<p>I've heard that Columbia is significantly more demanding academically that Ivies/Stanford. Is this true?</p>
<p>no. not significantly. they are all on par (with some a bit tougher, others a bit easier - but not by a lot despite our exaggerations on this board). i think columbia is pretty demanding. i really enjoyed it and learned a lot. there is a lot of reading or pset work, but the grading is pretty fair. i’d say columbia (along with cornell and princeton) are on the more demanding end, with the later two usually considered the toughest).</p>
<p>In my neck of the woods, Columbia has that reputation. At one of my Columbia son’s various high school graduation parties last spring, I was chatting with another dad (Harvard alum, father of a Harvard first-year who is one of my son’s pals), who said: “Does your son know what he’s getting into at Columbia?” Of course, I asked him what he meant. He explained that when he was at Harvard, and in his many years since as an active alum, “everyone” says that Columbia undergrads have a much more difficult workload than their Ivy League peers. Whether its true, who knows?</p>
<p>Ahh is there any merit to this? If Columbia is harder than Harvard-- what does that say about Columbia?</p>
<p>I am used to a rigorous courseload, but there is always that fear of how you will stack up against the best students in the world.</p>
<p>there are a couple harvard grads at columbia that would reiterate that adage (the hardest thing about harvard is getting in), harvard does have a sense of it not quite being as rigorous as it reputation offers. but let’s be fair, the kids are still smart, they aren’t necessarily whipped, but most students don’t need the whipping. </p>
<p>nw, you’ll do just fine at columbia, and one of the most important things you’ll learn is you can’t do it alone - you need friends to study with, professors to like you and sympathize, and administrators to help you bend the rules. at which point columbia is more than manageable (read concoll’s posting in the Down to the Wire thread).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about it, NWdivisionCHAMPS. My son also had a “rigorous courseload” in high school (7 APs senior year), but truly enjoyed the more demanding work of his first semester. He couldn’t be happier, even though he got two A-s and a B+ (God forbid!).</p>
<p>83% is the graduation rate for Columbia…So,that means it’s pretty fair?!
Idk…lol</p>
<p>98.5% retention rate, the second highest of the ivies after 98.8 of yale.</p>
<p>95% 6 yr graduation rate - which is pretty much on par with its peers.</p>
<p>Most students accepted to Columbia would surely do fine/graduate … or else they wouldn’t have been accepted in the first place. I suppose it would be hard to compare the course load at Columbia with that of the other Ivies.</p>
<p>The only reason that Columbia would be “harder” than other schools is because of the core, most places have students taking about 4.5 courses on average, where 6 is uncommon. At columbia the average is probably 5 a semester, 6 classes is pretty common, and I know several who regularly do 7 a semester. The core doesn’t really deter ambitious people from pursuing their double/triple majors, so it pushes up the competition. The grading is about average relative to its peers, so overall I’d say Columbia is not as intense at U Chicago, but definitely not as easy as Brown.</p>
<p>That being said, certain majors like sociology, most “____ - studies” majors allow students to breeze. In fact as a seas student, I’ll be pretentious and say that most Columbia College majors would be easy :p.</p>
<p>Is taking 6 classes/semester that common at CC? I know it’s pretty common in SEAS, but I thought most in CC just took 5 classes/semester unless they were doing pre-med.</p>
<p>if you add PE 
yes.</p>
<p>i think concoll said it is not a stretch to see someone do 6, and that at one point in your time at columbia you may indeed do 6. i did it twice, but had enough APs and things that i didn’t actually need to do it all that often. </p>
<p>but i knew many folks who did 7.</p>
<p>How many hours of weekly work would 5 (or 6) courses entail?</p>
<p>I never heard columbia was academically harder than the other ivies especially hyp. I think columbia doesn’t have as much prestige and name as the others which makes me automatically assume academically not on par. But you honestly never know unless someone transfers from one school to the other. and even that would give you a skewed result since the certain classes and years tend to be harder.</p>
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<p>This is a horrible assumption, prestige and name recognition does not make a university more or less academically rigorous. I’d contend that University of Chicago undergrad is tougher than Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Columbia. Caltech is easily the most academically challenging school in the coutry, by a long shot. </p>
<p>Columbia first years are very nearly as qualified as HYP first years (think acceptance rate, SAT scores, % of students in the top 10% of HS class), and then pushes them to take more classes and doesn’t have the same grade inflation as Yale or Harvard. Grade deflation lowers grades for everyone, but doesn’t lower standards to make it to wall street/med school/law school, so it pushes people to compete more vigorously. Ask people at princeton how they have felt over the last couple of years, it’s more stressful for everyone who’s grades are being deflated.</p>
<p>Princeton probably inflates grades less than Columbia and so I contend that Princeton is probably more academically challenging, but it’s not a stretch to say Columbia is more challenging than H, Y.</p>
<p>A student has to average 5 classes per semester in order to graduate. Which translates to Columbia students taking more classes than students at peer institutions. </p>
<p>My insight into this question comes from friends who went to the best high schools in the nation and their friends at other top colleges. So these people have a common basis for comparison - high school. The consensus is that Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, and Harvard are easier than Columbia. Princeton is about equivalent. I don’t know about Penn or Cornell. Difficultly is all relative, they are all Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>The Core is probably the biggest contributor to the difficulty. Core classes have some of the most reading any class will require.</p>
<p>Agh I’m not a very good reader -_- is there a lot of history req classes in columbia?</p>
<p>@NW
To graduate Columbia College, you need a certain number of credits and you have to fulfill the Core and the requirements of a major or concentration. The Core requires LitHum, Contemp Civ, Frontiers, Uni Writing, ArtHum, MusicHum, 4 semesters of a foreign language (but you can place out of this), 2 science courses, 2 global core (i.e. non-Western cultures) classes, phys ed., and the swimming test. Major requirements, as you’d expect, vary by major. As long as you’re not majoring in history or the social sciences, though, I don’t think you’ll be required to take any history courses outside the Core.</p>
<p>I think Columbia is pretty much mid-pack with the other Ivies in difficulty. No harder, no easier.</p>
<p>I wasn’t saying that prestige or name WILL make a school more difficult academically ,but that people assume so!!! ( people like me who don’t know much about columbia!!) Just like people think Harvard is the best school in the nation just because of its prestige when really the best school is the best fit for an individual. Columbia may be harder or easier honestly why does it matter besides core curriculum which people may not like. If you want to go to columbia you should obviously be willing to put in the extra effort to work harder. Its not like " oh! I heard columbia is harder than the others, I won’t apply there anymore"</p>