Columbia vs. Brown vs. Penn

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
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<p>I want to major in linguistics. I like the NYC idea, but Brown is also extremely appealing for many opposing reasons; namely, curricular freedom versus the dreaded Core (which I think I would still enjoy a great deal, despite it being very restrictive).</p>

<p>Thoughts?</p>

<p>I received a likely letter from Columbia, but none from Brown (although I still have high hopes).</p>

<p>I have also applied to Penn, but I think I have less of a chance of getting in there than Columbia and Brown. Feel free to include it in your address.</p>

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<p>Why do you think you have a lesser chance for admission at Penn?</p>

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<p>I didn’t get a likely, their RD is known to be BRUTAL, and they’re consistently ranked higher than Columbia (and way higher than Brown).</p>

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<p>Penn might be a couple of slots higher in USNWR (I can’t remember exactly), but I doubt Penn is “harder” to get into than Brown or Columbia, on average. Certainly the admissions statistics don’t support the proposition. Columbia and Brown each had a surge of applications this year; Penn got four more applications this year than last.</p>

<p>They’re all great schools, but very different from one another. I recommend you analyze this issue in terms of which campus “fits” better for you, rather than a magazine rating.</p>

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<p>Alvie, in my opinion I never found the Core restrictive, dreaded or undesirable. I know you say you would enjoy it a great deal, but I’d like to at least offer an opinion why it is important. I think often students say well that sounds like a fun thing to do and don’t really understand why it is a great pedagogical foundation for college. Further, it is often the opinion of students on here and elsewhere that the Core is bad…this has grown from opinion to hyperbole to myth. </p>

<p>I think you ought to go to Columbia if you so choose. Why? Well of course NYC is a good reason. But I think you should go because of and not in spite of the Core. </p>

<p>The Core is the ultimate undergraduate educational experience in my opinion - part because of its function, part because of the kind of students that choose Columbia over Brown, Harvard, Yale, etc., part because of the city. Small courses dedicated for all students that emphasize the liberal arts in a way unlike any other university (Chicago included that does not require that all students take the exact same courses). Students at Columbia are on average trend to be more intellectual, multidisciplinary and curious than its peers. It is not to say you wont find that at Brown, but on par you will find it more at Columbia than elsewhere. This means great conversations, people who will push you, excite you and encourage you to try new things. And when you add New York City - it is an incredible extra. For a class I was able to interview one of Malcolm X’s best friends who was in the Audobon Ballroom the day X got shot. It is an incredible interplay of people that will give you experiences, points of views and ideas that will enhance the way you approach all your classes. It is not just about teaching you new things and giving you a common set of experiences - it is about making you a better learner.</p>

<p>Curricular freedom is without a doubt attractive in name, but in function it is not necessarily that more liberating. I know the attraction because when I was in high school every single person “don’t go to Columbia because it has a Core, it is restricting, it is dumb,” … the comments invariable got more intelligent as I am sure you can guess. I was very close to choosing against Columbia until I woke up and started to really listen to what students said, sat in on some classes, and finally began to understand why the Core (not just any core or set of gen-ed requirements) is such a profound pedagogical instrument. </p>

<p>I remember sitting in on some classes at a few other institutions and being truly disappointed as a high schooler of the level and depth of the inquiry. Yes this is just an experience and not the whole story, but when I went to two separate classes at Columbia and spent a night on campus, I heard students challenging professors, professors engaged in trying to explain things to students, an intellectual vibrancy throughout campus that was missing in the other places I visited or considered. It has made me that more able and capable of entering into any number of conversations on any number of topics. I can’t imagine having any other educational experience.</p>

<p>If you were likelied at Columbia more than likely (I crack myself up) they thought you were an ideal intellectual fit for Columbia and its brand of education. Though the Core may sound daunting right now, I hope that as you get to learn more about it (talk to upperclass and alumni as much as you do to students in the trenches) you will have the same realization that I had. Good luck with your choice, you can’t go wrong if you have these great options. As a very partial Columbian - I hope you agree with me in the end.</p>

<p>*and Columbia is more competitive than Penn (last year it was 10% admit rate to Penn’s 13%), not higher ranked in USNews, but that is another story, but always higher ranked in almost any other survey of schools. the general consensus is that though Penn and Columbia are in the same tier of Ivies most would say Columbia is a shy bit better. (and if you are to rip that argument apart please at least note I used the word general consensus.)</p>

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<p>Regarding that last point admissionsgeek, Columbia is always ranked higher than UPenn in international rankings. There is something to be said for that.</p>

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<p>Haha, I won’t rip you to shreds. You’re entitled to your opinions. I guess I was a bit beguiled by US News, but it’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. A lot of applicants treat the rankings as god.</p>

<p>I loved your argument, definitely will take it into account. We’ll see in a week!</p>

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<p>Also, Mustafah78, I looked up your statement, and it’s correct, but not markedly. It THES and US News world ranking both put Columbia 1 slot ahead of Penn.</p>

<p>It’s kind of weird, though; Princeton and Stanford are both a number of spots behind Columbia and Penn. So I guess it doesn’t mean much that Penn is one slot behind Columbia, right?</p>

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<p>I’m sure i’ll get flamed for this but it doesn’t mean jack. They are all top 10 so there are very minor differences between them all. Little bit of funding here, little bit of alumni giving there, it’s all about the same (ignoring H/Y’s obscene endowments)</p>

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<p>^More reasons to ignore the ratings. In my younger son’s ranking system (the only one that counts for him), Columbia is No. 1. Having visited, he didn’t like Princeton, Stanford, Yale, Brown, Chicago or Harvard as much. He applied ED to Columbia in the fall, got in, and has not looked back. (He is a huge Core fan.) Go with your gut!</p>

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<p>“Penn might be a couple of slots higher in USNWR (I can’t remember exactly), but I doubt Penn is “harder” to get into than Brown or Columbia, on average”</p>

<p>agreed. I know a friend who got into UPenn but rejected by Brown. It’s really hard to say. So don’t take UPenn completely out of the picture.</p>

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<p>Actually US News is the only publication putting Penn over Columbia (Penn #6, Col #8)</p>

<p>other rankings put Columbia over Penn:</p>

<p>THES has Columbia @ 10, Penn @11
Wall Street Feeder rankings has Columbia @11, Penn @16
Center of Measuring University Performance (research rankings) Columbia @1, Penn@5
Academic Ranking of world universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong U: Columbia@7, Penn @15
ARWU Social Sciences: Columbia @3, Penn@8
Forbes (for whatever it’s worth) has Columbia @9, Penn @61</p>

<p>Check collegeboard.com on SAT scores: if you add up the 25th and 75th percentiles Penn is 90 points less</p>

<p>and the acceptance rates (after waitlist activity) for the class of 2012 were <a href=“mailto:Columbia@10.7”>Columbia@10.7</a>%, Penn@~17%</p>

<p>Now there are your hard figures, but none of this matters, the schools are of very similar caliber (brown included) they bring in top students and differences in the quality of students is minimal. They attract different types of students and they offer quite different packages. Admissionsgeek describes most of this well. Columbia is a strong university all round, linguistics included. Don’t make a decision based on some unfounded “quality of student body” or university prestige (even though columbia might win here), you need to figure out where you’ll thrive and what sort of an environment you want to be in.</p>

<p>What makes you so sure you’ll want to study linguistics? Also this thread is completely premature because you haven’t gotten in to those two schools. There is a lot of subjectivity in admissions, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those two rejected you even though you got a columbia likely.</p>

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<p>I’m in a similar dilemma. I love Columbia and Penn (well I love Columbia slightly more). I want to choose Columbia over Penn assuming I get into both (I already got columb likely) but the problem is that I’m turned off by the lack of community thing at Columbia. That, plus that fact that I’ve lived in nyc for 14+ years.</p>

<p>My HS is a feeder school for Penn - that’s the only reason I’m being confident about an acceptance. I really don’t know which to choose; this is so difficult.</p>

<p>pros for penn: more of a college/community experience; get to experience a different location</p>

<p>pros for columbia: well it’s my love</p>

<p>help!</p>

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<p>Exactly. And just look at the rest of US News’s top 20: They put Duke over Dartmouth, Cornell over Brown, and freaking Washington U over Hopkins, Cornell, and Brown! I mean come on. Washington U? Seriously?</p>

<p>Also, a big difference between Penn and Columbia is that Penn has a big frat scene, whereas Columbia doesn’t really.</p>

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<p>hcvops - so of all the legitimate reasons not to go to columbia (all three of them) the one i understand the most is getting out of nyc if you are a local (though i don’t know what i would have done if i didn’t have friends who were from the city to show me around - but that’s me being selfish).</p>

<p>i think seeing new things is not a bad idea, gives you perspective and it isn’t as if you wont always be a new yorker. </p>

<p>i will disagree with you on the community and i think columbia gets a really bad rap on this part (i am like columbia’s white knight here always trying to save it from myths). i think that columbia has a great community and it certainly was a main reason i chose to go there - the students took me out as the vascilated between talking about Virginia Woolf, night life, the geekiest things you can imagine, or asking me to join in for a late night game of halo (don’t judge). as a ugrad i spent 95% of my time on campus, did a whole bunch of activities, started things, cheered on my teammates and found a lot of fellow students who did the same. i know local new yorkers that rarely went home because they were doing this thing or that thing, it really was almost like living in a far off town, but then you wake up and go out to a club downtown. it was a real tight-knit environment that mimicked some far off New England town with a subway right outside the gates.</p>

<p>i usually balk at the question of community mostly because i don’t quite know what it ought to mean or how people use it. i guess the only reference i have is something like “hate week” at Oklahoma that borders on the most offensive, jingoistic, militaristic form of community love that you can imagine (though you don’t doubt that they love their school). further when people say i want college feel, well if that means you want to have fun, drink and be merry - yeah, Columbia students do that - i was part of a fraternity, i can promise you that you will have that as an option. but i guess what attracts me to columbia’s “community” is the fact that it is suprisingly self-aware and often critical. it means sometimes that we are our own worst enemies (we police ourselves probably as much as the NYPD). but it also means that if something happens to anyone in our community that we are quick to show love and empathy, to offer help and support. it is an intangible thing that you will only sense when you see columbians in action. i can’t say that it doesn’t exist in other places, but a marked change from the very superficial relationships of high school was how intimate and involved and caring people were on campus. without a doubt my best friends for life were formed at columbia because of the nature of the community. i mean we may not shout it out as much as we should, but i don’t think that is a bad thing - it lets us pour it out on messageboards.</p>

<p>so i would not be too hasty to tear down Columbia’s community aspect just because it is not something it is known for. however subtle it is, it certainly is one of the most special parts of going to cu is the people you get to share it with - and the people who are unafraid to speak their mind and let you know what they think.</p>

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<p>I didn’t read what anyone else wrote, but I do have this to say:</p>

<p>If you get in and choose not to go, you will regret turning down Columbia for the rest of your life.</p>

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<p>Yeah NYU might not have a campus feel and community, but Columbia, these days, does. The school has realized many of its flaws and has taken steps to improve them (like bad advising, building more “community”)</p>

<p>My academic adviser is pretty awesome, and in terms of community I go to big sports events, I go to the occasional frat party, I sing our fight song all the time, I’m on a competitive team on campus and my team is all very proud to go to columbia. we really miss our Columbia when we visit other schools and coming back “home” after a vacation is awesome. </p>

<p>I’ve played frisbee & volleyball on our lawn with random people, I always play four square when anyone is ever playing. I have multiple groups of friends who I do different things with (room parties, art museum visits, movies, cycling down town, on campus acapella performances, local restaurants/bars - you name it). In the spring everyone comes outside and relaxes in the sunshine. </p>

<p>When I bring friends at other colleges to columbia and give them a campus tour I usually bump into 5-10 Columbia friends within a few minutes, they think i’m the most popular kid on campus (i’m only close :p). there is a real density of undergrads on main campus. There isn’t a unifying theme that brings everyone together (like P’ton’s eating clubs). You have lots of people who haven’t been to football game, others who haven’t been to an acapella performance, others who haven’t stepped foot in a frat. But there is a deep sense of belonging, there’s a plethora of resources and it’s a great stepping stone. I sure brown and penn are comparable, but a lack of community is not something columbia suffers from anymore. </p>

<p>You’ll feel a little alienated as a freshman (I did), and you’ll roll with excitement, attention and belonging when you graduate (i’m beginning to feel this). If you aren’t a self-starter / self-motivator to develop a social network / take initiative, you might want to go elsewhere. If you are, there’s scarcely a better place to be, and columbia really nurtures these skills.</p>

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<p>I second everything that confidentialcoll and admissionsgeek said. Except confidentialcoll may have been the only person at said ‘sporting event’. I guess that’s columbia’s failing in some sense: it’s less than enthusiastic support of its sports teams. But, as is implied in the posts above, Columbia shows its community and school spirit in a host of other ways. </p>

<p>That being said, I’d like to emphasise another point that admissionsgeek made: That (s)he made some of the best friends he could as for at CU. One thing that can turn off potential applicants is the relative lack of wide open spaces–relative to rural campuses, that is. For a school in NYC, Columbia’s got all the space it could hope for–and will have more soon. I’m inclined to think the school brings people closer because it forces them into proximity–in dorms, on campus, in classes. Let’s just say that some of my best friends in the world are people I probably would never have hung out with if we hadn’t been pushed to live together. My roommate the summer after sophomore year, for example–we shared a Broadway double. I don’t think we would’ve gotten along if we hadn’t spent those three months sleeping in the same room <insert purile=“” joke=“” here=“”>. I ended up living with her senior year, and it was the best of the 4 years that I had.</insert></p>

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<p>it’s less than enthusiastic about supporting the BASKETBALL AND FOOTBALL teams… sure. But most Columbia students would rather play a sport (even if it’s not a glamour sport) than attend a school sporting event. I realize that’s not the case at most schools but there’s something to be said for those priorities.</p>

<p>In any case, admissionsgeek does an admirable job arguing columbia’s case on a few points. I’ll agree in that I loved the Core (it’s living evidence of the University’s commitment to the quality of undergraduate curriculum!), and most everyone I knew did as well. Yeah, it’s based around Dead White Men™. That’s still the foundation for being considered educated, in the western world. Sure, it’s hard. If it was easy everyone would do it. Are you going to a top school just to take the easy way out? Not me. Columbia raises your game, forces you to compete academically (and time-management-wise) with hundreds of other bright hard-working talented types… and you’re rewarded with skills, experiences, and credibility. Well worth it.</p>

<p>My suggestion to the OP is to check out the Helpful Columbia Threads thread, pinned at the top of this board. There are a bunch of threads linked there with helpful discussions on the Core, or Student Life, etc.</p>

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<p>thanks for the responses guys</p>

<p>those made me smile</p>