<p>I posted this on the Penn board as well, but I'm interested in hearing the Columbia-biased response. I am interested in business, and was accepted at Penn SAS and Columbia, and will most likely major in Econ. I was selected as a Kluge Scholar at Columbia, and that combined with the fact that I'm from NYC is pushing me far towards choosing Columbia. However, since top financial services firms recruit from Penn SAS, I'm not quite ready to write Penn off. In terms of the</p>
<p>-social environment
-competitiveness of students
-job/internship opportunities
-grade inflation
-professor/student interaction</p>
<p>I like to work for financial firms to and love CU better than UPENN just because it's in NYC. I heard you get to meet a lot of business people who work on the wall street more often if you went to CU.
well... i just got into CU too, so i do not know much about CU either. sry</p>
<p>Columbia is for liberal arts. It's for the simultaneously anachronistic and completely cosmopolitan and modern. It's for the independent, who can handle rough and rude city life, and who can make the city and the environment distinctly their own. Penn is for the friendly, for the business-minded and oriented, for the career-oriented students.</p>
<p>My choice? That would be Columbia. But it seems to me like a business-type like yourself would be more inclined to Penn. Hey, it's your choice.</p>
<p>I think Penn has an environment similar to Columbia's "sink-or-swim" in that if you don't havbe individual initiative, you won't get far at this university.</p>
<p>Penn also has a bigger weekend campus scene as the city doesn't have nearly as much of a suction effect on the student body.</p>
<p>I personally find Columbia's neoclassical campus to be the most beautiful in the country, and I look forward to going to CU for grad school. But for undergrad, I just liked Penn.</p>
<p>And the business-minded is not all-pervasive. My classmates range from corporate-whore to artsy iconoclasts, and I can't imagine college without either of them. And to be fair to the corporate-whores (Whoreton), while they may have bland career goals, they still can and do have interesting personal lives and academic interests outside of Finance and I-banking</p>
<p>i think having "individual initiative" is required to get you by at any college, not just Penn or Columbia. and honestly, i wouldn't want to go somewhere that held claimed to hold my hand every step of the way. a bit of independence is important.</p>
<p>When you're making your decision, please consider the Core at Columbia. It's a very large part of the curriculum and if it's not for you, Penn would be a better choice. Look at the Core requirements and understand what you're getting yourself into.</p>
<p>Fex, you'll get a job coming from other school. Don't worry about that. Have you visited either? Where do you want to spend 4 years of your life? Do you like NYC or Phily better? These decisions are made at the margins, and you have to go with your instincts and the subjective factors. You cant quantify most of these things.</p>
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[quote]
Columbia is for liberal arts. It's for the simultaneously anachronistic and completely cosmopolitan and modern. It's for the independent, who can handle rough and rude city life, and who can make the city and the environment distinctly their own. Penn is for the friendly, for the business-minded and oriented, for the career-oriented students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is a typical post by someone who has probably attended neither school. About every word of your post is incorrect, exaggerated or meaningless generalizations.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your insights and suggestions. I put down the deposit for Columbia yesterday. I can't imagine myself leaving NYC, even for only 8 or 9 months out of the year. I LOVE the Core and feel that Lit-hum especially will enable me to be well-versed and able to converse intelligently in many situations. I didn't feel right at Penn, the student population just didn't seem to mesh with me, plus although there is a campus community, I like being able to escape into the city and do my own thing, as opposed to fratting it up. Thanks again!</p>