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<p>I thought the vast majority of Columbia undergraduates lived in the dorms.</p>
<p>^ See description below and you know what the poster means by spread out:</p>
<p>The UAH inventory consists of apartment shares and dormitory-style rooms. There are also a limited number of studio/efficiency, one bedroom, and two bedroom units for which priority is given to couples and families. Most student housing is located within walking distance of the campus in the Morningside Heights neighborhood. Students are also housed in Manhattan Valley, just south of Morningside Heights, and in Washington Heights, just north of Morningside Heights. Additionally, students are housed in Riverdale, Bronx, in a new facility known as The Arbor, which opened in 2008. Weekday shuttle service to and from The Arbor is provided.</p>
<p>kdog, I think you’re quoting from the GRADUATE housing description. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but, I believe undergrad housing is spread out around Morningside Heights but no farther away from campus.</p>
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<p>Many undergrads move off-campus in their later years or if they grew up in NYC…are allowed to commute to/from Columbia in practice. Knew dozens of Columbia undergrads who moved to apartments in midtown Manhattan, Village area/Lower East Side, and Brooklyn/Queens.</p>
<p>I can’t presume to advice someone I don’t know, but DD had amazing years at Barnard, and she did walk through central Park and visit the Met once a week. Historical research was done at The New York Historical Society. We are not wealthy but the museums are free for the Columbia Community. For her Shakespeare Class (Columbia) they saw a production if Taming of the Shrew on the school’s dime. For her course on the Supreme Court they went to hear oral arguments at the Court in DC on the school’s dime. She never felt the environment of the city as overwhelming. Her experience was that she was at the center of the world when Hilary gave a press conference or A foreign dignitary spoke on campus. She visited Yale quite frequently because her best guy friend was there and enjoyed all the things mentioned. She was better soured to Columbia’s atmosphere, but that is not true for everyone.</p>
<p>The mom with grad students with kids in both departments will have more to say and will be more insightful, but I was accepted to both and have followed their fortunes. Columbia’s dept is fractious, but Yale’s can be cult like and demand conformity.</p>
<p>This decision should be made solely on your son’s instincts. Obviously both schools offer a great education and much more.</p>
<p>"My daughter was not impressed by the dorms at Columbia compared to the residential colleges at Yale. "</p>
<p>My daughter has no comparison with Yale but felt the best dorm at Columbia was not all that great and did not care for living in NYCity as the main attraction of attending Columbia (I think it was a bad job by Columbia pushing the city as the main attraction as opposed to their great internships). A friend who did the bulldog days and showed up at Columbia was supposedly shocked after staying in some castle like dorm at Yale. </p>
<p>mimk’s son seems to love the city and and so I feel for him having to make a tough choice.</p>
<p>I am really surprised to read that some kids move off campus as undergrads. This was not mentioned once when we were at Admit Days and is a significant piece of information in my mind. The housing was a definite drawback. I’ve seen much better housing at state schools. I was under the impression that students did stay on campus for four years because they talked about dorms for upperclassmen, etc. I would think there would be a difference between schools where people move near the campus (U Chicago for example) and a school where people might move further away and commute.</p>
<p>“A friend who did the bulldog days and showed up at Columbia was supposedly shocked after staying in some castle like dorm at Yale.”</p>
<p>I almost feel bad for Columbia in circumstances like that…they’re both such superb schools, but it’s not even a fair fight when it comes to housing.</p>
<p>Campus housing can be off campus. The University owns buildings that house students so the student may be in official Columbia housing without being on the actual campus.</p>
<p>This is true of Barnard as well. One year my D had an apartment at 110th Street with her friends that was provided through the residence life office.</p>
<p>mimk6, I always thought that a lot of students do not live on campus the entire 4 years. I know that my DH grandmother ran the off-campus housing office for Columbia for many years, so students have lived off campus for many years.</p>
<p>According to the site which must not be named 94% live on campus at Columbia and 88% at Yale. That suprised me - though it may reflect the ridiculous cost of off campus housing in NYC - the fact that at Harvard 98% live on campus at Harvard did not. :)</p>
<p>You could end up in one of those pie shaped rooms at Yale. (I think Ezra Stiles College.)</p>
<p>In the past, I think most of the people who moved off campus at Columbia were either super-rich or living with their families. Everything considered, it was awfully hard to get housing as nice as Columbia provided (even if it wasn’t so nice) for anything like the price Columbia was charging, unless you were willing to commute a long way or to live in a really marginal neighborhood. Columbia seems to charge $750-950/month on part-year leases, and you’re not going to do better than that anywhere in Manhattan south of Columbia without stacking people in bedrooms like sardines. Perhaps the rapid gentrification of Harlem has created more spaces that non-wealthy students could afford to rent and that are not hours from the campus?</p>
<p>Can it really be true that 12% of Yale students live off-campus? That seems awfully high to me, if it refers to undergrads.</p>
<p>My daughter lived off campus her senior year at Yale. She chose it because her college was being renovated and she didn’t want to live in swing space and also because buying her own food was better for a health issue she was dealing with. She was about a block away from campus. People who live off campus are still very involved in their RC. I wonder if the off-campus living is as high now that all the renovations are done. Some of the colleges were falling apart before the renovations (DD literally had the ceiling cave in on her one year after a radiator burst). My son can choose her residential college if he attends which is now newly renovated and beautiful.</p>
<p>The pizza is better in New Haven.</p>
<p>^ I think a million New Yorkers would argue with you about that.</p>
<p>Mizzbee, it is a fact - despite what New Yorkers would say.</p>
<p>Absolutely a fact . . . although I think Pepe’s opened a satellite in Yonkers somewhere.</p>
<p>Supposedly, there are places in Brooklyn with great pizza, and I haven’t tried them. And New York is so big, there has to be great pizza somewhere there. But I certainly have never had it, despite living there for a few stints and visiting frequently.</p>
<p>Now, I’m also sure that you can find bad pizza somewhere in New Haven. But not anywhere near Yale, or anywhere I’ve been. Central New Haven pizza runs the gamut from very good (Yorkside, whatever they call Naples now) to completely sublime (Pepe’s, Sally’s).</p>
<p>Understand, we’re talking pizza-pizza, here. Not something that a three-star restaurant would serve, that might come with arugula on it.</p>
<p>Had pizza in both places. Same. But I do know the good NY pizza places.</p>
<p>Acutually JHS, we are talking apizza. ;)</p>
<p>There is also Modern which some people think is the best, but I am a Sally’s girl and have never eaten there or even at Pepe’s. I would be shunned out of my family.</p>