How should I compare Cornell and Pomona for a liberal arts education?

The central tradeoff is scale versus intimacy: Cornell offers far more courses, research infrastructure, and disciplinary niches, while Pomona makes close faculty contact and small-class discussion the default experience. At Cornell, a liberal arts student in the College of Arts and Sciences can explore across a major research university, including humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and selected courses in its professional schools. At Pomona, the small undergraduate community and seminar-oriented teaching create a more consistently personal academic setting.

Cornell can be excellent for exploration when you have a clear interest that may become specialized or interdisciplinary. Its breadth is especially valuable for combining fields, pursuing language study, accessing archives or labs, and taking advanced courses that a small college may not offer every year. Faculty mentorship is available, particularly through office hours, research, and departmental involvement, but students need to take more initiative in a larger environment where introductory classes can be substantial.

Pomona’s curriculum is broad, and the Claremont Colleges consortium substantially expands it: Pomona students can take courses and participate in programs across the other undergraduate colleges. That gives you many of the benefits of a larger academic ecosystem while retaining a small-college home base. Professors are more likely to know students early, teach introductory courses themselves, and involve undergraduates directly in discussion and research.

For the priorities you named, Pomona is the more natural fit. It is designed around broad undergraduate exploration and sustained faculty interaction from the start. Cornell becomes the stronger option if the particular range of its departments, research opportunities, or university-level resources excites you enough that you would welcome a more self-directed and less intimate daily academic experience.