<p>My undergraduate degree is from Stanford, and I consider Columbia to be a comparable institution. (Less so for engineering, which I didn’t study in any event.)</p>
<p>Almost anyone choosing between the two will make their decision based on geography. This seems reasonable to me.</p>
<p>^ there goes my # 3000th post. :D</p>
<p>i hope it wasn’t wasted.</p>
<p>whats your major, greybeard, and what other schools aside from Columbia do you think are Stanford’s peer schools?</p>
<p>Speaking of perceived desirability and “brand power” among colleges, here’s an interesting survey conducted by Princeton Review regarding the hopes and concerns of college applicants and their parents:[Princeton</a> Review’s 2010 ‘College Hopes & Worries Survey’ – NEW YORK, March 24 /PRNewswire/ --](<a href=“http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/princeton-reviews-2010-college-hopes--worries-survey-88983487.html]Princeton”>Princeton Review's 2010 'College Hopes & Worries Survey').</p>
<p>I think Obama gets most of his recognition because he went to Harvard Law School and was president of the Harvard Law Review. There is little talk about his days as a Columbia undergrad.</p>
<p>I think Columbia is a great university. It belongs at the #4 spot. Its undergraduate and graduate programs are top notch. I don’t think Caltech has as much brand power as say MIT, Columbia or even Stanford. It is not even a top feeder school into graduate and professional programs. Columbia, while excellent in many fields, still sends the top students to the top graduate and professional schools across the country.</p>
<p>Columbia is a member of the Ivy League and has some of the best graduate programs. It is definitely comparable to Stanford, MIT and Caltech.</p>
<p>All these schools are so amazing that anyone would be lucky to attend them. Chances are that you’re already better off in living standards than the vast majority of all humankind and attending (or attended) the top tier of schools in the WORLD. No offense intended, but do any of you see just how insane you’re acting? All this splitting hairs is just petty and immature.</p>
<p>Coming to this forum and complaining that people are arguing inanely over meaningless prestige is like going to the ESPN forum and complaining that people are obsessing over sports.</p>
<p>"SEAS is a third-rate engineering school. It doesn’t rank in the top 10 in any engineering specialty.</p>
<p>An engineering curriculum and the Columbia name prepare one excellently for a career in finance/consulting.</p>
<p>But, for engineering itself of any kind? Preference may be given instead to a graduate from one of these “niche” schools."</p>
<p>most ivies (except cornell) can’t compete with MC with regards to engineering, obviously. But that doesn’t hurt any of their brand power and prestige. Plenty of people who are smart went to ivy engineerings at Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton. Look at founders of Microsoft, IBM; now that’s name power. It’s kinda odd, but true, that engineers at ivies end up richer, more well known, and arguably more successful than grads of MIT and Cal.</p>
<p>And if you are really going to split hairs with graduate programs, fields of study, research, then Yale wouldn’t even be in the top three. You should instead argue why Stanford or Berkeley doesn’t surpass Yale.</p>
<p>As a student at MIT, I also consider Columbia as a peer institution. I can certainly see why someone may choose Columbia over MIT. If I were interested in something that isn’t engineering, I would’ve given Columbia a fair chance. I also consider Stanford and Columbia peers. And I also consider Yale and Duke as peers. I also consider Harvard and UPenn and Dartmouth peers. </p>
<p>These are top institutions. Arguing for spot 4 instead of 7 is ridiculous. It doesn’t matter.</p>
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That is so incorrect. It doesn’t matter. Rankings are highly dismissed among professors, a lot don’t believe in them. Many of my profs at both Duke and MIT disregard rankings with no hesitation. Everything seems actually based on reputation that is cultured without rankings (I don’t know how to best explain).
My MechE prof at MIT has praised Columbia and Dartmouth’s engineering programs and has no problem referring to them any time.</p>
<p>“I bet even MIT pawns Columbia is its own backyard - Wall Street.”</p>
<p>Possibly, especially since MIT has a lot more dissatisfied engineers looking a way out into finance, since most unhappy engineers, than let say art majors, turn into finance these days</p>
<p>cherokeejew… I didn’t come to this forum to complain. I was already lurking/somewhat active on these forums before this thread ever came up. My problem with all of this is that when people start splitting hairs over this stuff, it really brings out the worst in people.</p>
<p>USNWR rankings are a novelty at best. The real problem is that when schools refuse to submit data and fill out surveys for these things, the publisher (USNWR in this case) fills in the data themselves in an arbitrary fashion. These rankings only serve to pressure schools into gaming the system/screwing with their data.</p>
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<p>unfortunately MIT does not. Go to any bulge bracket bank analyst class as ask someone which the most represented schools are, columbia is almost always top 5, often #3 after Harvard, Upenn and almost always has more representation than MIT. MIT is a great feeder to wall street, but to say it pwns columbia is not just misinformed but in some cases the opposite is true. I work at a bulge bracket bank right now.</p>
<p>Columbia seas undergrad (of which I am an alum) happens to have some of the highest SAT scores and % of students in the top 10% of their class. Columbia seas SAT scores> Columbia overall SAT scores > MIT sat scores. For engineering reputation, MIT is definitely more prestigious, but for anything outside of engineering like finance/law/med/consulting which most smart engineers end up in, columbia and MIT are peers. When you have intelligence and academic qualifications in a class to match the very best, the opportunities follow.</p>
<p>To the guy who said Obama is more closely connected with his Harvard degree–</p>
<p>That’s because Obama chooses for it to be so. I said it earlier, but the administration at Columbia is notoriously terrible. When I was looking at schools, my family who attended/s warned me about it, the people I talked to at Days on Campus commented on it. Clearly, Obama has commented on it as well, because for whatever reason, he’s decided to stick it to the school, refusing to speak at it or mention it.</p>
<p>And there are going to be a TON more applications to Columbia this year or next. They’re going from their weird application to the Common App. As for name recognition, where I’m from its Harvard Yale and Stanford, then schools like Princeton, Dartmouth, MIT, and Columbia, then the state schools, then pretty much no other schools are known unless they have good sports programs.</p>
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<p>That data fluctuates because I remember seeing a more recent profile and Columbia was definitely among the top 5 producers to both HLS and YLS. It looks like those schools no longer list the number of grads as a result of this silly website. haha</p>
<p>Even before CU’s #4 ranking, there was a lot of hate on CU, so all of this expected. Sort of like insecure folks feeling the need to try to put people in their place, which is rather pathetic if you ask me.</p>
<p>In the real world, anyone doing this sort of stuff will not be taken seriously and would be looked upon as a baffoon. There is no monopoly on excellent schools. period.</p>
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<p>That was the administration back in the 80s! Not so today. Also, you fail to realize that the media is fascinated with Harvard. Even when they mention the first lady, they always mention that she went to HLS and don’t mention her Princeton degree…</p>
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<p>When has he spoken at Harvard since becoming President or “mentioned” it? Last time I checked, he seemed to be happy at his alma mater during the debates at Columbia and acknowledged such…</p>
<p>RML, I want you to understand. There is no such thing as HYPSMC. I was like this when I was a high school kid. But after taking classes, life goes, I realize…it’s really a phase.
I believe I’ve grown out of it and its sad to see others haven’t. There really is zero point from graduating from an HYPSM or any other college aside from the fact that you can impress anyone who asks (but this can be achieved with a degree from Columbia, Brown, Duke, UChicago, Dartmouth, etc). As a student at MIT, I really do believe this.
It’s all in the individual. However, I do believe opportunities are a little better in top universities. But I don’t believe I’ll get more opportunities at MIT than Columbia.</p>
<p>Please realize this. Perhaps the only topic any X university is better than Y university applies is just overall “wow” factor perceived by the general public. But even then, if you don’t care what other say about this(A lot in the real world don’t, but apparently people in CC do!), then it doesn’t matter. At all.</p>
<p>Please relax. To the OP and everyone else: Its not a fluke that Columbia is #4. No fluke that its higher than Stanford.
It just is #4.
Saying that Columbia is higher because Stanford’s screwed in SAT scores is a worthless argument. You’re making excuses to modify things the way you WANT to see them. You’re not having an open mind then.</p>
<p>Likewise, why can’t I claim that Harvard is highly perceived now due to being located in one of the most prominent cities in colonial America and for being created in the 1600s thus leading to a well-established institution in the minds of Americans? </p>
<p>I mean I understand dismissing Forbes rankings, because that’s obvious. But Stanford being better than Columbia isn’t obvious to me AT ALL.
Columbia is great. Columbia is #4 in the USNWR, the most used and desired and credible ranking guide in existence. It is what it is.
/thread</p>
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<p>Which ones? By whom? Look at the old NRC95 rankings, still one of the most comprehensive graduate departmental rankings on record ([NRC</a> Rankings](<a href=“http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html]NRC”>NRC Rankings)). I don’t see any 2nd or 3rd tier programs at either school. Both schools have been in the top 20 in almost every field, and in the top 10 in many. Columbia seems to have the edge in Humanities, Stanford in Life Sciences and Social Sciences, and it’s split in Physical Sciences. In most areas they are close enough that the differences in sub-specialties may be more significant than overall rankings to someone choosing a PhD program. </p>
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<p>Many of us are prone to making quick, unsupported generalizations from time to time. An excellent remedy for this is Columbia’s undergraduate Core Curriculum program ([The</a> Core Curriculum | Columbia College](<a href=“http://www.college.columbia.edu/core]The”>The Core Curriculum | Columbia College)), which teaches students to make nuanced arguments from multiple perspectives, based on evidence, and to be skeptical of claims associated with “brand power” ([4</a> idols](<a href=“http://www.sirbacon.org/links/4idols.htm]4”>The Four Idols of Francis Bacon & The New Instrument of Knowledge)).</p>
<p>According to US News graduate school ranking of 2011, Stanford beats Columbia in math, physics, chemistry, biology, computer science, geoscience, statistics, English, political science, sociology, economics, history, psycology, engineering school, business school, and law school. Columbia beats Stanford in education, and medicine. The record goes 16 to 2. So the gap is big there.</p>
<p>Currently, Stanford has more Nobel prize winners, more national medal of science winners, more membership in national academy of science, more membership in national academy of engineering, and more membership in institute of medicine in current staff, even though Columbia is as twice big as Stanford in faculty size.</p>
<p>Here is the 1995 NRC ranking result:</p>
<p>ranking by # rated programs: Stanford #1, Columbia #14
ranking by nonzero score: Stanford #6, Columbia #11
ranking by average all 41 scores: stanford #1, Columbia #8
arts and humanities: Stanford #7, Columbia #4
social science: Stanford #2, Columbia #10
physical science: Stanford #8, Columbia #14
engineering: Stanford #3, Columbia #30
life science: Stanford #1, Columbia #8</p>
<p>This really sad. The distance between Columbia from Stanford, MIT, etc in the new USNWR is a difference of, what, 1 or 2 spaces? And there are 98 (now 99 I guess) posts about it? There is no point - they’re both very elite institutions. Why does it matter if Columbia is ranked #4 for a year?</p>