How to choose between H,Y,P,S,and Columbia

College Search & Selection
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<p>"All 5 of these colleges are incredibly different and you come off as being very prestige-obsessed. Why not apply to the entire gamut of USNews top schools while you're at it?"</p>

<p>Believe me, I'm not prestige obsessed, which is why I am trying to narrow down my list and apply to as few ivies/tops as possible since i dont have the financial ability, time to do all the apps, etc. and since I can't visit to help me narrow down me decision that way, I basically need to rely on what I can learn from their websites, collegeboard, and all CCers advice...hence why i posted this thread...</p>

<p>and I don't think they are so incredibly different to me b/c I don't have the luxury of visiting to experience the differences first hand that one can only fathom in person, and since location is not a factor to me, whether or not the campus is in a city or not is not a difference that matters in my decision...</p>

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<p>Just an aside--Columbia has a lovely campus. It is more compact than some of the others, but the space is used to great advantage. It has plenty of green spaces and, when you step on campus, it does feel like an oasis separate from the hustle and bustle of NYC. It seems as though the students use NYC as an extension of the classroom, not a substitute for campus life.</p>

<p>I have been on many college campuses and Columbia holds its own.</p>

<p>It sounds like you have a lot of considerations and Columbia is not one of your top choices, I just wanted to respond to the "lack of a campus" remark.</p>

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<p>Yale because it's sexy ;)</p>

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<p>I got into all the schools you listed except Princeton, but I've visited the school enough to know about it pretty well. I wound up choosing Penn over everything -- if I could do it again, I would have chosen Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. Probably Stanford.</p>

<p>Most of the important points I think have already been mentioned in this thread so far, but this was basically my own rationale for each school:</p>

<p>H: Obviously a great school, but the location was iffy and there were too many arrogant prestige-whores.
Y: Again, obviously a great school, but the location was also iffy, and there was a lot of focus on the humanities, as someone else said.<br>
P: Amazing campus... so incredibly peaceful/tranquil, but absolutely nothing to do outside of the Nassau area, really. An extremely competitive choice f education is your top priority, here -- the focus is great and the school's faculty are helpful.
C: Decent location -- lots to do in NYC, but the campus is small and probably very easy to get tired of. The Core seemed interesting at the time, but it probably wasn't for me.
S: Amazing education, amazing location, amazing campus... I honestly couldn't find too many faults with it other than the fact it was on the west coast (and I had been trying to get OFF the west coast).</p>

<p>I wound up choosing Penn because it was central in location (I can go to Princeton or New York relatively quickly), had very flexible degree options, was close to Princeton, had Wharton, and had a huge student body. I've since come to find that I should have thought ahead a bit better. </p>

<p>Don't choose a school based on prestige, but don't ignore what's important to you, either. Eliminate schools from your list that have little overlap with your true academic interests, and give preference to those that to. Then choose the schools you can see yourself being happy at (this will, in turn, allow you to do better in your studies). Here at Penn, I dislike what I study, and I dislike the campus, the faculty, and many other things. All in all, it's a huge motivation-killer. So be sure to not make the same mistake and choose based on best fit and overall happiness.</p>

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<p>Agree with Nimby...Columbia has a very inviting campus. Get off the subway, head for Campus Walk and you won't believe you are in Manhattan. </p>

<p>Another plus: 5000 internships working for some of the most prestigious institutions in the world...Juilliard, MOMA, leading hospitals and research labs, fashion houses, engineering/architectural firms, etc. are available to students (half day, weekends, summer)...For example, Gary Cohen (Columbia 1981) was a big baseball fan so he interned with the NY Mets...still with them. </p>

<p>Top faculty - many Nobel Prize laureates - want to be in New York near their peers. It is a world class city unlike New Haven or Princeton.</p>

<p>Someone I know goes there and after Obama (Columbia 1983) was projected the winner, students poured out into nearby Broadway, blocking traffic and heading uptown to meet up with a celebrating crowd in Harlem. </p>

<p>There is a special energy that you feel when you walk along Broadway or Amsterdam Ave by the campus. And there are many newsworthy events on campus - like the visit to Columbia last year by the controversial President of Iran and the Community Service Debate this year between Obama and McCain. In both cases, Columbia closed the campus to nonstudents and placed a huge tv screen in front of Low Library and filled the campus with hundreds of chairs. Sure, only the lucky few lottery winners could see these events live at Lerner Hall, but the excitement of sharing these on-site events with your classmates is the next best thing.</p>

<p>But, yes, as others here have pointed out, it is definitely not for everyone.</p>

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<p>Wharton, as undergraduate business almost always is, was a mistake for legendofmax.</p>

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<p>Stanford and Harvard. One of the reasons makes legendofmax unhappy is that there are not many choices at Penn after you find out the chosen area of study is not what you want. Yale was # one choice for my S before he got in SCEA last year, and he eventually went to Stanford after a painful decision. For Harvard, a lot of people waited till June last year to find out whether they got in or not ( more than 200+ from the waitlist). It seems to me from the released data that this year Stanford and Yale have the record number of applicants to apply for the SCEA. So very likely they will have a record number of applicants overall.</p>