<p>Can someone please explain the difference between Columbia University and Columbia College? It seems like the university is for grads and the college is for undergrads, but i'm not sure...i know this must seem like a ridiculous question, but I really can't find the answer anywhere. Also, what is Barnard College? Is is part of Columbia? I'm just beginning my college search, and I don't know much about where to look...any information you can give me would be appreciated :)</p>
<p>It seems you're genuinely confused, so in that sense it is not a ridiculous question. Columbia University is an institution composed of two undergraduate colleges (as well as several graduate schools). One of those colleges is Columbia College, the other is called the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS). Thus the university is composed of both undergraduate and graduate schools, and the "university" name is not limited to graduate programs.</p>
<p>Barnard College is not an undergraduate college of Columbia University. It is a separate institution just like NYU is separated from Columbia. It, however, maintains a special relationship with Columbia that allows its undergrads to take courses at Columbia University (among other benefits for both sides).</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>yes, that helps. thanks.</p>
<p>columbia university actually has THREE undergrad schools...the one you failed to mention was the school of general studies.</p>
<p>Columbia University actually has FOUR undergrad schools. Barnard College is considered a part of the university.</p>
<p>A university is an umbrella for a bunch of schools, all of which share a common campus and central administration (and financial resources, etc). In Columbia's case, there are 22 graduate schools, such as the Law school, Business school, graduate school of Arts and Sciences (sort of the collection of liberal-arts departments), Social Work, Medicine, Continuing Education, etc. You have to apply for those once you already have a Bachelor's degree (and in some cases, a master's, esp for the PhD programs offered by a school). </p>
<p>To get a bachelor's degree, you attend an undergraduate school, also commonly called a College. Columbia College is the original school from which the rest of Columbia University sprang from, or expanded from. SEAS used to be the School of Mines, and has had a huge curriculum overhaul since a major donation back in the 90s transformed it and sent it shooting up the rankings. Barnard College was founded back in the 1800s as a women's college, before Columbia College went co-ed (which it took until 1983 to do). And the school of General Students is also an undergraduate college, serving "nontraditional" students seeking a bachelors, i.e. those who haven't proceeded to college straight from (or nearly straight from) high school.</p>
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A university is an umbrella for a bunch of schools, all of which share a common campus and central administration (and financial resources, etc). In Columbia's case, there are 22 graduate schools, such as the Law school, Business school, graduate school of Arts and Sciences (sort of the collection of liberal-arts departments), Social Work, Medicine, Continuing Education, etc.
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<p>Does Columbia College actually have a "Faculty"? I haven't seen the org-chart of the bureaucracy in a while, but I don't think it does. CC is sort of an anachronism whereby the profs who teach the liberal arts / science / etc. courses are all part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and not some Columbia College Faculty.</p>
<p>Denzera, I know you've argued this to death a million times, but even the Columbia website doesn't call Barnard its own undergraduate school. It's not even anywhere on the virtual tour and wasn't mentioned on my campus tour/information session either. It may not be completely independent but I believe that Barnard holds its own as an LAC with a distinct identity.</p>
<p>direct copy+paste from the Columbia website:</p>
<p>INTRODUCTION
Columbia University
Columbia University is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The main entrance to the Morningside Heights campus is on 116th Street and Broadway; the Medical Center can be found at 168th Street and Broadway.
The Morningside Heights campus houses the three undergraduate schools— Columbia College, the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the School of General Studies—as well as graduate and professional programs in architecture, art, arts and sciences, business, engineering, international affairs, journalism, law, and social work. The School of Continuing Education is also on the Morningside Heights campus.</p>
<p>viva - it's a complicated relationship, I'll acknowledge. I think the point is that, technically and legally, it is a part of Columbia University. Neither side likes to acknowledge this, as it's inconvenient for both of them, up until Commencement (graduation, for the OP). And practically, since students take classes in the other's campus, hang out at parties together, join student groups together, etc, they really are part of the same campus community.</p>
<p>Academically and administratively there are a lot of differences, but I think you really need to mention them in the same breath when answering this kind of question.</p>
<p>^^ barnard is NOT part of columbia university...it is a sister school, but in no way can u say that it is part of columbia</p>
<p>I thought that when you graduated from Barnard you got a Columbia University diploma, thus making it a college of Columbia.</p>
<p>From the Columbia Encyclopedia, published by Columbia University Press: </p>
<p>"Schools and Affiliates
....
Affiliates of the university are .....and Barnard College (founded 1889, incorporated into the university 1900). "</p>
<p>The point of confusion, as a technical matter, is: what does it mean to be an "affiliate" in this case? What does it mean to be incorporated into the university as an affiliate? To which there is complete ambiguity; therefore spun in every direction.</p>
<p>For practical purposes, my understanding is the schools are quite closely integrated into the overall life of the university. Whatever "affiliate" is spun to mean, or even actually means.</p>
<p>Barnard is more than a sister school and less than a fourth undergraduate college.</p>
<p>More than a sister school because some departments are combined between Columbia and Barnard. Math, for example, where a prof on the Barnard faculty might teach a course that is labelled a Columbia math course in the bulletin, and might be given on either the Barnard or Columbia campus to both Barnard and Columbia students. (Other departments are separate, like economics. If you're a Columbia econ major, there are very few Barnard courses you can take for credit towards your major.)</p>
<p>Less than a fourth undergrad college because Barnard has separate admissions, administration, campus, residences.</p>
<p>Are we having fun yet?:) Anyone know if there is any comparable relationship anywhere else in the country?</p>
<p>I don't think sac was "spinning". I think she was trying to honestly and fairly describe the ambiguity of the relationship.</p>
<p>The Cornell analogy doesn't feel right. Don't Barnard and Columbia have separate presidents, for instance? And of course, the undergrads at Cornell share a common set of dorms.</p>
<p>And when we toured Cornell, we went to "admissions" not any one particular school's admissions. The tour they ran covered all seven undergrad schools, whereas separate admissions folk run separate tours for B and C.</p>
<p>The two institutions have a rich and possibly unique relationship. Surely it's not spinning to acknowledge that.</p>
<p>Sac, as best I can tell the relationship between Barnard and the rest of the Columbia academic community (note exquisitely delicate phrasing :) ) is sui generis. Although the Claremont consortium colleges field some joint athletic teams for interscholastic competition, like Columbia and Barnard do, and have some joint academic programs where some students may end up taking the exact same set of classes in their major yet end up graduating from different "colleges" - like Columbia and Barnard students can - I don't know of any other relationship where the students from different colleges get diplomas from the same "University" - as is the case with Columbia College, SEAS and Barnard - but there is still some further (and certainly vague) distinction between them. </p>
<p>I do have to comment that it's just sad that some people have to make insistent statements like "in no way can u say that [Barnard] is part of Columbia" when in fact the relationship - whatever it is - is as historically and functionally intertwined as that between Columbia and Barnard.</p>
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The two institutions have a rich and possibly unique relationship. Surely it's not spinning to acknowledge that.
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Well-put, Garland.</p>
<p>And, to the original poster:</p>
<p>Since you are female, you have the option of applying either to Barnard or to Columbia college/SEAS. Barnard does, indeed, have a completely separate admissions office and also a very different set of basic requirements (Columbia College has the "core"; Barnard the "Nine Ways of Knowing"). You need to look at the diferent curriculae to decide which would suit you.</p>
<p>Again, some Columbia College majors are completely housed at Barnard (Architecture and dance are the two most people immediately come up with), and many, if not most, classes you take (as a student of either school)will included students of both. </p>
<p>Again, a very, very unique relationship!</p>
<p>great, another barnard discussion.... time to unsubscribe from this thread too.</p>
<p>Regarding Cornell, though there is an administrative conduit in Day Hall, admissions are handled by each college separately.</p>
<p>A few years ago I offered to write an unsolicited recommendation letter for a candidate of the College of Arts & Sciences. As it was late in the game, I was referred to an office at Goldwyn Smith Hall- the College of Arts & Sciences- where they were actually making the decisions on this candidate.</p>
<p>The colleges are run pretty autonomously in most other respects as well. The colleges of the university that are located in Ithaca share dorms though. And they do avail themselves of other economies of co-location, like tours. Though they do, for all intents, have individual distinct "campuses", or quads, buildings as the case may be. And students of a particular college tend to choose to live in housing convenient to their quad.</p>
<p>However there are colleges of the university that do not share dorms, are not even located in Ithaca- the medical college, which issues undergraduate nursing degrees I believe, and also issues medical degrees. Though these students do not share dorms or campuses with students in the rest of the university they are still considered to attend colleges of the university and receive degrees issued by Cornell.</p>
<p>Regarding Columbia, I am less informed there but I seem to recall that undergraduate students in its College of General Studies do not share dorms with other Columbia Students either. Don't know about its nursing students.</p>
<p>Monydad - it's pretty common for different "colleges" (or "schools", or even "departments" depending on how the administrative organization is denominated) of a University to have separate admissions staff and standards. I think that is particularly true for engineering, which is often a separate school within a University. Also, many colleges have separate dorms and even campuses for different sets of students, divided in different ways (shades of Hogwarts :)!) I guess the answer is that there's numerous ways to organize an educational institution, and many of them are being utilized today. Trying to fit all of the different organizations into a handful of pigeonhole descriptions is going to be misleading. The are what they are.</p>
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The two institutions have a rich and possibly unique relationship. Surely it's not spinning to acknowledge that.
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<p>It's spinning because it's total BS. I have no idea what a "rich" relationship is between two institutions. As opposed to a poor relationship? Do Harvard and Yale have a rich relationship with each other because they're rivals athletically and academically?</p>
<p>And any relationship is "possibly unique" if you define it narrowly enough. Surely it's a unique relationship in that there isn't another all girl's college located in Manhattan's Upper West Side that allows its students to cross-register at an Ivy league school that also happens to be located in Manhattan's Upper West Side (and in fact, right across the street).</p>