Columbia vs. Yale vs. Penn

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
1

Prospective biology major with strong interests in political science here. :slight_smile:

Can anyone speak to the following factors in particular?:

  1. Relative prestige (particularly in bio and polisci)
  2. Quality of dorms
  3. Social life - what is it like at these schools? How are they different? Is it focused in the school or out in the surrounding city?
  4. How does Columbia's undergraduate focus compare to the others'?
  5. How's the food? :P

Thank you in advance for any comments!

2

College prestige is something we all obsess about at some point in our lives. Generally speaking, they’re all pretty close; but within the US, most would say Yale, Columbia, and UPenn in that order. But internationally, Columbia would be at least as high as Yale, and probably higher. For Biology and Political Science specifically, as I’m sure you know, it’s more about the Graduate department rankings. However, this does filter down to the undergrad level and is an acceptable marker for most discussions. For both of those fields, Columbia and Yale would be pretty much tied, and UPenn would be slightly lower. Does all of this really matter? Probably not too much.

The Columbia experience can be said to be equal parts Ivy League and NYC. Obviously, when we say equal parts, we mean this metaphorically rather than actual time. In terms of actual time, you would spend the vast majority of it, including on the weekends actually on campus – a beautiful urban campus I might add. I have wonderful memories of the summers I spent on campus.

NYC is a wonderful place to explore as a college student with your friends. But Columbia has everything you would expect on the campus of any large university. Nevertheless, we are in the middle of NYC which I don’t think any other US city comes close to – this includes Philly, and I happen to love Philly. So NYC will and should color your college experiences; and NYC is something to be experienced. But the Columbia social life is in fact centered on Columbia – everything emanates from it.

For some people, this is not for them. They have in their mind’s eye, a vision of college which is a quintessential remote ivy tower in a small town – essentially a large boarding school where the social life is 99% within the school, barring the occasional road trips. I know for me, this would drive me crazy and I would not have been happy in that environment, no matter how wonderful that college.

There are always going to be some people who gripe about cafeteria food. But the Columbia Dining food was great – I loved eating at John Jay Dining Hall. And of course, there are so many restaurants at all different price points just within steps from your door, let alone throughout Manhattan.

There are always different lists for everything. I’ve seen one that listed Columbia Dining services relatively low, but it was still ranked. But this following list shows Columbia Dining as the 2nd Best in the country. Oddly enough, I think this list is the most accurate :wink: . I’ve eaten at several college dining halls (including recently at Penn), and I can categorically say we had the best food. Columbia Dining has only gotten even better over the years. http://www.thedailymeal.com/best-colleges-food-america

1 Like
3

@Anonymoose3 @morningside95 Columbia is definitely not as high as Yale neither domestically nor internationally in terms of overall college prestige. Yale is above both Penn and Columbia and the latter two are pretty much comparable for all intensive purposes. In the fields you mention Columbia is indeed ranked higher than Penn.

4

And, where are you getting your information? Based on the majority of established rankings of world universities, Columbia’s reputation is generally above Yale and Yale is generally above the University of Pennsylvania. See links. http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2015.html (Columbia 8, Yale 11, Penn 17); http://cwur.org/2015/ (Columbia 6, Yale 11, Penn14); http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings?int=a27a09 (Columbia 9, Yale 14, Penn 14).

5

oops deleting…

6

Yale is widely recognized as being a more prestigious school internationally. You could make a case for Columbia being more well known than Princeton (although educated people will be very familiar with the latter and probably hold it in higher esteem than either Yale or Columbia) but Yale is to Harvard what Cambridge is to Oxford. You could make the argument that Stanford (and MIT to a lesser extent) have outpaced them both but that’s not particularly relevant to this discussion.

Yale has the sort of global prestige that doesn’t depend on rankings. ARWU ranks UCSD over Penn. How many people would consider UCSD to be more prestigious? Is the University of Minnesota more prestigious than Duke? Is Boston University more prestigious than Brown?

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2015/reputation-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank_label/sort_order/asc/cols/rank_only

^ THE’s world reputation ranking.

7

I love how these threads always devolve immediately into bickering about reputation. It was one of five questions, even! If you’re going to dredge up a bunch of rankings to support your arbitrarily-formed opinions about prestige, at least go to the bother of answering a couple other questions along with it.

  1. I don't study bio or poli sci, so I can't speak to it.
  2. I'm a freshman, so I haven't lived in the dorms for long. This year, my dorm is clean (save for the mess I make in my own room), good-looking, and overall a pretty nice place to live. Some dorms lack AC, which can get bothersome, but I think at this point most have it. Bathrooms can get a bit messy, especially because ours are individual unisex bathrooms and people I guess don't feel as judged by their peers when they are messy because of that private space. Amenities are good, better for upperclassman dorms than freshman ones.
  3. Here, it's basically what you make of it, and depends on how heavy your workload is. There's enough stuff to do on campus, I'd say, to keep you busy most of the time, but to me, it feels cramped, so I like to stretch my legs and go into the city once in a while. I guess it's sort of clique-y here, so if you're into that (I am), it's a good choice, but if you like to meet a bunch of people, you could probably also do it. I can't for the life of me, since it takes a while for me to get to know any particular person. But that's what I'm saying - it depends mostly on you.
  4. Don't know how this is for Yale or Penn. In my department (music), it's pretty strong. Senior faculty members tend to be a bit more aloof and work mostly with grad students, but I've certainly logged plenty of personal hours with junior faculty and grad students. In music, most of the grad students are already extremely knowledgeable people with flourishing careers of their own. Again, I can't speak to other depts.
  5. Good, but lacking, as is all other college food I've ever tasted. At its absolute best, it can be restaurant quality.
8

@Tshiknn Nicely done, cutting through the palaver of the riff raff. Hope your studies are going well.

9

^ Calling people riff raff is a great way of convincing prospective students to attend Columbia…

10

Penn undergrad, my son is currently at Yale, and he took some classes at Columbia, so I have some insight into all three of your choices. Overall answer: Yale hands down.

As to your specific questions:

  1. Yale, Columbia, Penn
  2. Yale, probably by an order of magnitude. Oak paneling, oak floors, marble hallways, soaring gothic arches (picture an upscale hogwarts) v painted cinder blocks and vinyl tile.
  3. Social life at Yale is college focused and far more inclusive. Penn is alcohol and frats, also college focused. Columbia tends to spread out into the city more.
  4. Yale is a college that happens to have a University attached, with a clear focus on undergrads. Columbia and Penn - not so much.
  5. Yale food is amazingly better than Penn and Columbia. Check out http://hospitality.yale.edu/menu-selector

You will get a good education in your major at all three schools. If you want broader opportunities both inside your major (such as undergrad research opportunities) and the ability to explore outside your major, Yale offers much more.
Visit the schools, Bulldog days is amazing. Sleep in the dorms, eat in the dining halls, go to classes, attend the events and make your choice.

11

@tdy123 a whole load of generalizations you are presnting here. Yale has te superior prestige for sure but to say that Yale affords better undergrsdyste research opportunities is not true at all. Also there are fields at which Yale is lacking relative to Penn, Columbia ( engineering, business). Also one might say that Yale social life is rather anemic, and the claim thst it is somehow more inclusive is unfounded, especially given Yale’s reputation as the more snobbish school out of these three. Also Penn social life is wuite more than just alcohol and frats. There is a lot of alcohol in all of the ivies.

12

@Penn95 pot calling the kettle black? Counter generalizations with more generalizations? hahahah

About 90% of Yale STEM undergrads participate in research. There # of slots always outweighs candidates. Social life is very campus-centric b/c people don’t flood out to a large metro area on Fridays and Saturdays (Philly, NYC, Boston) and thus, more and creative things happen on campus. Is it the most snobby of the three? I suppose but even that’s tiny and if I ever encountered it, it was minimal b/c of the sheer number of inclusive and chill people. Being snobby or elitist was simply culturally uncouth at Yale.

When I visited various Ivies as a HS senior, Yalies were the most gregarious, genuine, enthusiastic and hoping that I get accepted – even though they had no reason to do so w/some anonymous kid from Detroit whom 99.99% likely they’d never meet again. That’s what sold me.