Columbia vs. Harvard

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
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<p>I had kinda decided to go with Harvard (pfft, wearin' my free Class of 2016 t-shirt right now...) but then Columbia threw the John Jay Scholar curveball at me, and I'm kind of back in limbo.
I just want some more information and any helpful opinions as I think this whole thing over. I've had overnight visits at both. Columbia's went well, magically well. Harvard's was kind of crappy, so I'm having another one next weekend and then Visitas (I'm from Mass, so it's easy for me to visit a lot)
I'll just list out the major aspects I'm most interested in... If you guys can offer any helpful info, I'd be super thankful. </p>

<p>I'm looking into neurosci and/or east asian history for major.
I'm interested in going into museums for a career, so internships and experience is important. Career advising and all that.
Or be a neurosurgeon, so research is important as is pre-med advising and all that.
I like Cambridge significantly more than Harlem.
I'd like to have a single room, but I've got the medical documentation to (hopefully O: ) get one regardless of which I end up picking.
Columbia sent me the John Jay Scholar thing, I'm not sure what Harvard offers for summer grants and stuff like that.
For learning new languages, I know Harvard's got a lot of extra support but I'm not sure what Columbia's got.
I'd like to be a coxswain, I've been in contact with the Harvard coaches, dunno about Columbia's crew program though.</p>

<p>So um, if you've got any helpful opinions that'd be quite helpful and I like help helphelphelp please.
Thanks in advance haha</p>

2

<p>1) Columbia is not in Harlem it is in morningside heights. BIG difference. Morningside Heights is the second safest neighborhood in NYC.
2) If your interested in museums, the choice is a no-brainer. MET, MOMA Guggenheim etc are all free access to Columbia students. (You just need your Columbia id to get in). The exposure to museums in NYC is simply unparalleled.
3) Columbia has a great neuroscience department (cant speak for Harvard here though).
4) Columbia has a wonderful language program and its own language resource support with extensive support for languages (Ancient Egyptian for example). </p>

<p>I would research Columbia more if I were you because no offense, but you sound pretty uninformed about the opportunities it has to offer.
Lastly, congratulations.!</p>

3

<p>Most of the research I did was back in November when I stayed overnight, so I am rusty to say the least haha.
I never said I didn’t feel safe in the neighborhood, but I did walk around the Amsterdam Ave side for a while and I didn’t like it all that much. Which was a shame since it was such a nice day. Though yeah, Morningside Heights isn’t Harlem, it is right next to all of Greater Harlem and the areas (at least from my suburban Massachusetts eyes) seem pretty similar.
I saw Columbia was building a neuroscience building, and I think I also saw it was going to be finished in 2013. And then there was other Neurosci stuff they were doing that I think I remember seeing being completed in hopefully 2015, which means I wouldn’t get a lot of use out of it. (argh, wish I could find that article right now) I was wondering more about research and non-academic, especially since I know they’ve got the Medical School right next/near to the College.
Do you know if the language programs are done like, as actual classes or can be done as tutoring outside of class? The Language Resource Center website just has lots of links to departments, and I know that I wouldn’t be able to learn all the ones I want/need to if I had to stick with just classes.</p>

<p>You weren’t offensive, but I disagree. I do love Columbia, I did my research. So I guess I’m sorry I didn’t display it that well in that 1AM post. But thanks for the info c:</p>

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<p>Congrats on your acceptances! You have a tough choice and the good news is that you can’t go wrong. But since you’re asking, I’m going to take the opportunity to pull for Columbia (:</p>

<p>First of all, congrats on being selected as a John Jay Scholar! I posted a bit about the program here, if you want some details from a current freshman:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-university/1312146-accepted-john-jay-scholar.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-university/1312146-accepted-john-jay-scholar.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I don’t know much about neuroscience either here or at Harvard, but I do know that Columbia has one of the oldest, strongest, and most respected East Asian studies programs in the country (and a GORGEOUS East Asian library…). If you’re interested in museums, New York City is unbeatable. Not only is there a museum for every conceivable thing (and a few of the largest and best known in the world), but as a Columbia student we get free access to the vast majority of them. The Core really utilizes the wealth of museums and cultural events, too. You’ll go to the Met with Lit Hum, to the opera with Music Hum, to Broadway plays with random other classes… etc. Internship access in New York City is also great, particularly in the things New York City itself excels in (the arts, literature, journalism, finance, business, politics, non-profit work, etc. etc.).</p>

<p>Columbia’s advising system can be iffy. It’s a huge institution and very impersonal at times, but since you’re a John Jay Scholar you have access to another level of counseling and advising. As a Scholar myself, I’ve found this to be very useful. First-year Scholars get staff advisors, CUSP deans, and Graduate Student Mentors–there’s literally always someone you can email or meet with if you need help.</p>

<p>There’s also a very good chance that you’ll get a single. Sophomore housing is when that can get tricky, but if you have a medical reason I’m sure you’ll have no problem getting a single. I live in a John Jay (dorm building, unrelated to the John Jay Scholars) single this year and have managed to get a single on the quad again next year with only minimal trouble.</p>

<p>Finally: get in touch with the coach! They love walk-ons. I rowed a lot in high school. I don’t do it here, because I wanted to take a year to focus on other things, but everyone I know who’s on the team loves it. The only problem (and this is admittedly a big one for me) is that the boathouse is at the northern tip of Manhattan. </p>

<p>Lastly: Columbia isn’t in Harlem. It’s in Morningside Heights, which is a neighborhood between the Upper West Side and Harlem, although it’s really more just an extension of the UWS. Cambridge is a really nice place (I used to live there and am familiar with the Harvard campus), but after living in New York for a year, I can’t imagine life anywhere else. And when the city gets distracting (and it will), you have nice, (reasonably) quiet Morningside Heights to go back to.</p>

5

<p>I am trying to make the same decision as well. I am not sure what I want to major in but I know I want to get an MBA in the future. I got a likely letter from Columbia and thinking I wasn’t going to get into Harvard, I was sure I was going to end up at Columbia. Well, as it turns out, I got accepted to both and was named a Kluge scholar at Columbia. </p>

<p>I want to know about the community and vibe of both schools. Is there anyone that is familiar with both?</p>

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<p>O: Thanks for all the great info iteotwawki, that’s really helpful!</p>

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<p>go to Harvard folks.</p>

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<p>Geesh…this is a Harvard decision.</p>

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<p>Lol, this is a legitimate question? Harvard, dude.</p>

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<p>H is rankeda #1 in neurobiology/neuroscience. S is a senior in neurobiology at H. He started doing paid independent research at HMS in Spring of his freshman year and got a prestigious s cholarship</p>

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<p>Sorry for the typo on cell phone. Anyway, H would be a great choice if you choose to study neuroscience.</p>

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<p>Isn’t one of the major issues ALSO the difference between the Harvard and Columbia neuroscience programs? They are NOT the same, therefore the O.P should also be concerned about the specific curricular differences between them. I went to Harvard for my Ph.D. I also taught at Harvard. My undergraduate degree was from Chicago. Several of my Harvard undergrads asked if I had applied to Harvard for college. I had NOT, because I felt I would get a better undergraduate education at Chicago: it suited me better and I do not regret my choice. Harvard is considered MORE prestigious than Chicago, but I still chose Chicago over Harvard as my top under grad choice. The persons blindly posting on this thread, telling the O.P to choose Harvard over Columbia so that she/he can rack up prestige points for the rest of his/her life, are mistaking prestige for educational FIT! The O.P got into both Columbia AND Harvard, so this O.P doesn’t NEED to go to Harvard just to feel validated in terms of prestige. He or she has ALREADY been validated by the acceptance. The posters who have simply gone, “duh, go Harvard” (like JamieBrown, and what do you expect from this poster?) aren’t helping the O.P ask intelligent, relevant questions about specifically his/her intended major. I have a family member who is a Columbia '16 admit who specifically applied because he/she LIKES Columbia’s version of neuroscience better than Harvard’s, specifically the components of the combined psych/neuro double major. That, and the Columbia Core, tipped the balance in Columbia’s favor for my relative. </p>

<p>When I taught at Harvard I had several Harvard undergrads who were not specifically happy there, and seemed to have made the choice because of prestige. I LOVED Harvard, but it is a unique environment that is not suited to everyone, despite the prestige. So, I urge the poster to ignore some of the more ignorant responses that are just of the prestige-based, knee-jerk “duh, go Harvard” variety. If neuro is your field, investigate the specifics of Columbia’s and Harvard’s neuro programs, THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT. </p>

<p>How many of the responders who blindly said Harvard, ever actually attended Harvard or even got in? The responsible response is to urge the O.P to look beyond prestige to the specific characters and curriculums (esp. in his/her major field) and make an informed choice as to WHICH school, on a broad range of measures, will meet his or her ACTUAL educational needs. It is NOT as easy an answer as one has more prestige. Anyone who makes that the determination of a final choice is not making a wise choice, as he or she may or may not discover in time. And as several of my own Harvard students discovered for themselves.</p>

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<p>swingtime, Harvard is considered much better than Columbia in almost any area. Furthermore, Columbia is located in the Harlem area of New York, one of the more dangerous areas of the country.</p>

<p>Why do you continue to defend Columbia?</p>

<p>There is really no comparison between the two schools as Harvard takes over 90% of cross admits with Columbia…</p>

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<p>Columbia is in New York. Harvard is in Cambridge, MA. Which city would you want to live in more? Harvard is ranked higher than Columbia. Both are great schools but which one would you be most “happiest” at? (:</p>

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<p>Interestingly enough, my history teacher and I looked this up because I was busy lamenting my station to him during lunch and New York actually has a lower crime rate than Boston from what we found. </p>

<p>I never said I felt unsafe in Columbia’s neighborhood. Just on the Amsterdam Ave side of where I was, I didn’t particularly like what I saw. Whereas in Harvard Square, there’s bookstores and cafes and clothing boutiques and exciting things like that. So while I’m sure Columbia’s got its gems, I didn’t see 'em. </p>

<p>Happiest at?
I have no clue. That’s why I’m asking lots of opinions/freaking out about this. I just don’t want to screw this up, you know? U n U</p>

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<p>This is going to be my ONLY response to you because you deal in stereotypes and emotions and not objectively verifiable facts. The real question is why YOU are so obsessed with trashing Columbia? What is your connection to it? Why does it bother YOU that I have praised the school? What is it to you? </p>

<p>What is your connection to Harvard? I suspect you HAVE no connection to Harvard, though you may actually have dreamed of having one. I have an ACTUAL connection to Harvard as I explained in my post. I was actually accepted by Harvard and received my Ph.D from that institution. I also taught at Harvard. I LOVE Harvard. I also said that the prestige of a school was no measure of a student’s absolute fitness with a school. Several of my Harvard students felt they may have made a mistake, picking the school simply on the basis of its prestige, and not sufficiently weighed whether or not is was the right FIT. My undergraduate institution was UChicago. You would surely trash it as “not as good as Harvard” therefore I probably made what in your mind was a dumb decision. But UChicago was better for ME, than Harvard would have been for my undergraduate education. </p>

<p>The point of this thread is that the O.P is trying to make sense of which school will be better for HIM, not debate the relative prestige of either. I also said that the neuroscience programs at Harvard and Columbia WERE DIFFERENT!!! I did not say that one was BETTER THAN the other. I urged the O.P to review the curriculums and find out which “take” on neuro fit him BETTER: Harvard’s or Columbia’s. My recently admitted Columbia relative spent a good deal of time researching neuro programs and the content of Columbia’s combined neuro/psych program seemed a BETTER FIT with his/her interests.</p>

<p>Your assertion that Harvard is objectively better than Columbia on every measurable scale is a ludicrous statement, if the point of the O.P’s post is to figure out at which school he will feel most comfortable. The fact that his Columbia visit was great and his Harvard visit was not is NOT something he should ignore. Maybe he caught Harvard at a a bad time. Maybe on his next visit to Harvard everything will click for him. Great. But a truly intelligent person does not go to a school solely because of the prestige value. From Chicago I had no problem getting into every single every graduate school to which I applied, despite the fact that on objective terms Harvard is more prestigious. That will be true for our O.P if Columbia ends up being his choice. There is NO OBJECTIVE measurement for personal fit with a school and your obsession with prestige is irrelevant to the O.P’s general undergraduate welfare. </p>

<p>You need to take a chill pill about Columbia. You seem to have no connection to it. You clearly DID NOT get into Harvard, or your response would have been a bit more nuanced and PERSONAL about your Harvard experience and why your opinion, then, should have mattered. My beef with you is that you clearly speak from NO EXPERIENCE of either Harvard OR Columbia. Unless you can give us proof of a connection and objective evidence to support your relentless bashing of Columbia, I must call you out as someone WHO HAS NO CREDIBILITY ON THE SUBJECT OF COLUMBIA! </p>

<p>I think it is extremely unfair of you, if you have no connection with Columbia, to use the forum as a place to work out your emotional problems with a school that, for obviously SUBJECTIVE and not objective reasons, you do not like. Respect the right of persons who are excited about their opportunities to enjoy them and discuss them without the heedless interjection of your emotional hostility. Please Sir, get a life! </p>

<p>This is my only intended engagement with you on this subject. I have stated my opinion. The end!</p>

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<p>Although Harvard Square might seem exciting at first, remember that its initial “glow” will dim soon after you get used to it. On the other hand, there’s virtually unlimited places you can go if you live in Manhattan (in fact, the subway’s right in front of the campus so you can literally go to, say, Times Square in a few minutes). But I have to admit that Morningside Heights can get boring after a while (though that applies to almost all college towns).</p>

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<p>Columbia has much better school colors than Harvard, a better looking wall diploma and has had more Nobel prize affiliates than any university in the world. While Columbia can’t claim to have such notables as the unabomber, Jeffrey Skilling or George W Bush as alumni, it still has a loyal following among its former students. It has even been found to be good enough for both Roosevelts to choose after having been at Harvard and for Jeffrey Sachs to jump ship from Harvard’s faculty to teach at Morningside Heights.</p>

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<p>I spent many a year in Harvard Square as a Harvard Ph.D. student, and absolutely loved it! One of the best places on earth, in my opinion. The mother of my Columbia admit relative has had some of the same misgivings you have had about the safety of New York and Columbia’s environment. Much of the apprehension stems from stereotypes about the area that no longer hold. New York is now one of the safest cities in the U.S. Columbia is NOT in Harlem, but it is relatively near Harlem. And Harlem is NOT what it was even 15 years ago. My advice would be: don’t worry so much about outdated urban stereotypes. At least, that should not be the reason why you make what I believe is a hard choice. And it IS harder than some on the thread will allow. The Columbia Core is a huge part of the Columbia educational experience. But, Core Curriculum-wise, Harvard will be more flexible in that its core distribution requirements do not mandate that you and every other undergrad take the exact SAME Core courses. That should be a consideration. As for your intended major interests of nuero and East Asian. Actually Columbia and Harvard both have exceptionally strong programs in each. While I was at Harvard Simon Schama, a Harvard history prof whom I thought was amazing, moved to Columbia. He seems NOT to have regretted the move! Both schools have great profs. At either one you will get a fantastic education, but at each A VERY DIFFERENT EDUCATION.</p>

<p>You have an enviable choice. But at the end of the day, pick the school where you feel most comfortable: socially, intellectually, personally. Good luck!!!</p>

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<p>Can I just take a moment to appreciate swingtime’s comments, which bring up legitimate concerns that too few admits consider? </p>

<p>Just to respond to a few points that need clarification:</p>

<p>While Columbia isn’t in Harlem, Harlem is one of the richest neighborhoods left in the large American cities of the USA. Columbia is privileged to reside so close to a cultural epicenter of NYC. Yes, Harlem can be dangerous at night, but so can SoHo. Also, the Broadway side of Columbia’s campus is awesome–it’s a shame you didn’t have a chance to walk up and down the street in this area. I live on 113th and Broadway this year–the food and activities around campus are incredible. Riverside is also such a nice area–they were shooting a TV show/movie there today. </p>

<p>Just to directly address your comment, NYC is the king of cafes and boutiques. There are plenty cafes on Broadway near campus, but if you venture down to SoHo–which many of my female friends do–you’re guaranteed an awesome day of shopping and great lunch no matter where you sit down to eat. That’s why people choose Columbia–it’s impossible to get sick of campus life because there are so many options. I wonder if you had a chance to see campus on a nice day? Today was beautiful and there were tons of kids hanging out in the central campus. </p>

<p>As for academics, I can’t speak much to specific fits for your major. I do know that generally social/hard science majors love the Core. It allows you to explore intellectually for a few more years before you have to strongly commit to one area for graduate school. My close friend is a biochem major and russian lit minor–this minor was largely facilitated by the Core–and he loves both aspects of his education.</p>

<p>I’m an engineer, so I mainly just wanted to speak up on the experience aspect. I’m also a scholar with access to summer funding, and I guarantee you it makes your summers so much less stressful. If you fail to find an internship, you can do something more interesting like traveling to Brazil to study some neurological phenomena and get fully funded to do so. Last summer I wrote a review of the solar industry and lifeguarded on the side while getting paid to do this research. The scholar program is severely underrated–if you take advantage of it, you’ll open up some incredible doors. </p>

<p>One cool option for medical research to consider is Mount Sinai, which is very close to campus. I know a few people who have done research there over the summer. I hope all this helps, please don’t listen to the trolls on this thread and simply consider the information at hand, Harvard is an incredible option and you can’t go wrong either way!</p>