Columbia's Movin' On Up!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
101

<p>The EALAC (East Asian studies) department is indeed excellent. Many of the standard textbooks, source books, and translations of major works in the field have come out of Columbia and its university press, and there are longstanding ties with China, S. Korea, and Japan. </p>

<p>Hong Kong is brimming with Columbia alumni, as is Singapore.</p>

<p>It's only recently, though, that Columbia has really made a push to send emissaries to Asia as Harvard, Yale, and Stanford have done. In fact, the alumni were embarrassed and demanded Columbia have a greater presence there. The push now is for a greater presence/representation in India.</p>

102

<p>Um... I wouldn't say that we're innately hardcore maths ppl, but given that we're not allowed to voice our opinions, you can't expect us to excel at critical reading or western philosophy, ^^.</p>

103

<p>"Hong Kong is brimming with Columbia alumni, as is Shanghai." Hm... do you think I could use this to get some work experience job in Shanghai this summer, ^^?</p>

104

<p>Sorry, I edited it; I meant Singapore. Not so sure about Shanghai...it might be worth looking into. Here's the contact info for the alumni association there:</p>

<p>Shanghai Columbia Alumni Association
E.C. Liu (a.k.a. En-Chuan Liu) '86C
41 Yongjia Road, #1004
Shanghai 200020
CHINA
86-1390-199-4064 (home)
86-5456-123-9 (fax)
<a href="mailto:el377@columbia.edu">el377@columbia.edu</a></p>

105

<p>Columbia SEAS does not yet have a reputation in league with top engineering schools the way that Columbia College does with top liberal-arts programs. It's rising fast, though, leveraging the brand name, the way that Yale's school of management, barely 20 years old, is fast rising, piggybacking on the name on the front door. The quality of students coming in the front door has exceeded the opportunities available to those leaving on the back end, but that's an inefficiency that grad schools and employers will correct soon enough.</p>

106

<p>"Sorry, I edited it; I meant Singapore. Not so sure about Shanghai...it might be worth looking into. Here's the contact info for the alumni association there:</p>

<p>Shanghai Columbia Alumni Association
E.C. Liu (a.k.a. En-Chuan Liu) '86C
41 Yongjia Road, #1004
Shanghai 200020
CHINA
86-1390-199-4064 (home)
86-5456-123-9 (fax)
<a href="mailto:el377@columbia.edu">el377@columbia.edu</a>"</p>

<p>What should I say? Hi my name is CY, I'm a member of the class of 2011, do you have a job for me this summer, ^^?</p>

107

<p>Haha, not so bluntly. Introduce yourself, say you're excited about Columbia (the president of an alumni association is probably an enthusiastic alumnus), and that you're interested in gaining experience in Shanghai in the future. Then ask politely if he has any advice on finding a job there, or to let you know if he hears of any opportunities in your field. </p>

<p>Since these associations exist party to forge networking connections like this, I wouldn't worry about seeming pestilential.</p>

108

<p>That's a good idea.. what's the shortest time you could get work experience for? Two weeks?</p>

109

<p>It depends entirely on the employer. I've heard of people taking Winter Break internships for three weeks to a month, but not really anything shorter than that. You might find some sort of volunteering position that lasts two weeks.</p>

110

<p>Hehe, thanks! I'll def write him an email, maybe he really does have something for me, ^^.</p>

111

<p>I will provide my own ranking of top schools, but first I have to add a few thoughts:</p>

<p>1) I am shocked and amazed by the level of Penn-bashing on this ? and several other Columbia -sites. A lot of the bashing is based on spurious data, half baked statistics or long-passed glories. The implied inferiority complex for Columbia students/alums is shocking and sad. You can?t lift your institution by tearing another one down. No other Ivy crowd spends ANYWHERE near as much time trying to justify why their school is a hair?s breadth away from the Holy Grail of HYP-dom!!!!</p>

<p>2) I (full disclosure ? a Penn alum) have immense respect for Columbia. It?s one of the finest academic institutions in the world. But ? to set the record straight - Columbia?s relative standing has slipped; it?s been falling for a long while. Columbia (like Yale) suffered dearly during the social/class crises of the 60s and suffered again (like NYC) during the financial crises of the 70s. The school is recovering, but it?s lack of leadership has caused:</p>

<ul>
<li>extraordinary academic strengths in economics, history, psychology, and other humanities have materially faded over time (Top 5 standing 20 years ago, Top 15 now)</li>
<li>faculty citations, publishing and overall visibility have declined substantially over time</li>
<li> alumni giving is piddling relative to Columbia?s main peers</li>
<li>the lowest endowment growth among top schools for the last 20 years; it?s falling from the #2 endowment (with a big gap ahead of the third ranked school) to #6 among private schools with Penn about equal and others closing in)</li>
<li>graduate schools are accused by many of resting on their laurels/coasting on their NYC connections vs producing innovative scholarship and service programs for the broader community</li>
</ul>

<p>3) Regarding the So-Called Gaming of US News - come on kids!!!! Do you really think that all the schools don?t manage their numbers vis-?-vis USNews. Most people suspect Princeton ?games? it?s admissions yield, Penn ?manages? its research spending, Chicago ?adjusts? its admit ratios, and Columbia ?games? its research spend and endowment figures. To claim everyone but Columbia does it is juvenile and disingenuous. They may all do it, but they?re all starting from stellar levels anyway, so the USN rankings are still relatively fair.</p>

<p>Two quick questions to wonder about- a) what would happen if the medical research spend was deducted from the research totals for the Ivies then the list was re-ranked. Cornell would be #1, then far down the list Penn, then Harvard, then Yale. </p>

<p>b) even more interesting, adjust the admit stats for total apps per seat, yield on students w/o fin aid (no buying of students), % of class filled via ED/EA and total yield on all admits. The revised rankings would be shocking.</p>

<p>On to the Rankings:</p>

<ul>
<li>Small clusters makes more sense for such rankings; absolute pecking-order ranking is almost meaningless for universities *
** These rankings are of the entire organization, not just the undergrad components **</li>
</ul>

<p>SUPER ELITES (global name recognition, THE best academic and financial resources)
Harvard / Stanford
(the absolute best in terms of overall academic scope and depth, well balanced academic strengths in many areas, extraordinary financial and human resources, committed and thoughtful leadership over decades, huge research programs, superlatives among their faculty, fanatically loyal alumni, aggressive and successful fund raising)</p>

<p>Among the two, Harvard may be the best in the world today, but Stanford has the momentum. In 10-15 years on its current trajectory, Stanford will hold the crown.</p>

<p>MIT
For what it does ? hard sciences, engineering, quantitative social sciences, there?s no better school. Not even Stanford. Down a notch due to it?s relatively narrower mission/focus.</p>

<p>Princeton / Yale
Amazing resources, strong names and deep traditions. Third position in this cluster due to (a) Yale?s focus on arts & humanities to the clear detriment of its science and engineering areas; and (b) Princeton is the most balanced academically among the SUPER ELITES (with the possible exception of Stanford), but it?s not a major research school. Unique focus among the SUPER ELITES on undergraduate education.</p>

<p>ELITES (broad & deep resources; large research programs in multiple areas)</p>

<p>Penn / Columbia
VERY similar schools. Among the largest of the Ivies. They have similar total populations, roughly equal endowments, shared institutional leanings towards their grad schools (unspoken but true). Both located in large cities. </p>

<p>Academically, they are roughly balanced. Penn is slightly stronger in social sciences, Columbia is slightly stronger in humanities. Columbia trumps Penn in engineering and
the hard sciences, but Penn has Wharton and Nursing. Penn has an advantage in its interdisciplinary programs and research via its One University policy, while Columbia?s Core provides an outstanding intellectual underpinning for its students.</p>

<p>Grad schools ? match point
Penn wins in Medicine (huge margin), Nursing (huge), Business (large), Dental (small)
Columbia wins in Education (huge), Social Work, (huge), Law (small), Engineering (medium)
Roughly a tie in Arts & Sciences; Journalism = Annenberg; Architecture = Penn Design
Can?t directly compare Penn Veterinary, or Columbia SIPA, Public Health or Arts</p>

<p>Penn, however, gets the nod. It has more momentum, has placed better institutional bets in faculty recruitment, research initiatives and commitments to civic service. It?s come farther, faster than most peers and is showing signs of accelerating its gains within the ranks of higher education.</p>

<p>Duke / Cornell
Great schools, significant research enterprises, distinguished alums. Duke is outstanding in the professions and life sciences. Cornell is extraordinary in engineering, the hard sciences, veterinary medicine, natural sciences, management. A notch below the other ELITES, because Duke is ?relatively weaker? in certain humanities and hard sciences; Cornell is weaker in the social sciences and arts. Both have slightly lower levels of financial resources, and are slightly less selective</p>

<p>WUSTL / Northwestern
Very strong schools with particular areas of world class scholarship. WUSTL in hard sciences, social work, medicine, architecture. Northwestern in business, advertising, journalism, arts and humanities. Fewer financial resources, global recognition than other ELITES</p>

<p>USC
Great resources in the sciences, engineering, communications, film, business. Very international student body. Good momentum, solid financial base.</p>

<p>UberIntellectuals (heavy focus on research, intensely intellectual, limited social scene)</p>

<p>UChicago
No Ivy (except possibly Yale in the arts, Harvard in social sciences) can match Chicago for sheer intellectual firepower. Many of the key schools of thought which have framed American life in the last fifty years (economics, social policy, foreign affairs, legal theory) were developed in Hyde Park. Conservative government?s intellectual underpinnings are here. Extraordinary intellectual depth, broad research program, strong financial base. And reinvigorated leadership.</p>

<p>CalTech
Pound for pound, no school can match CalTech in engineering and hard sciences. Not even MIT or Stanford. Strong endowment, loyal alumni base.</p>

<p>Johns Hopkins
Deep focus on health care, medicine, public health. Life sciences complex only matched by USCF, Penn and Harvard. Great strengths in humanities, international affairs, arts.<br>
Intensely research driven. Rumored to have turned down joining the Ivy League amid fears doing so would weaken its commitment to academics.</p>

<p>Other great schools</p>

<p>Other wonderful places to learn include Dartmouth, Brown, Williams, Swarthmore, Haverford. But they are much smaller, narrower academic platforms and can?t reasonably be compared to the research driven institutions listed above.</p>

<p>To humor those who want a strict Ivy Plus ranking (with nods to schools with momentum):</p>

<p>Stanford
Harvard
MIT
Princeton
Yale
Penn
Columbia
Duke
Cornell
Brown
Dartmouth</p>

<p>That?s all folks!!!!!!</p>

112

<p>^Looks official, but almost everything is based on speculation and opinion. Your ranking has just as much value as anyone else on CC.</p>

113

<p>Yes- Columbia lost by a large margin during the 60's and 70's and lost its rep as one of the top top top (Harvard-Columbia) status during that era for various reasons.</p>

<p>I disagree however, that Columbia is "losing momentum".</p>

<p>By all accounts Bollinger is doing a great job so far and here are some of the things pointing to a forward momentum for columbia:</p>

<p>a) Unmatched increase in selectivity/desirability in the last two decades
b) Lower and lower admissions rates and more and more applicants
c) Manhantanville Expansion
d) $4 Billion Endowment growth
e) 5 Nobel Laureates in 5 Years
f) Most Nobels in the world (more than Cambridge, Harvard, etc.)
g) Large alumni base </p>

<p>I fully expect Columbia to rejoin HYP -> HYPC in the forseeable future. As for endowment returns... I do agree that Columbia needs an in-house management firm to take care of investments. While some schools continuously enjoy 20+% returns, Columbia has been significantly lagging for some reason despite sending tons of its alumni to Wall Street. They need better investment managers imo. But in the short run at least... the $4bln campaign will ensure growth into the near future. </p>

<p>And don't kid yourself--- from a global perspective, Penn does not nearly have the reputation/prestige/academic caliber that Columbia has.</p>

114

<p>There is no conceivable way for Columbia to "break into" the top 3, because the very notion of a "top 3" is inextricably linked to HYP. That is to say, even if the planets were to align and alumni giving increased one thousand fold, the SEAS admit rate dropped, and everything else turned out well, people would still be saying "Well, Columbia just isn't HYP." And they would be right. Because, you know, it isn't.</p>

<p>That said, we shouldn't care that it is neither H nor Y nor P. It has its own (very excellent) reasons for attendance and its own (very ghastly) reasons for being put down.</p>

115

<p>HYP the ancient three, the holy trinity or whatever you wanna call it is relatively new... go google some articles about Columbia- i stumbled upon a few before- by the Times and some very other prominent publications that clearly indicated Columbia == Harvard at least during the early part of the 20th century with academic greats Lionell Trilling, Charles Van Doren, Enrico Fermi, Pupin, IIRabi etc etc. </p>

<p>Before 1950, Columbia had the largest endowment too--- what the hell happened since then I don't know.</p>

116

<p>
[quote]
HYP the ancient three, the holy trinity or whatever you wanna call it is relatively new

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Relatively new, perhaps, but firmly entrenched in the popular mind as never before, because higher education never before occupied such a prominent place in popular discourse. This is a direct function of the meteoric rise in Americans going to college, and the connection of American academia to the world's consciousness.</p>

<p>With so many more people holding opinions now, the whole system's pace of change slows to a glacial pace.</p>

<p>Although the system was once flexible enough to allow Chicago, Duke, and Stanford to rise (and for Columbia to falter), that time has passed, at least for the foreseeable future. HYP has become eternal, or at least close to it.</p>

117

<p>Posted this in another topic, but it's ultimately an extension of this discussion:</p>

<p>And JohnnyK, since you asked...
Here's one of the ways Penn and Duke have inflated their rankings over the last few years:
When USNews made the change from count "Average Class Size" to "% of Classes Under 20/Over 50," Penn and Duke both took notice and have manipulated their class sizes to boost themselves, without ever changing their average.</p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/183/usnews.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/183/usnews.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>As you can see, Penn has raised it's % of classes under 20 stat by 5%, while most schools, besides Duke and Princeton, have remained relatively constant.</p>

<p>Penn and Duke are also among the few schools that have decreased their percentage of classes over 50.</p>

<p>In general, looking at the rankings over the years, we can see how little they really mean. Schools jump all over the place: Caltech moved from 9th to 1st in one year, Penn has been everywhere from 4th to 13th.
The only relative constant is that, with the exception of one year, HYP have always been the top 3.</p>

118

<p>"Your ranking has just as much value as anyone else on CC."</p>

<p>I disagree. IMO People who back up their generalizations and opinions with specific details have much more credible and "valuable" opinions.</p>

<p>That being said, thanks for giving us another thought out perspective red&blue :p</p>

119

<p>Any "ranking" is inherently BS, it presumes you can summarize all the dimensions that schools might be compared across into one, and have it be consistent. that's just not true. And it's even less true for subjective "this is how I feel" sort of rankings, no matter how many words you type to try and prove that you somehow know more than the rest of us.</p>

<p>I like the Revealed Preference Rankings because it can scientifically answer a question. That question is NOT "what schools are better than each other?", but it IS a slightly related question, "what schools are preferred to which when students with options are making decisions to matriculate?" That is not the same thing, but it at least has meaning.</p>

120

<p>I don't understand ppl's obsession with rankings... Most of the ranking are fairly accurate, give +/- 5 spots, so it's not a big deal. Who in the world would ever base his decision on rankings alone? It's not like I'm gonna pick CalTech over MIT just because that's what the rankings suggest and I think that ppl who got accepted at the top ranked school should have enough common sense to not make such a big deal out of it. I will turn down better ranked schools for Columbia and in no way did the rankings influence me at all.</p>