Columbia vs. Dartmouth vs. Brown

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
1

<p>i'm an admitted student who now has only three days to make the most difficult decision of my life :-o. For a while I was leaning Columbia, in fact I was more or less sure that that was where I would be going, but after going to both the Columbia and dartmouth admitted students' programs I started to worry that Columbia might just be too big and impersonal. Dartmouth has this really great sense of community and school spirit that i just didn't get at Columbia. On the other hand, Columbia is a much more intellectual environment, at least that's how it seemed to me, which I liked. I love NYC (I live in NJ just a half hour away so i'm there all the time), but I can't help wondering if I would be happier at a school with a little bit more of a campus feel, like dartmouth, although I worry that dartmouth might feel a little isolated and depressing during the cold, dark winter months. </p>

<p>I haven't really had a chance to visit brown, but one of the kids I met at columbia said that he went there after Columbia and loved it, and that he might be going there next year instead. Although I love Columbia's core, Brown's open curriculum doesn't particularly bother me much either, and from what I understand the people are all really great and they all really love Brown. I just didn't feel that much enthusiasm from Columbia students. i feel like their enthusiasm is more for the city and for their academics than for their school community. I am also curious to know how competitive undergrads generally are at Columbia, how accessible professors are, and how common it is to be taught by ta's</p>

<p>I know this is just a really long stream of consciousness but I would love it if somebody could just give me their input or let me know if I have the right perceptions of these schools. Thanks.</p>

<p>PS-for what it's worth, my absolute first choice was Yale, but I was rejected, and I'm currently waitlisted at Princeton.</p>

2

<p>I just want to let you know that all 3 of those schools are fantastic so congratulations on your admittance. I personally think that if you attend Columbia, its more for the internships and striving to make $$. I’ve talked to a bunch of friends who go to Brown and they say that they love it there and that its more of a tight community, with the undergraduate department behind around 3,000 kids. Also, I think you would get more of a college experience at Brown, and plus its ranked #2 happiest school in America! I think it all depends on you. Would you rather be independent or would you rather be in a group setting. Even though Brown is in RI, its only about an hour away from a big city like Boston. Columbia however is smack middle in the middle of Manhattan, and can provide you with a bunch of opportunities outside of campus. I don’t know anything about Dartmouth sorry :frowning: I’m a junior and I’ve been to both, and I’m still deciding which one I want to apply ED to next year :)</p>

3

<p>I think what it comes down to with those schools is where you want to be for four years. And that environment’s impact on your education. </p>

<p>It seems to me that while Brown and Dartmouth might have a marginally closer knit group of students, and thus perhaps slightly more potential to “learn” from your peers and whatnot, those connections are by no means unavailable from the student body at Columbia. Basically, any “campusy” benefits you get from Brown or Dartmouth can be found at Columbia, albeit you might have to look harder. </p>

<p>But what Columbia offers which the others do not is the chance to have your education augmented by the surrounding city. There are REAL opportunities for great internships and jobs in the city, not to mention all the available resources at museums and libraries that you get for free for being a student. While Providence or Hanover might be good cities, they do not provide any resources of value remotely near what NYC has to offer. </p>

<p>Conclusion - All schools are up to par academically (although i don’t know your major so maybe not, whatever) so what you need to look for are the resources made available and the environment you live in as an undergraduate. Close knit **** can be found at all, but only one has anything of worth off campus. That is Columbia.</p>

4

<p>hey - downtothewire.</p>

<p>there are a lot of comparison threads on here you can peruse. a thought you should consider.</p>

<p>it is what you make of it. honestly. i found columbia to have a great social community, an intellectual community, a city to explore and endless opportunities. i had a lot of fun and it wasn’t the same thing every friday night for 4 years. when i got to columbia my first thought was to immerse myself in everything that excited me and i got a lot of great friends, found my profs to be very inviting and they have continued to mentor me through college and even now afterward. students at columbia are some of the least pretentious “ivy” kids you will find out there (oxymoron to an extent) and very down to earth. it is a community that cares about itself and judges its success on things more than pure “happiness,” but more so on whether or not someone learned something from the experience. </p>

<p>like most other columbians (at least the ones i think enjoyed the school the most), i saw columbia as a huge playground and i wanted to try all the rides that i feel i got so much more out of college than just a degree. something i am proud to say, and something that columbia can offer far more than d and b because it has so much more as a major research institution in the world’s biggest city.</p>

<p>i think columbia’s atmosphere is ideal for someone who likes challenges, who is excited about meeting people that are completely different from them. and if you grab the bull by its horns you will have an incredible 4 year ride that will make most of your friends at other places jealous. if you want to coast…or if you get bothered by being bucked off the bull a few times, then you wont have fun. a simple truth that applies for all rigorous universities, though at columbia like new york city itself it is probably more true than the more coddling schools.</p>

<p>d and b are fine schools and certainly you will graduate from a great place and if you do well you will have a solid future ahead of you. i don’t quite think the challenges they present match what columbia offers. </p>

<p>that is matter of opinion, so here is something less subjective. if you don’t immerse yourself in the school you chose you will be wasting your opportunity, your promise and your talent. you got into these schools for a reason. take advantage of it. so when you decide which school my biggest suggestion is that you fall in love with the community, the people, your professors; you go to every office hour you can, join as many clubs you can, and try it all out. if you do as much you wont regret wherever you end up.</p>

<p>if you want some more columbia rah-rahing that you can’t find on other posts, feel free to pm me.</p>

<hr>

<p>i just realized how bad my carnival metaphors are; eh, i wonder if subconsciously i did that on purpose.</p>

5

<p>I think the greatest gift you can give to smart driven people is to put them around other smart driven people and motivate them. Being an enterprising, sociable, ambitious student will take you further at C than at b or d, just because of your environment. The better people at Columbia match the very best of anywhere, they get top internships, just springboard from here, because of the depth of opportunity. It won’t hold your hand, you won’t have time to feel warm and fuzzy, but it’ll blow you away. </p>

<p>I never realized how accomplished people here are until this year when I started talking to kids about what they’ve accomplished and where they’re heading. In the library everyone tells you how much work they have, outside the library everyone pretends like they’re procrastinating, lazy and having a good time, but they’re always willing to btch about some political, policy decision or negative tendency on campus/in new york. A guy that looks laid back, drinks and parties a lot and makes fun of stuff is actually working part time at a top tier private equity firm. How that person got the job without connections and manages it with their normal life and workload is stupefying. Tons of people match this kid, you just never see this ambition overtly, but they’re silently thrashing you. It’s not a competitive environment, but life fundamentally is.</p>

<p>the facebook slogan for the class of 2011 was “Class of 2011: GO BIG OR GO HOME”, I think it’s applicable to columbia in general.</p>

6

<p>thanks so much guys, you’ve been really helpful! oh, and my major is political science/international relations, btw.</p>

7

<p>^new york is the international relations global center of gravity. Columbia brings in 7-10 heads of state to speak on campus each year as part of its world leaders’ forum. These events are open to the student body, and if you are diligent about registering you can get into almost all. It blew me away. There are constantly student organized speaking events with speakers involved in international politics, we’re talking multiple every week. Columbia students do it only because they can by virtue of being in nyc. Finally, and this is a small proxy for how internationally involved / interested each student body is, B & D do not have Model United Nations teams or conferences [nor to my knowledge any club dedicated to formal international relations debate]. This is a big deal at most schools into international relations. The best teams in the nation are Georgetown, Westpoint, Harvard, Columbia, Yale. At Columbia the organization is one of the biggest on campus and pulls together some of the smartest kids, most of whom are not studying political science but who are interested in international politics.</p>

8

<p>I transferred from Columbia to Dartmouth. I liked Columbia, but I felt it was too bureaucratic and didn’t have the community I was looking for. The benefits of NYC in my opinion (access to the city), wasn’t worth the cost of not having a ‘real campus’ to hang out on. I feel Columbia is without a doubt a more urban school - great for some, not for others. I felt that Columbia was perfect for grad school, but at the undergrad level I wanted a much more tightknit community and I absolutely found that at Dartmouth. I also preferred the more LAC-like academics, which I found to be more personally stimulating. I think Brown is a great balance between these two schools.</p>

9

<p>that’s not entirely true, confidentialcoll. Brown does have a MUN team, and I know they host a conference because my high school attends it every year (granted, it’s not as big or successful as CIRCA at Columbia). Dartmouth hosts a very small conference, but I don’t know if they compete. in response to slipper1234, I feel exactly the same way about Columbia: it would be perfect for grad school but for undergrad I want more of a campus and a community.</p>

10

<p>^thanks for the heads up, my point still largely stands. Just because Columbia is a good place for gradschool does not mean it’s bad for Undergrad. Slipper is one of the people who least liked Columbia when s/he was here. I feel strong school spirit and a strong sense of community. lots of hanging out on campus, dorm parties I’m invited to, smoking hooka on the steps, frisbee with random people. I just had to make an effort. if you are friendly and take time to introduce yourself to people and talk to them you’ll develop hundreds of friends very fast and dozens of good friends whom you can just call and hang out with anytime or bump into on campus and take a walk with.If you are not a self-starter and want your community to come to you automatically, then B and D are better. Columbia has a solid community, even if there are more cynical a$$holes, like me, here. If you look for it, you’ll get more than enough of it. The undergrads and grad students are largely disconnected, so it feels like you go to a school with ~5000 people. The grad students have no campus feel, but that’s not what they’re here for.</p>

11

<p>downtothewire - i disagree a lot with the assessment that CU is better for grad school. it is good for grad school, but not better than it is for ugrad. i think CU is the ideal ugrad experience for many reasons i explain here or elsewhere. as someone put it, columbia can imitate other schools; other schools cannot imitate columbia. but i think you have your decision, so go with it. this is for the peanut gallery.</p>

<p>1) focused zone - columbia and new york whereas they are advantages for ugrads when it comes to opportunities, it doesn’t allow for the focus that is best for grad school. it can be too much when you want to write a thesis or study for a test.</p>

<p>2) cost - the city is expensive and when mom and dad aren’t helping with the bill (if they were at all) you wont find grad financial aid to be as nice. living costs, food, etc., are a pain. </p>

<p>3) you’re old - the older you get the less the city is like a playground. i feel it. you will be more apt to go home and vege out than go to some far off neighborhood in brooklyn, stay up till 8am doing karaoke in ktown, etc., etc.</p>

<p>it isn’t to say that reasonings like wanting a better college community are unwarranted. that is why LACs are there, and columbia is not for everyone. but when i think of a university experience and i considered mostly LACs, i found them when i visited to have some social flavorings including some college mentioned in this post, but ultimately a poorer intellectual community, worse profs, worse opportunities, not as exciting. it has given me a decidedly anti-LAC feel which is weird because based on how they are described i thought i would want it more. i just don’t think they offer a better experience, but a lot of that hedges on the fact that i believe the global awareness you get in a major metro center is invaluable. this is why i am a city mouse and not a country mouse.</p>

12

<p>thanks for the insight. now i’m interested to see what slipper’s response is. I think part of what makes Columbia different from D and B is that the students are a bit more sophisticated, or as confidentialcoll puts it “cynical a$$holes,” which makes them less inclined toward the ra ra tomfoolery of some other schools</p>

13

<p>oh and in response to admissionsgeek, I agree completely with what you say about the city. In terms of intellectual growth and academics, I think columbia is unmatched. it’s more of a student life issue that concerns me.</p>

14

<p>downtothewire, I was at Columbia’s Days on Campus last week. There is definitely a dynamic, interesting social life at Columbia. Everyone in the Hartley suite I stayed in was like a big family. During the school day I counted many student organizations gathered on the campus. </p>

<p>As a school, it is not going to have the sort of campus-focused life that Dartmouth will have. At Columbia, it seemed like you would join micro communities that made up the student body as a whole. I went to Columbia heavily preferring the LAC style campus-focused community, but after visiting I realized that I could also have a really amazing time socially at Columbia as well. There was a niche for everyone. </p>

<p>In the end, I decided to go to Pomona over Columbia because I felt like the academics and personal attention at Pomona were slightly better, at least for me, and I was more of a Pomona personality. I also wasn’t very impressed with the CC class I sat in on, but it was probably an isolated case.</p>

15

<p>^wait… you got to sit in on an actual class?</p>

16

<p>yes…what’s so strange about that?</p>

17

<p>Congrats on your Pomona choice. My older son is at Carleton, and my younger will start at Columbia in the fall. I believe each made the right choice for him.</p>

18

<p>I don’t know if SEAS ppl did</p>

19

<p>we were given a schedule of like 100+ classes we could take, or we could get a ticket to take a core class</p>

20

<p>yeh. i did too as part of DOC, and i thought it was really great. the kids were really nice and just came up to us asking if we had any questions.</p>