<p>I got into all those three schools (the college for both Columbia and UPenn)</p>
<p>and I was offered the Rabi Scholars program from Columbia, and a similar program from UPenn</p>
<p>I'm planning on majoring in physics and economics</p>
<p>and I cannot decide which school to go</p>
<p>help me out guys, I welcome all kinds of advice</p>
<p>Chicago is slightly stronger than Penn and Columbia in both Economics and Physics; however, if Columbia offers significantly better financial aid than Chicago, I’d probably opt for Columbia (all else equal).</p>
<p>They are all pretty much in the top 10 in each category. Chicago is #1 in Econ, but as HST, said Id go to Penn or Columbia if they offered more aid and/or wasnt completely sure about majoring in Econ.</p>
<p>At the undergraduate level, the differences between these schools in the fields of econ and physics will be negligible. Graduate would be a different story (econ would be Chicago > Penn > Columbia, and physics probably with P and Col reversed), but I digress…</p>
<p>The difference should be what you want by ways of an academic curriculum (Columbia and Chicago both have cores while Penn has distribution requirements, and there are pluses and minuses to both)</p>
<p>And most importantly, by what kind of on-campus social life you want. Penn has the strongest on-campus community and “rah rah”-type school spirit of the three, whereas Columbia offers the better city of NYC, but at the expense of building as strong an on-campus community. Chicago by legend is “where fun goes to die” but that is rumored to be changing.</p>
<p>I would personally go with one of the Ivies, but you can’t really go wrong with any of them</p>
<p>FYI, these “scholars” programs offer me a better research opportunities,</p>
<p>not like scholarships which grant financial aid.</p>
<p>i personally have an affinity for the scholarly and academic reputations of chicago and columbia. that said, chicago is world renown for both its econ and physics departments.</p>
<p>^ Penn’s scholarly and academic reputation is comparable to Columbia’s. Both have had the same or similar Peer Assessment scores in US News for several years now, and Penn has as many top-10 and top-20 liberal arts departments as Columbia. For example, with respect to the OP’s interests, Penn’s Economics department is generally ranked in the top 10, slightly above Columbia’s, and Penn’s Physics department is generally ranked in the top 20, slightly below Columbia’s.</p>
<p>Just butting in for a moment, but how do you find rankings for particular majors at the different schools, especially current rankings? So how do I find the top 10 schools for the xyz major? Thanks. Please resume your regular broadcast now.</p>
<p>^ There are no widely-respected rankings of undergraduate liberal arts majors, per se, but rankings of graduate programs are generally used as proxies. For most majors, the same faculty–and at many top schools even the same courses–will be available to undergrads, especially once they reach the more advanced courses in their majors. Two graduate rankings often cited here on CC are the highly-regarded National Research Council (NRC) rankings from the 1990s (now quite dated, but still useful for a rough idea of where individual programs fall):</p>
<p>[NRC</a> Rankings in Each of 41 Areas](<a href=“http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41.html]NRC”>NRC Rankings in Each of 41 Areas)</p>
<p>and the US News rankings of graduate programs (again, for a rough idea of the range in which specific programs fall):</p>
<p>[Best</a> Graduate School Rankings - US News Rankings](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/sections/rankings/index.html]Best”>http://www.usnews.com/sections/rankings/index.html)</p>
<p>^Thanks</p>
<p>10 char</p>
<p>Does the quality of grad programs have something to do with that of the undergrads?</p>