<p>In “reality,” or in YOUR reality? In reality it was ranked number 4, ahead of Stanford and MIT. Maybe the rankers know more than we do. Maybe not. But in THEIR magazine – as opposed to YOUR magazine – Columbia is ranked number 4.</p>
<p>Does anyone actually think those rankings are accurate?</p>
<p>Does anyone not in high school really care anymore?</p>
<p>Right, the knowledge that one is fourth-rate eventually sinks into the pit of one’s stomach and rises up to push against one’s throat, like a bilious acid, only when one encounters an HYP alumnus.</p>
<p>Then, feelings of shame and worthlessness cloud one’s head, like a bad dream. What can one do, but nod and smile in resignation toward one’s station in life?</p>
<p>“Columbia, actually.”</p>
<p>Keep telling yourself the old lie: rankings don’t matter.</p>
<p>Rankings DON’T matter… I’m sorry, kwu, but how old are you and what experience do you have? That scenario has NEVER taken place. When I meet someone from Yale or Princeton, I don’t feel inferior at all. Why would I? I know I work hard and I know they do, too. We are all peers. It’s people like you who are disgusting and shallow that give ivy league students a bad name. You may be that big headed, but we aren’t.</p>
<p>They do to kwu because his school must be slipping. Applications must have dropped. Admissions rates must have increased. He suffers from severe status anxiety, otherwise he would be smoking that pipe in the wood-paneled study of his university club oblivious to the changes in relative rankings, and secure that they don’t matter. They matter to him. Or he wouldn’t post here, on the forum of a school whose increased selectivity, public profile and ranking are to him the end of his in-bred, exclusive little world. Sad. Sad. </p>
<p>The schools are equal, and this kwu resents. When I was in graduate school at Harvard – one of kwu’s mythical “three” – I can attest that Columbia was considered a peer, and an equal of Harvard, simply with different strengths.</p>
<p>HYP is an acronym used only by 15 year old wannabes and trolls. Nobody at Columbia, MIT, Duke, and other peers use it. No one in the real (adult) world uses it. Ironically, actual “HYP” affiliates don’t use it either.</p>
<p>Future VP, if that was meant for me, I am not going to argue with you about having used HYP, since that is the lingua franca of CC. And, actually, on the H board, H’ers have been known to say “H.” Frankly it is useful shorthand. Really, I am not the enemy here and since I do have a higher degree from the school I referenced I guess I can refer to it in any way that I feel comfortable. It was not necessary for you to attack me, when I am not the one attacking Columbia – to which I have a family connection.</p>
<p>
Brilliantly said! All of the top 12-15 private schools are held in high regard and its really the “wannabe” elite like the UCLA and Michigan ■■■■■■ on this site that try to drive a wedge between HYPS and Columbia/Penn/Duke/whatever. It’s pathetic really.</p>
<p>swingtime- no that wasn’t targeted towards you, or any particular person. I understand these acronyms are for organization, but some people just take it way too far. Likewise, US News rankings are for organizational purposes. Too many people see them like college football, where only the top two matter, when they should be looking at them like college basketball.</p>
<p>FutureVP, of course I agree with you on this point. I am not only mystified but am DEEPLY troubled by the obsession with these three schools ON THIS WEBSITE. It is actually pathetic, and in NO WAY reflects academic or professional opinions. There is something a little pernicious about CC, in all honesty, because it validates in so many ways this really unhealthy, totally skewed perspective on American higher education.</p>
<p>And, as for some of the people who go to the forums of schools with which they have NO ASSOCIATION WHATSOEVER simply to trash the schools? This is also extremely disturbing and, I seriously mean this, pathological behavior. It is not normal to do this. I am speaking of creatures such as kwu and a fellow who was, I believe, banned several months ago, for his hurtful, dishonest, pernicious comments about Columbia, made at a time when earnest kids were so excited about their opportunities. There is a kind of sickness about this behavior, because these are adults essentially trolling high school-oriented sites to make kids feel badly about their opportunties. And they do it because for them it is FUN! These persons are not well, simple as that. I know they aren’t well, and yet it is hard NOT to get angry and defensive because, as we have seen with a poster in another related thread on the Columbia forum, this nutty vileness has the destructive effect of making vulnerable kids doubt the value of their extraordinary educational options.</p>
<p>I have noticed a real destructive strain of commentary on the Columbia and Chicago forums of late from persons who are clearly threatened by the renewed popularity, and high rankings, of these two schools. It is a profound sense of status anxiety allied with a kind of mental unsteadiness that leads people to come to school sites to which they have no affiliation, simply to heap abuse. You have to be concerned about the emotional fitness of persons who feel compelled to do this on a high school site. I know I am. And it really makes coming to CC unnerving and uncomfortable. I have urged my little one – referenced elsewhere as someone THRILLED to be admitted to and attending Columbia this year – to stay away. I don’t want my little one being made to feel badly by nut cases over the great fortune to be admitted to and the great opportunity to be enrolled at Columbia.</p>
<p>If she is going to Columbia she won’t care what people on CC say about the school, she is clearly intellient enough to know those people are crazy, or just misguided. Don’t be afraid to let her onto CC, she could help people know the truths about Columbia!</p>
<p>PAGRoK, congratulations on Chicago, by the way. If that is where you are going, YOU WILL LOVE IT! With my Chicago degree I got into every graduate school to which I applied.</p>
<p>Thanks, I’m hoping I’ll love it too! I’m pretty certain! I’m glad UChicago enabled you great options for your grad degree! Sorry for bumping this everyone…</p>
<p>PAGRok, I think you’ll love Chicago. It seems a bit different than it was when I was a student in the mid - late 80s, as I hear it is a bit more “mainstream.” But you will get a phenomenal education and it will take you where ever you want to go! Pay no attention to what John Q. Public may or may not know about UChicago. Where it counts – in the academic and professional worlds – the degree is GOLDEN!</p>