<p>Hm, I recall spending a wonderful afternoon waiting around Hartley when the Housing staff all decided to lunch at the same time, leaving a long queue of people in the lurch...</p>
<p>I've tried the "but Columbia's bureaucracy helps you deal with the real world" argument before. You have to wonder, though, at what cost that comes. Sure, we'll get less frustrated in the future when we pay taxes or deal with the DMV - we've got some more perspective. But when our Dartmouth peers are known on a first name basis in their administrative offices, issues like financial aid or thesis research money are personal, not abstract, and opportunities may actually find themselves to you rather than vice versa. Shouldn't a university be helping us reach our fullest potential in our formative years, when we actually have the opportunity to be sheltered by such an institution, rather than making us waste time (and in some cases money) at a crucial point in our lives by climbing through their red tape or, in many cases, being forced to bypass them altogether?</p>
<p>I believe that the administrative red-tape is the biggest thing holding Columbia back. If it were able to foster a true undergrad focused environment with more exposure to opportunities its reputation would decidedly improve.</p>
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I've tried the "but Columbia's bureaucracy helps you deal with the real world" argument before. You have to wonder, though, at what cost that comes. Sure, we'll get less frustrated in the future when we pay taxes or deal with the DMV - we've got some more perspective. But when our Dartmouth peers are known on a first name basis in their administrative offices, issues like financial aid or thesis research money are personal, not abstract, and opportunities may actually find themselves to you rather than vice versa. Shouldn't a university be helping us reach our fullest potential in our formative years, when we actually have the opportunity to be sheltered by such an institution, rather than making us waste time (and in some cases money) at a crucial point in our lives by climbing through their red tape or, in many cases, being forced to bypass them altogether?
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<p>Exactly. Why is the "paying customer" point lost? The DMV is a necessary evil in life. You pay 50K/year for college. (I guess we pay taxes, not that that gives us any power over gov red tape.)</p>
<p>it's not an excuse, but it does provide some counterweight to the annoyance of having to deal with things. in other words, there IS some value to learning how to approach systems like that. there are lots of human institutions out there with arcane rules, strange demands, good/caring employees vs lazy/dumb employees, etc. There is value in being able to navigate that. You wouldn't ever notice it consciously because it's a habit you pick up, but what might stress the hell out of a less experienced person will seem, while annoying, nevertheless manageable to a Columbia grad.</p>
<p>It sounds like an excuse. It's not. Would things be better for an undergrad if you didn't have to deal with give-a-s**t attitudes every time you want something from the administration? Yes, undoubtedly. But that doesn't mean that what we get at Columbia is (A) completely worthless (see my point #2), or (B) without value in itself.</p>
<p>If we had s**tty professors, THAT would be a complete waste of our time and energy. But we don't, we have kickass professors. Instead, the downside of our institution is, in minor part, an upside in our personal growth. Just because it sounds like what Calvin's dad used to say, "...it builds character", doesn't mean it's untrue.</p>
<p>Man, I should've gone to Dartmouth. I almost did. It was down to the wire decision. I wasn't sure if all the nice happy awesome closeness and unity and nice people outweighed being in the middle of nowhere, so I took all this gobbledeegook in the middle of somewhere. Oh well. Not going to transfer.</p>
<p>seriously. you may deal with this twice a semester. its not that bad. people need to suck it up and quit whining (even those who have graduated) :P</p>
<p>It looks like there’s a big institutional divide: either the independent and brusque New York experience or the equivalent of a intimate liberal arts institutional environment. Then you have to consider social life: do you value the cultural and entertainment experiences of the city, or are you fine with on-campus activities dominated by inclusive Greek life? You then have to consider the academics: do you want a liberal arts experience or a research university experience with a Core curriculum?</p>
<p>But this isn’t a thread about Columbia v Dartmouth. Columbia treats its undergraduates very well, at least as well as its graduate students. This was not true 25 years ago, and certainly not true 50 years ago, when the undergraduates were repeatedly screwed, but now they are largely the central focus.</p>
<p>since this thread has been bumped recently, let me add another perspective here. I’ve experienced columbia as a college student and a graduate student (not GSAS, i.e. PhD students who TA your classes), and I can say with absolute certainty now that the experience varies a lot from school to school, and in retrospect, I’m appalled at how I was treated as an undergrad. This isn’t to say I had a bad experience and hated my time at Columbia. I’m just struck by how unnecessarily awful and hostile the bureaucracy was in the central administration and the divisions servicing the undergraduate schools. It’s really a shame.</p>
<p>But, that’s one of the few prices you pay in return for everything that makes a Columbia experience great.</p>
<p>how long ago was this? I just graduated and even in my 4 years I can see the administration taking some steps to make the experience better for undergrads, I definitely felt cared for as an undergrad most of the time. The advising has improved considerably, my junior-senior adviser was miles ahead of my freshman-soph adviser, and current fresh-soph advisers seem to be better overall as well. Professors definitely gave me and my friends a lot of their time and good guidance when it came to picking classes, finding jobs, solving class related problems. My seas department was actually quite welcoming and personal, it was what I had expected from Columbia. Some aspects are still a real pain like booking space for large events. Overall it was a bumpy road which got smoother over time. I too learned to ask for help and seek advise from administrators and advisers - I think this is a valuable skill to learn which you wouldn’t learn quite as well in a school where your hand is held all the way through.</p>
<p>The opportunities are ubiquitous and the bureaucracy teaches you to not take things for granted, which while a burden, teaches you important life lessons.</p>
<p>i will say one thing to confucian because i think we might have been close in our time at columbia.</p>
<p>a) in the short time columbia has gotten a LOT better. and i mean it without hyperbole. the smoothness between ugrad factions and central admin is something i’m very happy to see slowly but surely get torn down.</p>
<p>the reason for it was in part institutional, but also egomaniacal - folks that ran the ugrad stuff wanted to be the first and only folks to gain dollars from those alumni, they wanted their fiefdom, and that’s slowly starting to fade. i mean we aren’t talking about it like it is heaven on earth, it is still columbia, but you’d be surprised how more student friendly it has become.</p>
<p>b) i think i kind of understand and sort of agree that columbia has a bureacratic framework, but there is something that Quigley used to always say, and he said it so crassly that i never took him seriously in part because i felt like it was something he obviously didn’t come up with, but in the end whether he came up with it, or someone told him to say it, it rang true - to paraphrase “columbia students know they aren’t going to have the world handed to them, they know in the end they will have to fight for themselves either in the classroom or even in their daily life in new york city. it means they are more resourceful, smarter and gain the necessary life intelligence to maneuver in this increasingly complicated world.” </p>
<p>i feel that’s true, i feel seasoned, i feel like i am battle ready, and by the end of my time at CU there honestly were very few obstacles that i hadn’t figured out how to work my way around, and that was fun. knowing who to go in and see, who to call, how to do it, who pulled the strings. in fact it never really felt like an obstacle so much as a challenge, sort of like when you’re a kid and you play your parents off against each other, in the end you can always figure out how to gain double the goods if you play your cards well. and that in the end made college not just fun and enjoyable, but kind of liberating.</p>
<p>You guys should realize that when you are arguing about dartmouth/Columbia/other ivies… most kids are saddly geting rejection letters from these schools.</p>
<p>Both these schools are all great schools. I will just choose one that I FEEL GOOD. Nothing is perfect. I transferred to Columbia and found that I love it. If you are nice to the college staff, they will be nice to you.</p>
<p>This is the kind of rationalization that insults the intelligence of prospective students. One of the biggest benefits of going to private school is that you (supposedly) don’t have to deal with bureaucracy. Why attend an Ivy League school then when you can get the same “life lessons” at your state flagship? Or your local DMV…</p>
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<p>Replace “Columbia” with “CUNY” and this statement rings even truer.</p>
<p>I know I haven’t been a part of Columbia for long and haven’t set foot on campus but I’ve bombarded the Advising office with questions over the past month asking them me to mail electronic copies of stuff, transferring credits etc, and they’ve been really prompt with their replies. I think the longest I’ve had to wait for a reply is 10 hours.</p>
<p>because the ivy league school affords you better opportunities in more abundance than either the state flagship or the DMV, and that is the the key difference at Columbia. Relative to a state school much larger proportions of people make it to lucrative finance jobs, top law/business/med schools / most other internships, fellowships and jobs that people desire. The bureaucracy at Columbia from what I’ve heard from friends at UCB, UVA and other state schools is not nearly as bad as most large state schools’. It doesn’t ever prevent someone from pulling off an event or getting a job, fellowship etc. So it doesn’t come in your way of succeeding, but makes you work to get what you want done, real and important difference here. At Dartmouth you’ll be able to accomplish a similar amount, but with more ease and so you miss out on learning to fight for your opportunities. That’s not to say that Dartmouth grads don’t know how to work a bureaucracy, but this skill isn’t reinforced as well. I’ve organized huge events at Columbia as part of a large club, so I had to deal with the administration on a weekly basis, not once did they prevent or significantly hurt an event that we were in charge of organizing, but we had to be strategic, assertive and find the right people nearly every time. This is how most large corporations and governments works, the sooner you learn how to deal with it the better.</p>
<p>I think most high school students do not actually know how to navigate a bureaucracy effectively (I didn’t either), it isn’t insulting them because it is not a skill which you normally pick up as a teenager in high school.</p>
<p>I just don’t think you can put a positive spin on this. Having attended both Columbia and Dartmouth I actually found that it was incredibly positive to have a caring, concerned, and helpful administration at Dartmouth. You could meet with the Provost if you wanted - so real things you wanted to accomplish could happen in a meaningful way at a large level. It was great from a student government perspective. From a personal perspective it made it easier to get things like grants, access to advisors/ professors, etc. I found I was able to accomplish much more because the administration pushed all the school had to offer as opposed to having to find it yourself.</p>
<p>No one’s equating the “opportunities” at the state flagship or the DMV with those at Columbia. My point is that there’s nothing about “bureaucracy” that you need to learn from dealing with Columbia’s “red (or is it blue?) tape” that you can’t get from your local state flagship or DMV (for a far lesser fee).</p>
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<p>So what you’re saying is that the bureaucracy at UC-B or UVa is TOO BIG; the bureaucracy at Dartmouth is TOO SMALL. But the bureaucracy at Columbia is JUST RIGHT!!</p>
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<p>I didn’t say that you were insulting prospective students, but their intelligence. Not to mention, their life skills and resourcefulness.</p>
<p>Is Upenn any better than Columbia with respect to this? I always imagined the two to be pretty much the same thing except Columbia’s in a better city</p>