<p>I'm an incoming SEAS student and will be buying a MacBook Pro before school starts in the fall and was wondering how much the discount is. I don't have my UNI yet so I can't check. Anyone bought a laptop through the Columbia's Apple Store? Here's a link explaining it:</p>
<p>Computer</a> Sales @ Columbia</p>
<p>Thanks guys and stoked for next year!</p>
<p>what is the difference between institutional and personal? does institutional mean buying in bulk?</p>
<p>Just my two cents…</p>
<p>Macs are awesome. I had one. Tons of people have them. But one caveat… they are GROSSLY OVERPRICED. For example, the Macbook Pro costs now around 1500-1800…</p>
<p>If you buy a Dell/Sony Vaio, for 1500 you can get a pretty insanely awesome laptop that will do basically whatever you can possibly want.</p>
<p>Dell and Sony both also have discounts through Columbia. If you have money, by all means go for the MB, but otherwise… there’re much better alternatives.</p>
<p>Institutional means you’re buying for your school.</p>
<p>If you just go onto the regular Apple education store, its the same discounts as what Columbia offers.</p>
<p>thanks guys, finally got an email back from Columbia’s Apple rep clarifying it…Those with a valid Columbia ID actually get an extra $100 off over and above the normal Apple Education Discount</p>
<p>And for all you Mac haters, i’ll be triple-booting XP, Linux, and OS X, something your cheaper Sony Vaio can’t do… 
not for everyone, but as a programmer, that environment has been ideal. all that and a computer with some major sex appeal, even if ya have to pay a bit extra! Haha</p>
<p>Multi-booting is nice and all, but I wouldn’t really call it “ideal.” I’ve had my Mac for a while now and rebooting just to launch another OS is pretty time consuming. I’d consider running Parallels or VMWare as opposed to installing different OS’s… it doesn’t forcefully fragment your HD into unchangeable partitions (you can change the HD space each OS takes up in parallels, i believe) and if your computer is powerful enough, switching between OS’s takes just a few seconds.</p>