<p>the OP most likely got off the waitlist at Columbia because submitting 2 deposits is highly unethical and can get your acceptance revoked</p>
<p>Lake, parental contributions aside, and your own urban preference, I’m not convinced that the field you wish to study offers the robust compensation required to incur substantial student undergrad debt.
If your vocation is truly a calling, you may find many opportunities that are “not about the money.” Well, those opportunities suddenly look like they have to be “about the money” when you’re toting around $40k or more in student debt. I realize you are accustomed to NYC pricing, but $40 k really is two car loans or a downpayment on a house somewhere or a great start to a retirement plan.</p>
<p>As well, should you ever decide that you want to enjoy a particular standard of living, you will likely find after 4 years that indeed you do want to go to grad school. If you’re already in debt, you’ll have a good deal more trouble financing that venture.</p>
<p>I mean no disrespect to Columbia when I say I feel you’d be better served by taking the affordable and very high quality opportunity Michigan offers. After your first year, if you’re in any way unhappy with the choice, then you could in theory investigate transferring to Columbia – and will still have saved $.</p>
<p>Best wishes in your decision!</p>
<p>To the discussion about lay prestige, something statistical : <a href=“Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public”>http://www.gallup.com/poll/9109/harvard-number-one-university-eyes-public.aspx</a></p>
<p>Includes college graduates at the bottom.</p>
<p>Thanks for linking that - very interesting. Do you know of any polling that doesn’t just ask for top (2) universities? i.e. I would be interested in knowing what the third, fourth, fifth etc. choice was for the people polled…</p>
<p>How about the most important part of that survey:</p>
<p>What about post-graduates themselves, who might be expected to know better than others what schools are prestigious, given that they applied to schools at least twice (for undergraduate and graduate work) and most likely spent a good deal of time evaluating schools? Here’s the list of schools most often mentioned by college graduates with at least some post-graduate education:</p>
<p>Harvard
29%</p>
<p>Stanford
27</p>
<p>Yale
14</p>
<p>MIT
11</p>
<p>Berkeley
7</p>
<p>Princeton
7</p>
<p>Michigan
7</p>
<p>Notice which school is mentioned here and which one is missing?</p>
<p>Well I will admit that this definitely supports what you were saying earlier about Michigan’s prestige among certain demographics. But I think Columbia isn’t there because this is a nomination for the best university. </p>
<p>For example, I would have said Harvard/Princeton, along with the other 29% of survey responders, and (if asked, which they weren’t) would have listed Columbia subsequently…maybe at 5-8th.</p>
<p>I’d hypothesize that the people that said Harvard/Stanford would list Columbia higher than Michigan. I’d be interested to see those numbers.</p>
<p>I bet they’d say the next university that’s been associated with really smart people in movies/pop culture/jokes.</p>
<p>“I’d hypothesize that the people that said Harvard/Stanford would list Columbia higher than Michigan”</p>
<p>…and yet many still mentioned Michigan more than Columbia. Why wouldn’t others mention Columbia more often than Michigan in any case if they felt that way? Certainly Michigan isn’t close to beating H and S in prestige, so that isn’t surprising. Notice all of the schools, with the exception of Michigan are on the coasts. I think it’s even more impressive that Michigan was mentioned that often within this group.</p>
<p>“But I think Columbia isn’t there because this is a nomination for the best university.”</p>
<p>…and yet Michigan is.</p>
<p>yeah, that’s a pretty weird way of thinking johnblack, even though it could be true… just doesn’t seem right</p>
<p>
The Gallup poll was national, only making distinctions with respect to geographic regions and college graduates. Granted, this is only within the U.S., although I seem to recall an article I recently saw in the guardian that included the world. [American</a> universities top reputation rankings - Find the top 100 worldwide | News | guardian.co.uk](<a href=“http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/10/world-top-100-universities-reputation-rankings-reputation-times-higher-education]American”>American universities top reputation rankings - Find the top 100 worldwide | News | theguardian.com)</p>
<p>@Hurd: I’ve seen a few international ranking sites but that looks like a pretty comprehensive survey… “The rankings based on a survey of 13,388 academics over 131 countries is the largest evaluation of academic reputation and is used partly used in indicators for compiling the well-known Times Higher Education World University Rankings.” The unique thing about the other link is its non-university officials ranking the schools. Right? But I think the demographic splits are pretty cool. You’ll see that a portion of people in the US think Michigan is the best university, also a sizeable portion of ‘post-graduates’.</p>
<p>@scottj19x89: I don’t think they would, at least in the post-graduate demographic. People probably have more anecdotal evidence to use.</p>
<p>@rjkofnovi: I have no doubt Michigan is ‘one of the best’ schools in the country. Michigan is unique in that its a large public powerhouse. People from Michigan (and other places) probably think it is the best university in the country (3% nationally). Just like, I’m assuming, people said UNC was the best university in the county (2% nationally). UNC is not though and even though I’m biased, I wouldn’t claim that. I wouldn’t say UNC = Penn State = UPenn because they all got 2% of the national vote.</p>
<p>What I’m trying to say is that people who are from… say ivy league schools, think that Harvard or Princeton is better than Columbia and that’s largely undisputed. I don’t think its accurate to say that more (percentage) people rating Michigan as THE best university = more Americans generally agree Michigan is better than / equal to / inferior to Columbia. It’s interesting for other reasons.</p>
<p>Where it really matters, Columbia and Michigan are both very highly respected. If one of the two schools is to be given a slight advantage (at the undergraduate level), it would have to go to Columbia, but it is truly insignificant. It would be like saying Harvard is more highly regarded than Yale. </p>
<p>International rankings seem to give both schools excellent reviews, with the two switching leads depending on the source and on the year. </p>
<p>From a purely academic point of view, Columbia and Michigan are almost identical in most respect. The main difference is in Engineering, where Michigan has a significant edge.</p>
<p>Where Columbia really excels is in its affiliation to Nobel Prize winners. I think they have connections to 100 or so Laureates, more than any other university in the World. Of course, Columbia’s location in NYC, the greatest city in the Americas and one of the World’s four great cities, gives it a huge boost.</p>
<p>The only group that would give one school a significant edge over the other are the young and impressionable who worship and blindly follow the USNWR undergraduate rankings; to them, Columbia is significantly better.</p>
<p>@hurdsl i’m sorry but after i saw on your link that they ranked Michigan state as the 15th best university IN THE WORLD i disregarded the whole thing…sorry</p>
<p>o and this is from someone near EL</p>
<p>Hehe! Mjmay, forget the 2010 column. They seem to have given MSU and PSU the same 2010 ranking as Michigan and Penn. That was clearly a mistake in data mining. The 2011 rankings are as they were meant to be.</p>
<p>I never looked that far until you mentioned it, but if you look at U of M’s 2010 ranking, they were also ranked as #15(which is what it said with MSU) so I’m guessing that it’s a typo</p>
<p>Or it’s internationally known that people from Michigan just straight up kick ****ing ass</p>
<p>edit: They did the same with UPenn and Penn State</p>
<p>double edit: I suck</p>
<p>“Michigan is unique in that its a large public powerhouse…”</p>
<p>It is not unique in that respect. There are a number of large public powerhouse schools in this country. They just don’t happen to located on the east coast, where your bias lies.</p>
<p>
I don’t know how much credibility this poll can have if UMass and UIllinois rank above Columbia, among other schools…</p>
<p>Smart Guy, that’s the point of a survey that measures “lay prestige”. The average person does not know about Brown or Columbia or Cornell or Dartmouth…etc…</p>
<p>@Alexandre: The survey he quoted was the ~14k academics over the world and not lay people in the US. That was the other survey. International surveys have very different reoccurring outcomes like rating Rice and WashU very low etc., some public (Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan) much higher than private institutions. But these rankings are in contrast to most US based ranking systems that look more at institution rather than international reputation. And, unless you move abroad, intl. reputation doesn’t matter as much for the US.</p>
<p>@rjkofnovi: Unique can mean sole or atypical. I was saying that Michigan is fairly abnormal among top universities in that it is also a public which I would think create a different appeal to different demographics (e.g. in state residents).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you serious. The difference between Harvard and Yale is insignificant, as you claim. But, difference between U Michigan undergrad and Columbia undergrad??? Trust me, it is pretty significant.</p>
<p>Although, U Michigan has comparable grad schools as Columbia, especially in law, medicine, and business. Overall, it is a great school and one should feel very proud and fortunate to attend this great institution, especially if in-state tuition is an option.</p>
<p>FWIW, I don’t hate U Michigan one bit. Actually, U Michigan was one of my top choices when I was applying to colleges. But, they didn’t offer me much aid and I didn’t go because of costs. (I was out of state) They have excellent undergrad business school with good placements into the Street. I instead went to an Ivy undergrad and will be attending Columbia Law either next year or the year after. As a result, I had visited Columbia many times and know of many students from there - from both law school and undergrad. I would even go as far to make the claim that overall, Columbia undergrads are almost as smart as Harvard undergrads. (Although I haven’t met many people from Harvard, my point is that Columbia undergrads’ intellectual horsepower and academic merit are top notch and would be really hard to beat by any institution) After all, Columbia undergrad has nearly identical selectivity as Harvard or Yale undergrad, and it would be safe to assume that the quality of student body is pretty much equal across these three institutions. (along with MIT, Stanford, Penn, Dartmouth, Princeton, etc) </p>
<p>I would say that the caliber of Columbia undergrad student body and U Michigan undergrad student body isn’t equal, but on complete different levels. I have visited U of Michigan once while I was in high school. Although it is a great school with great campus life, it didn’t struck me as a school anything close to Harvard or Columbia, in which over 90% of student body is filled with serious intellectuals and very talented students that filled me with awe. </p>
<p>I don’t know what you exactly mean by ‘where it matters’. If you mean when companies recruit/ interview students, that may be so. Each year, there is a handful of UNC graduates who make cut at places such as Goldman or Morgan Stanley IBD, while many Harvard grads would kill to get such jobs. Still, this doesn’t exactly mean that Harvard and UNC are viewed under same light and weight. All this means is that companies look for qualities within each individual beyond just schools they attend or their academic credentials - such as personality or work experiences.</p>
<p>One’s perception of an institution is - somewhat - influenced by how exclusive that institution is. As a result, when comparing two schools, selectivity and caliber of student body should be taken into account. If you ask anyone - from high school to college, or even those in the ‘know’ such as Ibankers, corporate lawyers, doctors, or consultants, which one is better school, my guess is that over 99% of people would say Columbia. And, I think it won’t even be close.</p>