<p>I got into Columbia SEAS and Duke Pratt (both for biomedical engineering). At Columbia, I was chosen to be a scholar, which is apparently a fairly selective and prestigious honor. Duke, however, has a higher rank for biomedical engineering. Any suggestions are appreciated (I'm a little torn) - I need to make my decision by Friday.</p>
<p>hi hawaiian, there are a lot of threads on this subject specifically, and a great dukey that keeps on popping up on our board to praise his bucolic north carolinian paradise. </p>
<p>but i’ll add some historical dimension to this.</p>
<p>5 years ago, if you were cross-admitted to duke and columbia, you would obviously chose pratt. this isn’t the case anymore, and it says a lot about where columbia seas has come, and its level of selectivity and the level of students who choose cu over pratt. </p>
<p>columbia used to lose almost every cross admit to mit, and now it doesn’t do as bad.</p>
<p>so here is the thought i hope to offer - the rankings are temporary, and are lagging indicators of progress. what is clear i would say is that columbia seas is being regarded by students your age as being as good if not better than pratt even for something that duke is really good at (biomed). </p>
<p>so let’s leave rankings aside, i would say. and select the community you would like. columbia is amazing, and i could speak forever about it, and why i think seas especially is worth attending even over the likes of mit, caltech and duke pratt. but i guess unless you have specific questions, i best not go on a rant here. i would caution though that you pay too much attention to rankings because the ‘facts on the ground’ suggest that columbia seas is just as well-regarded by kids applying with you (obviously they have a reason). and one day the rankings will affirm.</p>
<p>I have to agree with admissionsgeek. Pratt is great, but not good enough to cause you turn down Columbia. SEAS seems to be highly underestimated and is definitely the same caliber school as Pratt. It all comes down to the community. Can you see yourself as a Columbia student? Or do you want an environment that is like Duke? Columbia wins for me, but it all comes down to what is a better fit for you.</p>
<p>Columbia…</p>
<p>Maybe it’s different for biomedical, but overall duke doesn’t have a reputation as being an engineering powerhouse. For example, usnews ranks columbia seas at 18 and duke pratt at 33. And as mentioned above, seas is definitely on the rise. So that advantage will probably grow.</p>
<p>This is a lot about fit. OP, if you have specific questions feel free to PM me. I made this exact decision and couldn’t be happier at Duke :).</p>
<p>If you like small college town atmosphere, and you like basketball, go to Duke… if you like big city, and don’t care about basketball, go to Columbia… </p>
<p>Reputation-wise, Fu Foundation > Pratt.</p>
<p>Columbia in my opinion, but I won’t be making the choices.
But the atmospheres of the two schools are very different, Columbia is in the city and not very sports orientated whereas but Duke has a lot of Greek life (rather than going to NYC bars/landmarks to hang out at) and is an athletic school
Congratulations though, those are two great schools!</p>
<p>Its all about where you see yourself going. I havent visited Duke, but I have been to Columbia. As far as the campus goes, it is probably my favorite in-city school. It has all of the benefits of city life with a beautiful campus.</p>
<p>I feel like the college atmosphere is so different at the two schools that you should make your decision about something other than just the academic program. </p>
<p>If you would fit in well at Duke, then you probably will not fit in at Columbia, and vice versa. </p>
<p>Preppy/fratty to the max vs. Edgy/intellectual to the max</p>
<p>^ I wouldn’t say that they are mutually exclusive by any means. There are many “Duke” type kids who are very successful and happy at Columbia, and I’m sure Duke has intellectual kids who aren’t interested in sports who love it there for other reasons. I wouldn’t call Columbia “edgy/intellectual to the max” by any means - that’s more like UChicago. Columbia has tons of people who are not at the university only for the core curriculum and not merely for intellectual stimulation. People might come for prestige, for the entertainment and job opportunities in the city, for grad school placement, for a specific club that does well, for specific academic departments, cuz their parents went here and were part of a frat/sor, there are tons of independent and valid reasons to go to either school. But the schools do have different atmospheres and one should almost surely suit you better, even they both suit might you for different reasons, because they are very different schools.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are some minor areas of overlap, but in general Duke and Columbia are completely different schools. </p>
<p>UChicago and Columbia are pretty damn near similar schools. There is a slightly more academic focus there whereas we lean more preprofessional, but in so many areas we are alike. </p>
<p>Duke, insofar as I can tell, is similar in atmosphere to a state school, but will more academics going on behind the scenes.</p>
<p>@Fastfood
I’m not sure Columbia is that preprofessional (although anything short of Plato’s Academy is more preprofessional and less academic than Chicago!) Generally speaking, I’d say Columbia and Chicago and fairly similar schools except that Columbia is easier. Chicago is a very tough school, and the students tend to be very focused on academics, arguably to a fault. Columbia is highly academic, but the students have much more free time and are much more involved in social life, both on campus and (especially) in the city. Just to be clear, I’m not saying that Columbians are more social than academic, or that Columbia is a “traditional” college environment, merely that Columbians are more social and less academic than Chicagoans, and Columbia has more of a traditional college feel than Chicago. We’re still much more academic than, say, NYU and less “college-y” than Duke. But it’s all relative. We’re a lot like Chicago, but nowhere near as extreme.</p>
<p>I have no idea where you are getting that from… You don’t even go to school here yet…</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, you are wrong. Columbia is marginally more social, and less academically focused, but the difference is negligible when compared to the gap between Columbia and other peer institutions. To say that Columbia has “much more free time” is deluding yourself. Columbia piles it on you, and then asks for more. From what I hear, UChicago is about equal. </p>
<p>Columbia is also not more college-y than UChicago. If anything, Chicago has a better campus atmosphere because it is harder to get out into the city. A 15 min walk through a dangerous neighborhood + a 40 min train ride into Chicago a whole lot more daunting than a subway stop 1 min from any dorm. </p>
<p>just wait till you actually go to school to make comparisons. For that matter, neither of us should really be talking about Chicago.</p>
<p>No no no! Keep talking! LOL Help me decide!</p>
<p>UChicago vs. Columbia is a whole different beast. pm what you are thinking about, and i’ll give you my 2cents</p>
<p>fastfood, precisely, you can only offer what you hear, i have experience at both.</p>
<p>i’ve pm’d dlee about it. but i think the first thing to note is that uchicago’s campus life is weak, though perhaps changing with the new dorm south of campus. the dorms are otherwise scattered across hyde park, which is a suburban dusty wasteland after 9pm, so any pretense that there is more campus culture is incorrect. there are multiple subcultures that pervade campus, few intersecting outside of Reg A-Level.</p>
<p>the uni is changing though, but not quite as early as columbia did, and perhaps in a good 5-10 years we might talk about uchi in the same tongue with its concern for campus culture and unity, but it is not there yet. Zimmer has just gotten the wheels turning, but the disdain that many ugrads have for the school probably rivals what columbians were saying in the 80s and 90s. fun still dies here, profs are unflinching (and often very derisive) in their interactions with ugrads, and cooperation gives way to competition.</p>
<p>in the end columbia is a more collegial, open and cooperative environment, and that’s just the campus life. it is further more accessible, flexible and engaged with the city that surrounds it.</p>
<p>for most ivy-like students (not just smart, but ambitious and multidimensional in his/her interest - someone who wants more for him/herself than just a 9-5 job), columbia will be a better overall fit. granted there are a lot of other things - unitary intellectual desires, desire for a less social campus, or perhaps someone from the midwest who doesn’t want to leave home - that would make someone choose otherwise, i speak in general terms. ultimately to each his own.</p>
<p>^ Agreed, especially the last part</p>
<p>Fastfood - I think as a freshman you’ll find your peers caught up in intellectual debate and exercise for the heck of it, many with dreams of getting a phd. Then, with a combination of lucrative jobs available, getting tired of academia and becoming more rounded, you see many peers transition to being more pre-professional. There’s usually a point in soph / junior year when you ask yourself what the ■■■ you’re actually going to do to earn living. At this point many of your intellectual friends, will sell their souls to wall street, law firms, medical research, bar tending, publishing etc. As a senior I have seen that transition in a ton of my friends who now plan to go to law school / med-school / MBA / become an entrepreneur/ engineer / work in finance etc. These were the same people I would debate philosophy or religion or literature with until 4am freshman year. </p>
<p>Columbia is definitely an intellectual school, but there are huge numbers of people who are (even if secretly) pre-professional. I know a few really smart, well respected and well-liked anti-intellectual people at Columbia, who do not have the patience for useless theoretical discussion. I also don’t think that being pre-professional and intellectual are mutually exclusive, only in the extreme they are - I consider myself decently intellectual and now very pre-professional. U Chicago (for example) is definitely less pre-professional than Columbia. The least pre-professional schools are LACs like Reed and Bard, where almost everyone is just around to learn for the sake of learning.</p>
<p>The Life Sciences table at [PHD</a> PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]PHD”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College) suggests that Columbia does well at undergrad prep is this area.</p>
<p>:)</p>