Columbia VS Princeton

Colleges & Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>Any ideas?</p>

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<p>none, except I’m in the same situation as you! try admit weekend?</p>

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<p>hey guys, two great universities, congratulations</p>

<p>you just can’t go wrong with each</p>

<p>here is a thead that discusses Princeton v. Columbia v. a couple of others:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1116931-princeton-vs-mit-vs-yale-vs-caltech-vs-columbia.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1116931-princeton-vs-mit-vs-yale-vs-caltech-vs-columbia.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Princeton vs Columbia isn’t even close, come on. If you really want to be in NYC and don’t care about all of the advantages that Princeton offers, then maybe.</p>

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<p>well, I live in California and here, Princeton and Columbia have the same rep. IMO, Princeton can be a better learning environment for undergraduates because there are a lot less grad students and virtually no professional students on campus.
Columbia is kind of dominated by grad and professional students.</p>

<p>That said, for pre-meds who want to assist in research at a world-class medical center, Columbia would be far preferred. Also, for pre-Wall Street types, studying in NYC is a decided advantage to secure school-year internships at investment banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, etc.</p>

<p>Wall Street recruiting and law, med prospects should be excellent for students at both schools. Both are at the very top for new hires at places like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc. (along with Wharton and Harvard of course). </p>

<p>Engineering is comparable at both schools with a slight nod to Columbia.</p>

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<p>“Also, for pre-Wall Street types, studying in NYC is a decided advantage to secure school-year internships at investment banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, etc.”</p>

<p>Lol Princeton is so far superior to Columbia when it comes to Wall Street it’s not even remotely close. We have major players in every investment bank doing interviews of Princeton students. Princeton, Harvard, and Wharton are widely regarded as the best three schools to go to for pre-finance. Columbia is considered under Yale, Stanford, and MIT which come after HPW.</p>

<p>Princeton’s also a lot better than Columbia when it comes to engineering. I have no idea how you formed these reputation ideas. Fu is not really considered that good. Princeton is usually ranked pretty highly when it comes to engineering despite the fact that we have a much smaller engineering school (and for some reason USNews uses # of PhD’s awarded per year as a major criterion).</p>

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<p>Engineering- Columbia is ranked slightly higher than Princeton:
[Best</a> Engineering School Rankings | Engineering Program Rankings | US News](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/eng-rankings]Best”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/eng-rankings)</p>

<p>Wall Street- well, I worked at Merrill Lynch in sales and trading before grad school. In the banking division, night analysts are Columbia and NYU juniors with high GPAs who come in at 5 and leave around midnight three days a week. It’s a lot of work but these people have a huge advantage getting into Summer Analyst programs. Same thing with GS Principal Strategies and GS structured products desks- check Linked In- Columbia grads have greater total representation than Princeton. Maybe on a relative basis your assertions are true. I didn’t go to either school.</p>

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<p>I don’t know why you would use Linked In representation as a measure of how good a college is for Wall Street jobs. I’m sure NYU Stern has a very high representation too since they simply have way more people going to Wall Street than Princeton, but it would be ridiculous to say Stern is better for Wall St. than Princeton. </p>

<p>How many Columbia students are night analysts? Sounds like a not very efficient program from the point of view of the firms. Maybe they have a huge advantage over the Columbia students that don’t do this program, but probably not any advantage at all over Princeton students. When you look percentage wise, I’m sure the hiring rate is a lot higher for Princeton than Columbia.</p>

<p>You know what else gives an advantage? Having a really strong sophomore year internship, which many Princeton students are able to secure.</p>

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<p>Well I’m hoping to do Pre-med, with an interest in neuroscience. So I’m looking for opportunities for research, work experience, etc.
Any comments? I’m not completely career-focused as many maybe. I just want to go to a place where I can pursue my academic interests.
I know Columbia has its affiliated hospital and great medical opportunities. But what’s the Princeton pre-med scene like? Where do Princeton pre-meds go for work experience and research?</p>

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<p>cmburns, Columbia is not even close to Princeton in Engineering. The graduate school rankings for engineering from USNWR that you quote use a methodology that is erroneous by using overall Research Expenditures as a measure instead of Research Expenditures per engineering student - thereby punishing the smaller engineering departments. </p>

<p>Within those rankings, however, the peer assessment and recruiter assessement segment of the rankings tell a better story - resulting in Graduate school engineering rankings of 10th for Princeton and Columbia 21st. In the USNWR undergraduate rankings, purely based on peer assessment, Princeton is ranked 11th and Columbia 26th…</p>

<p>More imporantly, if you review the extensive NRC rankings that recently came out, you will find that Princeton Engineering is ranked 2nd, 2nd, 4th, 6th and 9th in the five core engineering areas of EE, CS, Civ.E., ChE and MechE, respectively. Columbia, on the other hand FAILS TO MAKE THE TOP TEN in any of these five core engineering departments.</p>

<p>Additionally, this link will show you a comparison of Princeton and Columbia Engineering worldwide:</p>

<p>Top 50 Engineering and Technology Universities 2010 </p>

<p>[Top</a> Universities for Engineering & Technology 2010-2011](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/engineering-and-IT.html]Top”>World University Rankings 2010-11 | Times Higher Education (THE))</p>

<p>As you can observe, Princeton Engineering is ranked 4th worlwide, behind only Caltech, MIT and Stanford. Columbia Engineering fails to make the top 50.<a href=“note:%20this%20is%20not%20a%20misprint,%20Columbia%20Engineering%20fails%20to%20make%20the%20top%2050%5B/I%5D”>I</a></p>

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<p>randombetch, you are correct, for Investment Banking, Private Equity, Hedge Funds and top Consulting Firms, Harvard, Wharton and Princeton form a top tier. Columbia is stationed in the middle of the next tier.</p>

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<p>Finally, if you want to compare the quality of undergraduate education at Columbia v. Princeton, all you have to do is read this:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12334505-post93.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12334505-post93.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>and this:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12335245-post99.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12335245-post99.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>nothing else needs to be said.</p>

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<p>Japanoko,
I don’t care as much as you do- anyone who knows engineering knows Princeton has excellent faculty across the board. I don’t think Princeton is a smaller engineering school than Columbia so you’re off in that respect. Some departments at Columbia like ChemE are really small. Alot of Princeton students who study engineering seem to do ORFE as a major for Wall Street. Not saying there is anything wrong with that. At Columbia, these same sort of people do IEOR, also for Wall Street recruitng. Neither school produces the cadre of talented engineers for industry that UCB, Stanford and MIT do.</p>

<p>By research productivity, it really depends on the metric. You can look at members of the NAE (Princeton 28, Columbia 16) or Nobel Prizes (Columbia 97, Princeton 32). I didn’t have the patience to narrow the Nobels down to science prizes. </p>

<p>Also, the THES rankings are one ranking. According to ARWU, Princeton and Columbia are pretty similar.</p>

<p>Let me reiterate I didn’t go to either.</p>

<p>University Profiles Resources Contact
Academic Ranking of World Universities - 2010 </p>

<p>1 Harvard University Americas
2 University of California, Berkeley Americas
3 Stanford University Americas<br>
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Americas
5 University of Cambridge Europe
6 California Institute of Technology Americas<br>
7 Princeton University Americas<br>
8 Columbia University Americas<br>
9 University of Chicago Americas<br>
10 University of Oxford Europe<br>
11 Yale University Americas<br>
12 Cornell University Americas</p>

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<p>hmm,</p>

<p>Columbia is middle tier for Wall Street?
I don’t know- checking Wikipedia- Warren Buffett, John Kluge, Henry Kravis, Leon Cooperman, David E Shaw, Noam Gottesman, Louis Bacon, Dan Loeb, Vikram Pandit, Mario Gabelli, Stephen Friedman, James Gorman, Raanan Agus, Mark McGoldrick, Richard Ruzika- </p>

<p>that’s quite an alum list for one university.</p>

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<p>cmburns, seriously?</p>

<p>we are discussing undergradute schools and you are putting Columbia graduate school students instead to prove your point</p>

<p>are you serious?</p>

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<p>well good point to clarify-</p>

<p>randombetch said:
Lol Princeton is so far superior to Columbia when it comes to Wall Street it’s not even remotely close. We have major players in every investment bank doing interviews of Princeton students. </p>

<p>It looks like Columbia has “major players” as well- someone who did an MBA at Columbia or HBS or Wharton will probably look favorably at an undergrad from those places… sometimes the slightest edge is all that matters in a competitive job market.</p>

<p>Anyway, I am only taking Columbia’s side on this one because a lot of people at Princeton drink the kool-aid. The real world doesn’t care about educational pedigree anywhere as much as people on CC think.</p>

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<p>cmburns, listen, why in the world would you want to defend a department at Columbia that you know nothing about?</p>

<p>Columbia has 3 times the number of engineering students than Princeton</p>

<p>Engineering Students</p>

<p>Columbia
1,459 - Undergraduate
2,004 - Graduate
3,463 - total Columbia Engineering Students</p>

<p>Princeton
845 - Undergraduate
535 - Graduate
1,380 - total Princeton Engineering Students</p>

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<p>cmburns, I am sorry, but we are discussing Princeton Engineering v. Columbia Engineering</p>

<p>would you care to discuss what part of the rankings that you posted above relate to the Engineering departments of these two colleges?</p>

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<p>cmburns, wrong again</p>

<p>the Princeton ORFE department is only about 24% of the overall Princeton Engineering department in terms of number of students…</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>you are wrong about Princeton Engineers, they are at the level of MIT, UCB and Stanford engineers for industry</p>

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<p>OK, well I stand corrected about the size of Columbia engineering- it’s a little misleading because both schools draw on graduate research groups with a PI and a ton of post-docs who are not counted in your stats. Also, you have to look at it department by department. At Columbia, IEOR has to be the biggest (at least from anecdotal info).</p>

<p>Also a larger school = more faculty = more research opportunities and more peers. This is why the Big 10 schools are generally the best places to study engineering.</p>

<p>Do you agree or disagree that the typical career path for both a Princeton BSE and Columbia BSE is a career in financial services, law or non-technical consulting rather than an R&D role at a technology company?</p>

<p>It’s getting a little late here but I’d be happy to carry on with this discussion in the future.</p>