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<p>Wall Street journal used incorrect data. Columbia College class size is about 1000 (not 1652)</p>
<p>^That’s totally false just off the top of my head. Princeton billionaires I can think of immediately are Meg Whitman, Jeff Bezos, Carl Icahn and Eric Schmidt. That’s 4 right there. I can’t think of a single famous businessman hailing from Columbia UNDERGRAD.</p>
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LOL.</p>
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Nobel Laureates at ‘Economics’ department (Stiglitz Mundell) teach ‘economics’ courses at Columbia. Prof. Merton is a Columbia graduate (Nobel Economics) who basically created ‘Financial Engineering’ (options, derivatives, hedge funds, etc.)
Do you think ‘economics’, ‘hedge funds’ are obscure departments ?</p>
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<p>Here is the ranking of billionaire univeristies. Princeton is not even top 14.
[In</a> Pictures: Billionaire University - Forbes.com](<a href=“In Pictures: Billionaire University”>In Pictures: Billionaire University)</p>
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<p>Meg Whitman LOST Governor election. LOL</p>
<p>Barak Obama won ‘PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION’ and is now the PRESIDENT OF U. S. A.</p>
<p>Okay; this thread is getting kind of silly. Both schools are the best of the best. They’re both so good that rankings are basically arbitrary, and if you can get into both, you really should just choose which one is a better fit for you. Do a campus visit, look at what the department(s) looks like for your prospective major(s), and go from there. It’s really a matter of personal preference.</p>
<p>columbia undergraduate billionaires off the top of my head:</p>
<p>kluge
lerner
kraft
campbell</p>
<p>If Princeton was all that great, it would rely less on legacies. According to the Princetonian, one cannot walk on the campus without bumping into these privileged scions. Roughly one in every eight undergrads at Princeton are legacies. Plus the athletes and the URMs and one finds that hardly twentyfive percent of the undergrads have been selected on their merit. While all those nice buildings certainly look great on a sunny day, it takes really good students to make an institution. On that score, Princeton is beginning to look weaker and weaker. Maybe that is why they had to hand out all those As. Probably explains the Rhodes scholars.</p>
<p>^I’ve felt that way about Princeton for a while–good to know it’s not just me.</p>
<p>lesdia here are a few metrics on which columbia beats princeton:</p>
<p>freshman retention
% of classes under 20 students
% of minorities
% of pell grant receipients</p>
<p>there might be others, but these are from the top of my head.</p>
<p>In terms of selectivity Columbia and Princeton are practically identical - acceptance rates are nearly the same, princeton has slightly higher SAT scores and Columbia has slightly higher % of students in the top 10% of their high school class (97% vs. 95%) - US News rates them equally on selectivity.</p>
<p>You mentioned that # of nobel laureates if an irrelevant metric, but you sighted # of rhodes scholars which is an equally irrelevant metric. Few students ever want to become rhodes scholars in the first place and each year 1-3 students from either institution makes it anyway. </p>
<p>I definitely consider Princeton and Columbia peer schools, in that there are good and perfectly normal reasons to choose either one if given the choice. For the sake of consistency, I also think that Duke and Princeton are peer institutions, if someone chose Duke over Princeton I wouldn’t really be very curious as to why (because there are many good reasons - specific programs, school spirit, sports, weather, campus feel etc). If someone chose boston college or USC over princeton I would be very curious as to why they did so.</p>
<p>lesdiable needs to ■■■■ this thread and go read a book or something</p>
<p>say, man, what school did you even go to? </p>
<p>I’m not going to bash on Princeton because it was a close second choice for me. I think that the reason it relies so much on legacies is because its primarily an undergrad institution and piling up legacies helps it to ultimately build loyalty to the institution.</p>
<p>I think that the education at both institutions are roughly similar (as had been reiterated like a billion times in this thread); Princeton might be <em>slightly</em> more “prestigious” or whatever, but for stimulations outside of the classroom, such as internships, volunteerism, and job shadowing Columbia clearly wins - whether its in research, business, medicine, etc.</p>
<p>idk if that helped or not…probably not…lol</p>
<p>i just like to look back at the time when columbia was nearly as selective as princeton, and the rush of the most insensitive comments on the daily princetonian news story. it is things like that that make me feel good where i went. </p>
<p>love princeton if you want. i don’t. and as a reasonable choice, i think columbia is right there.</p>
<p>This thread makes me glad I chose Princeton over Columbia!</p>
<p>Not really. But I feel like I have to make a post like this in order to keep par with some of the moronic content here.</p>
<p>explain how you’re princeton '15?</p>
<p>^ probably a wannabe</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity… is this Columbia vs. Princeton thing a common rivalry? My cousin at Columbia seemed pretty offended when I told him Princeton was my second choice. I know I should probably know more about these things, but I … honestly don’t care very much.</p>
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Yep. That’s all I am. In fact, technically speaking, everyone with a Princeton likely letter claiming to be a member of the class of 2015 is a wannabe, since official decisions don’t come out for another few months. At least I can admit my shortcomings though! 
There’s no rivalry between the two really; I guess though that they do have quite different environments, which leads to some pretty strong opinions on each side. I would have to say though, admittedly without knowing all the context, that your cousin is a weeniehead.</p>
<p>Hahaha I think it was just because at the time of that conversation, I was wavering on my “rah rah Columbia!” stance since it was just after I toured Princeton and just before I toured Columbia and he was showing his school spirit. But it was pretty weenieheaded of him, I will agree.</p>
<p>monstor, my bad bro. You a recruited athlete?</p>
<p>Columbians try to stir up a rivalry with Princeton, they are definitely the most hated school on campus, I don’t think princetonians know or care that much though. I think Princeton would be my least favorite ivy followed closely by Cornell. Penn think they have a rivalry with Princeton, but again, not sure Princeton knows or cares. </p>
<p>It’s also sad that a Princeton’15 kid spells monster wrong :p</p>