-difficulty admission target than Purdue. Purdue often sits in a middle space where it can be realistic for strong applicants, but some of its most popular programs behave much more like reaches. If your main interest is engineering or CS, the gap narrows somewhat, but Cornell still tends to be the more difficult admit overall.