<p>That means the admit rate may go down to around 10% or lower this year.</p>
<p>Yipes!!!!!</p>
<p>guess i'm not going to college</p>
<p>It's really getting ridiculous. It's hard enough to make these major decisions about 17 year old kids based on an essay, some test scores, a couple letters, etc.</p>
<p>those apps will apparently start going down in the next few years, but i'm not sure i believe it.</p>
<p>I think Columbia has the resources to compete for the top talent with HYPS, most notably leveraging the advantages of NYC over new haven, cambridge, jersey, and palo alto (although the latter less so). it's brought us jeff sachs and a bunch of other professors. i'm not sure what the next step is in terms of getting the national recognition that HYPS have. More than 500 miles from new york, not a lot of people have even HEARD of columbia - or know that it's a top institution.</p>
<p>Maybe we just need better PR people.</p>
<p>Oh, excellent.</p>
<p>Some say that the applications are only going to keep increasing. Oy...</p>
<p>I bet a lot of high school students applying to college frequent this forum. It would be nice to have an official college rep. from Columbia admissions on this forum, like the UPenn forum. Columbia will probably benefit more from this than sending brochures to students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
i'm not sure what the next step is in terms of getting the national recognition that HYPS have. More than 500 miles from new york, not a lot of people have even HEARD of columbia - or know that it's a top institution.</p>
<p>Maybe we just need better PR people.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>For one, S doesn't have even close to the recognition of HYP, particularly outside of California. Only in CA do people think of S as "the Harvard of the west."</p>
<p>You're not going to change laypeoples' perception of Columbia. I know Meadow Soprano goes to Columbia, but there are a tons of movies about Harvard and plenty about Princeton (I'm not sure how many Yale has). And look how much attention politicians get for going to HYP. Columbia just doesn't get enough "buzz" for the masses to pick up on it.</p>
<p>The sad fact is that your average layman thinks that Notre Dame is a better school than Columbia and pretty much all the non-HYP Ivies. (Time Mag did this a few years ago.) Hiring guys like Jeff Sachs isn't going to change this stuff.</p>
<p>Yeah, Obama is a graduate from Columbia but that's pretty much all I've heard about the school in politics. Even then, his undergraduate study at Columbia was quickly pushed aside to emphasize his Law training at Harvard.</p>
<p>What Karot? lol.</p>
<p>Try...</p>
<p>Madeleine Albright
Eisenhower
Gov Pataki
Gov Kean
FD Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt</p>
<p>off the top of my head...</p>
<p>Can you name the last president that attended Harvard undergrad? yale's had a brilliant streak the past few years- but believe me, that was all luck. Look at the top nominees for '08. Clinton- Wellesley, Obama- Columbia, the others largely less known schools (relatively of course). I think it's a safe bet the next president of the UNited States didn't graduate from harvard, yale, or princeton.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Clinton- Wellesley, Obama- Columbia, the others largely less known schools (relatively of course). I think it's a safe bet the next president of the UNited States didn't graduate from harvard, yale, or princeton.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Everyone associates the two Clintons with Yale. That's where they met, etc. I'd bet that the masses do not know that she went to Wellsley ugrad and he went to G'town ugrad. Same thing with Obama; all you hear about is his attendance of Harvard law school.</p>
<p>Pfff, What about FDR? What has he done for me lately :P.</p>
<p>
[quote]
For one, S doesn't have even close to the recognition of HYP, particularly outside of California. Only in CA do people think of S as "the Harvard of the west."
...
The sad fact is that your average layman thinks that Notre Dame is a better school than Columbia and pretty much all the non-HYP Ivies. (Time Mag did this a few years ago.) Hiring guys like Jeff Sachs isn't going to change this stuff.
[/quote]
Well, your job market tends to disagree with such things, but that isn't the point. The point is, to the extent that that IS true, how can Columbia go about changing it? I suppose that's a marketing question posed to a forum not exactly qualified as a bunch of marketers, but it's at least the natural follow-up to this news.</p>
<p>I mean, great, applications are up. Yup. It's tough to get in. Sure. But when and by what means can that translate to nationwide prestige?</p>
<p>SPIDERMAN went to columbia :-p</p>
<p>
[quote]
i'm not sure what the next step is in terms of getting the national recognition that HYPS have. More than 500 miles from new york, not a lot of people have even HEARD of columbia - or know that it's a top institution.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's really just an issue in the US interior. Abroad, Columbia has a fantastic reputation. Same on the West Coast. In, say, Indiana, football counts more toward a university's reputation than the number of Nobel Prizes; I'm not sure why such places should be worried about. </p>
<p>Anyway, residential colleges and a large endowment boost might help boost Columbia's reputation a little more, if necessary.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Madeleine Albright
Eisenhower
Gov Pataki
Gov Kean
FD Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Eh, none of these went to Columbia undergrad...neither Roosevelt actually graduated, and Eisenhower didn't attend Columbia, he only served as president (and a mostly absentee one at that). </p>
<p>For the record, here are the most significant living US political figures to have graduated CC-</p>
<p>-Harold Brown (1945), U.S. Secretary of Defense and president of the California Institute of Technology
-Morton Halperin (1958), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department, and member of Richard Nixon's Enemies List
-Dick Morris (1967), political strategist and advisor to President Bill Clinton and Mexican President Felipe Calderon
-Judd Gregg (1969), United States Senator from New Hampshire; Governor of New Hampshire; United States Congressman
-Jerrold Nadler (1969), United States Congressman from New York
-Dov Zakheim (1970), advisor to the US Presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush
-David Paterson (1977), first African American Lieutenant Governor of New York
-Christopher Dell (1978), career diplomat; current US ambassador to Zimbabwe
-Jim McGreevey (1978), Governor of New Jersey
-James Rubin (1982), State Department official under the administration of US President Bill Clinton; spokesman for the presidential campaigns of Wesley Clark and John Kerry; Sky News anchorman
-George Stephanopoulos (1982), senior advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration and ABC News personality
-Barack Obama (1983), United States Senator from Illinois
-Eric Garcetti (1992), member of the Los Angeles City Council</p>
<p>lol whoops-</p>
<p>Yea i wish Columbia had Residential Colleges like Yale or Princeton. In fact, I would've applied early to Yale if not the fact that there's tuition benefits @ Columbia. But still, though the ideal of Residential Colleges @ Columbia seems alluring, I really don't see how that's possible in New York City. Where are you going to build these things?</p>
<p>But prestige or no prestige, I think Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia are close "enough" in Prestige that it's nothing a little hard work won't make up for. Of course, I could be wrong. You think there are just some things HYP grads will have access to that Columbia grads will never achieve? (Rhodes scholarships come to mind...lol).</p>
<p>
[quote]
Well, your job market tends to disagree with such things, but that isn't the point. The point is, to the extent that that IS true, how can Columbia go about changing it? I suppose that's a marketing question posed to a forum not exactly qualified as a bunch of marketers, but it's at least the natural follow-up to this news.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think the types of employers who hire Ivy league students perceive HYP as any different than Columbia. Laymen don't know Columbia and Columbia doesn't have laymen's prestige, but you're not in a worse position for any job having gone to Columbia rather than HYP.</p>
<p>How does Columbia change things, to the extent I'm wrong and you're right? It's a long-term process. You can't just hire some consultants to rewrite your brochures. I really think it's the alumni network and cohesiveness that's the main issue, and you need to change a generation's worth of alumni into caring about Columbia such that they'll look out for their own in the way that HYP alumni do.</p>
<p>In order for Columbia to gain laymen prestige, we need to see a US President, Bill Gates, or Einstein equivalent to graduate from Columbia. The average Joe doesn't know or care about the senators, governors, secretaries, congressmen, ambassadors, advisors, and other mumble jumble positions.</p>
<p>If that were true, prestige would have rained down on Georgetown after Clinton was elected. Nixon attended some no-name LAC in California that remains no-name. </p>
<p>A bigger part of the problem is that Columbia can't really look or act the part of one of those universities. It'll always be a bit too urban for some tastes, always a bit too leftist for others. Its name will never be as distinctive, its traditions never as unifying, its architecture never give off the same vibe.</p>
<p>That's very well put. I couldn't have said it better.</p>