Re: Post #9 - @twoinanddone : NYC now has a crime rate below the national rate. It has never been safer. That partially explains the steady rise in selectivity for Columbia, NYU, and Fordham. I went to Barnard as an underachiever in the 1970s, because they were eager to give promising, but imperfect, applicants a chance. Parents who were willing to send kids to Penn, in a worse neighborhood, balked at Columbia and Barnard then. NYC is probably the safest large city in the country, now, but that comes at a substantial, literal dollar, price.