<p>Specifically if you're looking at studying economics?</p>
<p>Chicago. Hands down.</p>
<p>Chicago! no question</p>
<p>Chicago (10char)</p>
<p>which one is harder to get into, in your opinion?</p>
<p>Chicago's strength in economics needs no clarification. Columbia's department is a relatively new patchwork quilt of superb quality enticed to the school from places like Princeton, Northwestern, Harvard, Stanford, etc. with lures of New York, the promise of something new and exciting, and, of course, money.</p>
<p>With quality this deep and broad at both institutions, I'd suggest you focus instead on which school fits best, feels best.</p>
<p>Columbia is harder to get into, but much of that is due to the self-selective nature of UChicago applicants.</p>
<p>But both are notable for having excellent economics programs (at the undergrad level you'd be hard-pressed to notice any appreciable difference), a rigorous and laudable Western-centric Core curriculum, and a location in a major American city.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for the posts. I've been leaning more and more towards Chicago (I'm going up there next week). Both are great schools, but my time is very limited.</p>
<p>What's your objective? If its to work at a think tank I'd say Chicago. If you want to get a phd, they're going to be equal. If you want a finance job, Columbia is better. Frankly in my experience Ive seen that almost every Ivy is better than Chicago at finance job placement (HYP, Dartmouth, and Columbia are better, brown/ cornell its arguable). </p>
<p>Honestly though, choose for fit. Chicago tends to be a love it or hate it place so make sure you love it.</p>
<p>Econ = Chicago, maybe...
I prefer Columbia in general b/c you can't match nueva york for business-related majors</p>
<p>Columbia is significantly more political than Chicago as well which is a plus for my D but might be a detriment to others.</p>
<p>Morningside Heights is slightly more urban than Hyde Park. Again a matter of preference.</p>
<p>What appeals to you about Columbia might not appeal to you about Chicago, and vice versa. Chicago is much more a hermetic liberal arts school (in the vein of Swarthmore, Reed, St. John's College, etc.) than most other superelite schools, and there's not much in the way of pre-professionalism... Chicago students go to school together because they want a rigorous liberal arts education, not because they all want prestigious jobs.</p>
<p>You're visiting the school, though, so you'll see for yourself.</p>
<p>"Columbia is significantly more political than Chicago as well which is a plus for my D but might be a detriment to others.</p>
<p>Morningside Heights is slightly more urban than Hyde Park. Again a matter of preference."</p>
<p>Not really (about political...morningside, yes)</p>
<p>Um, Chicago is hands-down the best school 4 econ in the world.<br>
So in which case Chicago>columbia</p>
<p>i think columbia polisci>chicago</p>
<p>and just about everything else Chicago=columbia, except prestige, columbia has the upper hand cause it's an ivy</p>
<p>Ilovebagels,
"Columbia is harder to get into, but much of that is due to the self-selective nature of UChicago applicants."</p>
<p>I don't understand what this means? I suppose people self-select for any school they apply to? There might be people who don't apply to Columbia because it is in NYC, while there are some who apply there because it is. I guess I am saying that this argument doesn't carry any weight.</p>
<p>I think ilovebagels is pointing towards the disparity of admissions rates between Columbia (which is about 10%) and the University of Chicago (which is about 40%). If one looks at rough indicators of student strength (like SAT score midranges, percent of students in top 10% of class, etc.) Chicago and Columbia appear much more similar than the disparity in admissions rates would suggest.</p>
<p>There are a lot of reasons why Chicago has half of the applicants of Columbia. The primary difference, I think, is two-fold: 1) Columbia carries the Ivy League brand name with it, while Chicago is a "University of" school, and 2) Columbia offers and advertises to students the urban experience more directly than UChicago. The Ivy League status and the fact that Columbia is more of an urban school than Chicago (and considering that Chicago is, after all, the second city!) pushes more students towards Columbia than the U. of C.</p>
<p>(Note: when I say "urban," I mean that Columbia students make use of the city more often than Chicago students. Though it's as far from Morningside Heights to Times Square as it is from Hyde Park to the Loop, anecdotal evidence on both the Columbia and Chicago fronts suggests that New York City is a feature of Columbia life, while for a Chicago student, the city is an asset to the experience, but not a feature of it).</p>
<p>There are probably other differences: the U. of C., until very recently, had more in common with a school like Reed or St. John's College than it did with other elite universities, owing to the legacy of R.M. Hutchins and others who were only concerned with the University in an academic sense. I think we still maintain a good deal of that intellectual aloofness, but I don't think it's scaring away as many people as it used to-- if anything, it's drawing more students to the school. Though both Columbia and Chicago turn off students who don't want to fulfill a core and don't want to be in a city, my impression is that Columbia students seem overall more "professionally motivated" and more "connected to reality" than Chicago students.</p>
<p>Also, Chicago actively discourages applications from students who are not serious about attending. It does not accept the common app. Its application - the "Uncommon Application" - has a bunch of wacky prompts essay prompts submitted by current Chicago students. [url=<a href="http://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/level3.asp?id=376%5DHere%5B/url">http://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/level3.asp?id=376]Here[/url</a>] is a list of the current essay topics, as well as those from previous years. "Write an essay somehow inspired by superhuge mustard" is a bit different than the usual personal statement, enough to deter many applicants that might have applied if the essay topics were more standard.</p>