The original "Public Ivy," Cornell is both one of New York's state schools and a member of the Ivy League. Cornell is set apart from its fellow Ivy League schools by its relative competence in fields besides arts and crafts, such as engineering and jumping into gorges.
History[]
Cornell was founded in 1864 by some rich guy named Ezra Cornell, along with funding from the state of New York that established Cornell's position as the "Public Ivy." Despite being a state school and being decent at engineering, it was somehow admitted into the Ivy League in the early 1950's, and often viewed as the laughingstock of the Ivy league.