<p>the average undergrad Columbia student? I just would like to know to see if I could fit in there. Thanks!</p>
<p>hey someone just posted on this a few days ago. so i don’t mind answering again, but you really ought to read the other posts before putting yours down.</p>
<p>some things to note - there are folks at columbia from oregon, the whole pac nw, most of the country and throughout the world. so there is someone from everywhere and something for everyone. i think this is honestly a very hard question to answer because what you are implying is that there is a box you can fit into, but that is not so clear, and less so at columbia and new york. a diverse school may have generalizations about it, but most of the top tier schools have similar students there (bright, ambitious, engaged, committed). </p>
<p>in general though here are some generalizations to help you think about it. columbia students tend to be more ambitious than the avg. student (along with the other ivies). tend to be more independent minded, less reliant on support structures (like other entrepreneurial students that set out for a new york or an LA). students are more intellectual than the very smart breed (sometimes exercise in thinking for thoughts sake and not with any end in mind). but i think that is about the only broad sweeps i can make about students who perhaps would choose CU over a peer school. for instance if you are all academics then cu v. uchicago is an interesting choice; if you want something more than your academics, the ivies+mit,stanford are unmatched in resources. if you are interested in an intellectual environment, then it is slightly reversed - a place like cornell or columbia are very different, where colu students are more apt to wax philosophic (and many of my friends went to cornell so i can affirm this generalization).</p>
<p>i think that is a fair estimator as to what students are like coming in. one of the biggest things that changes students (and perhaps are the students you think about when you meet them on campus) is their engagement with the city and the city life. students are very much the product of the city (snarky and self-reliant, jaded and adventurous), which has its good spots and tough spots; i like new yorkers very much, but it is an acquired taste when you know someone is judging you for what you are wearing when you are perhaps not used to it back home. and most students who enjoy their time in columbia (in new york overall) will adopt some of the customs and habits of the city (desire to cross the street at any point in time). i think this is what most folks refer to when they think about ‘fitting in.’ but i guess to go back to it, most people are not native new yorkers going to columbia. they come from small towns other countries, etc. and then they get to new york and the beauty, brightness and difficulty of the city changes them. i would say for the best (i can’t imagine a better learning environment than the world’s greatest microcosm), but i would leave you to decide.</p>
<p>so i think the only other thing to add is that it doesn’t quite matter who you are when you come to columbia, so long as you are willing to go on that adventure and be impacted by your collegiate community. columbia (for most) is not like home. and that is why it is so much easier for you to grow up at cu+nyc than anywhere else. there are tons of schools out there that will feel like a continuation of high school, and columbia is not.</p>
<p>There are some good threads attempting to answer the same question if you search a bit.</p>