<p>I've generally found that the most intelligent people at SEAS and the most intelligent at the College are very different. Everyone else is pretty much the same: hardworking and capable, but not really "intellectual."</p>
<p>You have to take into account the 100 alumni children and the URMs.</p>
<p>I agree with you Beachpanda.</p>
<p>Personally I get a bit annoyed when people think that the College is the center of the universe.</p>
<p>Seriously. Everyone is the same. We all had the same admissions people look at us, our stats are the same, everything is the same except for ONE thing: the number of applicants.</p>
<p>So what if you had to beat out 50 more unqualified applicants who had no shot at all in the first place? They applied just for the hell of it.</p>
<p>Anyway... Columbia UNIVERSITY's massive prestige is not at all due to the little undergraduate liberal arts College or even the tinier undergraduate engineering school. It's from the medical center, the graduate schools, the law school, the brilliant scientific departments... </p>
<p>How could a handful of undergrads add to a University's prestige at all?</p>
<p>Most actual students at Columbia don't even think in this way. Thank god. If anyone starts with the percentage nonsense, you can count on me to fire right back with every conceivable line about basket-weaving.</p>
<p>Well said, thomaschau.</p>
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[QUOTE]
I don't really care too much about what other people think, but I am a little worried about what employers and grad schools (especially med schools) think of Fu. I heard they basically ignore the distinction and may even consider the biomedical engineering B.S. attained at Fu, far more impressive than a biology bachleors attained at College.
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<p>Don't worry.</p>
<p>Anything with "engineering" in the name is more impressive. Not that it is any better than biology, it's just that it is more rigorous. (longer hours, more quantitative, tougher requirements, etc) This is also the case with chemistry/chemical engineering.</p>
<p>Nobody in the university or in industry care at all that the undergraduate school at CU has two divisions.</p>
<p>yeah.. i see what you mean.. i just heard from two friends at Harvard and Dartmouth that ppl they know who are attending Fu said it's not up to Columbia College's standards...</p>
<p>Princetonwannabe: Ironically, Fu's SAT scores average are substantially higher than the College.</p>
<p>claridge, a couple posts on this board has disscussed the relation between columbia addmission and SAT scores and came up with the conclusion that SAT isnt really a big factor in addmisstion decisions. that and columbia college is more of a art school, and they would accpet talented artists that dont have the high sat scores ( not to mention science schools generally have a higher SAT than art schools) so SAT isnt a very good standard measure for columbia.</p>
<p>with that said, I think columbia SEAS is every bit as good as college, and people who think SEAS as inferior to college is just being arrogant.</p>
<p>princetonwannabe: please, please, please stop looking at it like that. You're the worst kind of Ivy applicant; you're prestige-obsessed and applying to the Ivies for prestige and only prestige.</p>
<p>Grow up.</p>
<p>i never said what i thought about SEAS.. all i said was i heard from two friends who are attending American schools.. they told me what they thought of SEAS... I never even made a statement regarding SEAS, i asked a couple of questions and quoted my friends who i thought were more qualified than i am on judging US schools...</p>
<p>and actually, i think everyone applies to Ivy for prestige... if you really care about your education, why not go to an LAC or a state school, where my friend is consider going to over Caltech as they use the same textbooks and the profs give undergrads much more attention... prestige is only one factor, but definitely not the most important one... and if i were only going for prestige, i would have applied to Harvard EA, as everyone knows that Harvard has the best name... relax.</p>
<p>i don't see how princetonwannabe insulted the quality of seas, nor the prestige, that's not even his opinion... lets stop "flaming" and just enjoy the sancitity that is cc... haha</p>
<p>as a matter of fact, i applied to SEAS and am actually considering attending it over Dartmouth and Penn if i get into all three.. :)</p>
<p>Birdofprey - that you coin a term "ivy applicant" and consider princetonwannabe to be a member of a subdivision of that group is interesting. Is there a difference between an "ivy applicant" and one who applies to Ivy league schools? If so, can there be a "good" "ivy applicant?"</p>
<p>Most people who apply to top schools are prestige obsessed. As long as they're also intelligent and care about the education, who cares? You're fooling yourself if you're thinking that prestige isn't an important part of the college selection process.</p>
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[quote]
You're the worst kind of Ivy applicant
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<p>That is what I said, and yes, it implies that there are other types of Ivy applicants: the people that apply to a school they would have applied to anyway, even if it wasn't a member of the Ivy league.</p>
<p>This is what I was responding to:</p>
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[quote]
when people talk about oh, i go to Columbia.. don't they usually mean the college?? and isn't the seas given a complete different name like Fu school of Engineering or something?? and does it say Columbia on your degree or Fu school? it seems like two totally separate schools to me but with the same campus...
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<p>I guess I'll give you a chance to explain why you asked that question and made that remark before I say anything else.</p>
<p>And here's the prestige thing, cujoe:</p>
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and i think the prestige of Columbia refers to the college, not the engineering school.
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<p>The financial engineering program blurs the line between college and engineering, so people who are in that program rock.</p>
<p>Columbia engineering is more self-selective than college - people apply to the college on a whim much more often than they would apply to engineering on a whim.</p>
<p>"Columbia engineering is more self-selective than college - people apply to the college on a whim much more often than they would apply to engineering on a whim."</p>
<p>Yeah, I would agree with thethoughtprocess on that one but isnt the reason Columbia College gets more of these impulsive applicants because of publicity/fame? And isnt that publicity/fame sometimes fueled by prestige? Its a cycle, vicious or not.</p>
<p>Again, Im not asking for flame, just some good-old intellectual feedback.</p>
<p>BTW, thethoughtprocess, dont you mean Industrial Engineering? Im really considering that program.</p>
<p>I think Columbia College gets more impulsive applicants because of publicity/fame (that is indirectly fueled by prestige), only because not too many of those type of people really want to be engineers or are even interested in engineering.</p>
<p>Once again, I doubt that many people that are obsessed with prestige really want to be engineers. They plan to be lawyers, doctors, CEOs, businessmen...forgetting the fact that quite of few of those people have engineering backgrounds. I think people obsessed or overly-concerned with prestige really just want money, and engineering is not exactly the safest field to bet on to become "rich." Untrue as that way of thinking is...They think the "prestige" of a Columbia diploma on their wall will automatically set their entire future and lead to that job with a 500k per year salary with a good-looking wife, a Ferrari, a dog, 2.3 kids, and a white picket fence in Beverly Hills...So, who cares what they study? They just want to pick an easy major like...physical education or something and get a Columbia degree.</p>
<p>Of course there are PLENTY of College applicants that are TOTALLY not like that. I just think there are probably a LOT more applicants that ARE like that to College than SEAS.</p>
<p>I think it's pretty safe to say that people that really want to be engineers or have an engineering background would consider Columbia SEAS pretty darn prestigious. That's part of the reason I'm going there, after all. :)</p>
<p>That's just my opinion though...</p>
<p>I wanna go to SEAS because Spiderman will be my classmate.</p>
<p>On another note...</p>
<p>Personally, I think this entire argument that SEAS is "worse" than College was created by College applicants(both accepted and rejected)/students/alumni to make themselves feel better about themselves...to make them think/feel that they are any better than a select group of people than they actually are. A product of all man's innate pride...</p>
<p>The fact is, most people don't even make a distinction! Columbia is Columbia. You get the same connections, the same education, the same cafeteria food, the same awesome opportunities for the future. Most people don't even know or care that it's a semi-separate school...</p>
<p>And with that...it's not separate because it's any more or less prestigious. Columbia College and SEAS were made distinct only because they have different requirements for graduation and credits. College students have to take more CORE classes, while SEAS students have to take more engineering classes (which are probably a lot more work...which is why they have to take less CORE classes).</p>
<p>^--- Yes</p>
<p>The two were originally ONE school until they were split into Liberal Arts and Engineering. They are the same school in everything but curricula and requirements. A bit of history, from the Dean Galil himself:</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Following the Revolutionary War, the newly renamed Columbia counted among its faculty professors of natural history, chemistry, agriculture, botany, mathematics and natural philosophy. The youths instructed in its halls went on to great achievements in building the great crucible that was 19th century America. John Stevens, Class of 1768, was instrumental in establishing U.S. patent law and created the first American-built steamboat engine. His son, John Cox Stevens, Class of 1803, built the worlds first steam ferry, which crossed the Hudson to Hoboken in 1810. Horatio Allen, Class of 1823, operated the first full-size steam locomotive in the U.S.</p>
<p>In 1864, our School was established as a separate entity within Columbiathe School of Mines. Despite its name, the Schools remit encompassed all of the sciences as well as the study of architecture. In less than 20 years, it enrolled more undergraduates than did the rest of the College. The School of Mines also spearheaded graduate education at Columbia, granting the Universitys first Ph.D. diploma in 1875.</p>
<p>With the move to the Morningside campus in 1898, architecture and the various sciences formed separate schools. This development tracked the course of scientific advancement in the last century, which saw scientists and engineers concentrating their efforts in increasingly narrow
disciplines.</p>
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