<p>I'm a junior in high school, and I'm unsure of exactly what I want to do in college. I was deciding between business and premed (I suppose I CAN do both, but I'm hoping to chose by the time I apply). I know Columbia has no finance major, but instead, the business program is set up like a "pre-business" program. How is this comparable to Wharton? Also, which school is better for premed? If i go engineering+premed (which I am considering), which school would be better for me?</p>
<p>Sorry if this question (or variations of it) has been asked before.</p>
<p>1) philly is pretty great place, but more of a small town in comparison to NYC as the big city. it has art, culture, good places, but it is more provincial.</p>
<p>2) Wharton doesn’t have a finance major either. it is an incredibly intense economic major (is the best way to put it), so certainly you can do that. at CU you can do financial engineering which in terms of coursework (especially with the entrepreneurship minor) most closely appropriates the Wharton life.</p>
<p>3) both are great for premed, no one is better than the other.</p>
<p>4) both schools have great engineering programs that are fine for premed.</p>
<p>ultimately your questions don’t really make it clear what is the difference between one. a few things to think about.</p>
<p>columbia’s ugrad body is smaller and with easy access to nyc. it is more independent and diverse in terms of student body. penn is a bit more uniform in its fratasticness (not making fun, just being honest) and far more centered in its neighborhood than columbia is.</p>
<p>i think columbia is probably one of the best educational experiences out there, with a very boutique (350 a class) engineering school that will give you a close family environment.</p>
<p>ultimately you can’t fail. if you have more questions re: columbia, please ask.</p>
<p>Penn is better for premed and business, but columbia is better for engineering. You’ll probably get a better liberal arts education at Columbia, but at Penn, you’ll focus more on your major. While Columbia has a fairly strong economics program that will provide you with several job opportunities, it does not have an undergraduate business program. In terms of city life, Philly is pretty nice for the most part, but it doesnt have the same energy of NYC. NYC is just on another level. Morningside Heights is also MUCH nicer than the neighborhood Penn is in.</p>
<p>rray665, I really encourage you to keep an open mind about what you may want to focus on in college. As a high school junior, you have a lot of time to figure it out (more than three years). It strikes me that pre-med and business have little in common, except a desire on the part of the declarant to make a lot of money. I suggest that you enter college without pre-conceived notions of a career path, and instead follow your true academic interests.</p>
<p>“2) Wharton doesn’t have a finance major either. it is an incredibly intense economic major (is the best way to put it), so certainly you can do that. at CU you can do financial engineering which in terms of coursework (especially with the entrepreneurship minor) most closely appropriates the Wharton life.”</p>
<p>Can you go into more depth about the business programs at CU? I still have a bunch of blank spaces when I try to describe it to my friends, parents, ect. Thank you for the info on the premed and engineering+premed.</p>
<p>How much of an impact is the location on landing internships? I’d think that Columbia would be able to get the better positions for business in NYC, but is that something to make a big deal about when comparing?</p>
<p>^Columbia (wisely) has no business program. Virtually all undergraduate Columbia students hired on Wall Street are liberal arts and engineering students.</p>
<p>there is no business program at columbia, though the engineering school has an entrepreneurship minor geered toward students who might want to start a company. through this minor you take a number of business courses.</p>
<p>as i also mentioned, columbia has an economics major in the liberal arts school that is very rigorous and can be enhanced if you do something like econ-math, econ-stat double major.</p>
<p>in the engineering school there is a department of industrial engineering and operations research that works considerably with optimization theory and numbers to figure out best outcomes and things of that nature. one of the subdisciplines of the department is financial engineering that really looks into taking engineering concepts and applying it to the financial and capital world. </p>
<p>so i can’t tell you what internship life is at Penn, my guess is the Wharton name does well to attract folks. but to be frank, the offerings in Philly do not compare in number or diversity of NYC. and more than likely you would end up doing your summer work in new york or another business capital. so certainly wharton and penn in general will help you for the summer.</p>
<p>so that brings to what i can talk about - internships are pretty off the map at columbia, you can do any and every internship you could imagine and work your way up nicely. i know a guy who started working for a management consulting firm when he was a sophomore and probably has set himself if not for a career with them, but at the very list a pretty resume that he can show elsewhere. practically this means you can start trying out things the moment you get on campus and really get out there.</p>
<p>i think though that each school has advantages in this arena so i wouldn’t make internship availability the reason to go to one school or another.</p>
<p>but certainly location - NYC v. Philly is a good reason to choose one or the other. the more sprawling campus of Penn v. the more compact campus of Columbia. the tony nature of Morningside Heights (who would’ve thought 25 years ago you could called MoHeights tony) v. the grittier West Philly. in the end most folks denote the biggest difference between the school to be cultural - Penn is known primarily for its social life, Columbia i would say is primarily known for its intellectual life. visit both and you’ll figure out which one feels more like home.</p>
<p>Small correction adgeek - the degree which Wharton grants is a B.S. in Economics. Students can major/concentrate in finance, accounting, management, statistics etc.</p>
<p>You can also do Econ-OR in the college, though I’ve no idea why that is so highly touted while EMS is bashed. EMS, in terms of the required classes alone, is far more rigorous than Econ-OR.</p>
<p>They’re both pretty good. As comprehensive universities, both can make a compelling case for being “best Ivy after HYP.” I think it’s not just a question of NYC vs Philly (as NYC would win on just about every count save for “number of Liberty Bells,” and I say this as a Philly guy).</p>
<p>It’s a question of whether you want a campus-centric or city-centric social life…how much of a community you want at college.</p>
<p>Between its smaller campus (by undergrad numbers as well as sheer acreage) and its (much) bigger and more alluring city, Columbia doesn’t have as much of a “wooo! college!” scene as Penn does. Depending on you, this is either big advantage Penn, or big advantage Columbia.</p>
<p>You went to Penn, if you are implying Columbia lacks community, you have no basis for this comment other than stereotypes for urban schools that you find on college confidential. </p>
<p>standard argument is: bigger and better the city, worse the campus community, as if there must be some trade off, when there isn’t. Just because NYC is a better city than Philly, doesn’t mean penn has more community than Columbia. Penn has better athletics and more rah-rah school spirit, but Columbia has a pretty strong community. Columbia has a separate standalone campus, and stereotypes of people running off campus into the city are applicable to NYU not Columbia. Ask anyone, they all go out into the city infrequently (say once a week) and when they do it’s with college friends, so it really isn’t a city centric social life by any means. Columbia is a small campus by area, the density of undergraduates and thus your friends is very high, so having a vibrant tight knit community around you is easy. At most other NYC schools, the city has to be your campus.</p>
<p>adgeek has misunderstood nomenclature for practical reality. At wharton you get a “BS in economics” but it not an econ major by any means. It is much more akin to an MBA than an economics major in a liberal arts college. They should just call it a bachelors in business administration, but then wharton comes off as vocational school. so you get your “BS in economics”. In practice you concentrate in finance/marketing/entrepreneurship/accounting/management/other, and you effectively get a bachelor’s degree in finance/marketing/entrepreneurship/accounting/management/other.</p>
<p>Wharton places slightly better than Columbia for wall street jobs (summer and fulltime). Columbia students have the advantage of a) location means it’s easier for more companies to recruit on campus b) they can do round the year internships at finance/business/other firms in the city. Columbia probably places as well as UPenn CAS for wall street positions, some will argue slightly better, but I won’t here.</p>
<p>Upenn and Columbia are actually very similar schools, and actually attract somewhat similar students. But there are real differences, like Penn is more pre-professional and columbia is more “intellectual”. But you will find a huge array of mind numbing, idealistic intellectuals at penn, and a huge array of d-bag, I want to be investment banker / corporate lawyer kids at Columbia.</p>
<p>concoll, i took a look at the requirements again - i still think reads as econ heavy, though it talks a lot about not trying to be all about theory, but more about application. i kind of don’t buy that and i think there is plenty of emphasis on application at columbia econ. </p>
<p>your business concentration is just 4 courses. sure you could do more, but that is the essential nature of it. so i wouldn’t overvalue this aspect of it. (and this is of course above the fact all students take basic accounting, finance and management courses.) i think hardly enough for one to say they got a BS in Marketing. and even in the subdisciplines a lot of the course descriptions talk about the importance of a solid theory and quant background. i wouldn’t say i misunderstood it, i just have my own skeptical interpretation. </p>
<p>and it was not long ago that columbia offered a BS in Economics. i reckon it was probably similar to wharton’s.</p>