HELP! Columbia University Undergrad Questions

College Search & Selection
1

So decision day is coming up later this week and I just have a couple questions about Columbia undergrad. I’ve narrowed my decision down to Columbia and Uchicago (Same cost for me) I am leaning towards Columbia, however I have a few questions.

How involved are the faculty in helping students pick classes that work towards our major while also completing the core?
Does the Columbia economics department measure up to that of Uchicago?
How manageable is double majoring in subjects that rarely overlap?
Are professors approachable?
How involved are they in helping students find internships/careers post graduation? (IMPORTANT)
How well does CU feed into consulting firms? (IMPORTANT)
How well does CU feed into top business schools? (IMPORTANT)
Where do students meet the majority of their friends? (For example UChi has the house system)
How overwhelming is the city environment?

I know I’ve got a good amount of questions, however I would love if you could answer a couple. Especially the (IMPORTANT) ones

2

Flip a coin.

Seriously, for the kinds of questions you’re asking, there is no clear, strong, verifiable difference between them.For example, with respect to “Are professors approachable?”, ultimately, it depends on the professor.

W.r.t. your #2 and #3 IMPORTANT questions, there doesn’t seem to be enough good, public data available to make an good, objective comparison. Now and then on CC you’ll see detailed tables showing (for example) how many recent graduates of this or that school were hired by this or that consulting firm (or investment bank). However, it’s hard to tell from numbers like that what role each school played in “feeding into” the firm, or (in the cases I’ve seen) how many of its students even bothered to apply for those jobs. And you have to decide in the first place exactly which firms you’re going to compare. These are issues I see, anyway. Maybe some other poster can suggest new, helpful data.