<p>I was just wondering. Personally, I have visited the school and felt the environment to be comforting and the students to be friendly.
Yet I have read many student reviews on the school and have realized that many of them said that the teachers are snobby, the students are snobby, and the campus is unsafe. They said it is not worth the money.
I have already applied to Columbia early decision so I cannot change my mind. But I just want to hear about the experiences others have had at the school. I dont now if I can trust the student review website I went on.
I mean if the school was truly bad, would it have such a high retention rate and be considered one of the best schools in the country? Just wondering. I want to hear bad and good experiences.</p>
<p>It's not bad. It's an excellent school an an academic powerhouse, and at least 36% of students like it as that's their alumni giving rate. They may not be having as much "rah rah college! frat! drink!" as other schools, but for a certain kind of student (the urban undergrad with the independence and maturity level of a grad student), there could be no better school.</p>
<p>The problem, as this article ( The</a> Eye : Malaise on Campus ) suggests, is people going to Columbia who expect its college experience to be anything like a Princeton, a Brown, or a Penn. They suffer from inevitable disappointment.</p>
<p>So it would really depend on what kind of person you are.</p>
<p>I loved columbia. It had its downsides, sure: perhaps some of the facilities could have been better, the food certainly could have improved, but overall I had a great experience. I don't recall having a snobby professor--they were all, for the most part, friendly and approachable. Students too. The snobs are in the minority. But hey, you'll get people you don't like everywhere you go. </p>
<p>Bottomline: people like to *****, and the 10% (actually less) of people who truly disliked Columbia are going to be the most vocal about it.</p>
<p>that's a terribly-reasoned article. the author expresses her own opinions in between quotes from very positive-sounding Days On Campus visitors, which don't support her points at all.</p>
<p>I seem to remember reading this before. In any case, most students aren't nearly as negative and despondent about the campus as this author sounds here. In fact, in all likelihood, she probably doesn't even feel as bad about the place as she wrote, she was just trying to get eyeballs on her article.</p>
<p>The one thing she's right about is that Columbia pushes students to be independent, seek out their own solutions to problems, and doesn't coddle anyone. That's a great attitude to foster, and once you see all your friends going out and pursuing their interests and finding their opportunities, you'll start to do it too.</p>
<p>Where she's dead wrong, though, is her portrayal of being at Columbia, in New York, and having it be some sort of lonely, existentialist sort of experience. Sure, you leave campus and go explore from time to time, but you do it with your friends. Aside from a few crazies, nobody's going out alone. You've made those friends on campus - in your classes, your study groups, your extracurricular activities, in the dining hall, at the gym, all the usual places you make friends. And there's just as many opportunities for doing so at Columbia as there is anywhere else. Your rural school has frat parties? We have frat parties too, just not quite as big because there's other stuff to do here as well. And sometimes you'd rather go have some BBQ at Brother Jimmy's or see an artsy movie at an independent Village movie theater (like at Houston & Varick) with your buddies than go to the latest kegger.</p>
<p>That doesn't mean the school lacks a campus community. It means our community extends beyond the boundaries of the campus - because there's something worth seeing out there. If that somehow makes the campus "cold" and gives its students a "malaise", I'd tell Miss Simins that she needs to get out more, or start asking her friends what they're doing this weekend. Okay, maybe not this weekend, but generally.</p>
<p>I think it's unfair to say that the opinions portrayed in the article are "dead wrong". I mean, it's not fictional, these students aren't mean-spirited and bored looking to trash their own school. This is their genuine experience. And while some people might have had drastically different ones it doesn't change the fact that others- quite a few in fact- would indeed agree with the article.</p>
<p>And keep in mind that you may be remembering college as a four-year journey while the people in this article are experiencing its early steps right now. Their first impression might be more in sync to CC'13s.</p>
<p>Snobbery is the only concern I've had when looking into Columbia, so I can kind of relate with the OP. When I visited the school, most of the prospective students I met came off as surface, pretentious, and elitist (yes I realize that many of them may not be accepted).</p>
<p>I have reached the conclusion that there will be jerks just about anywhere you go and it will just have to be a part of the experience. Perhaps there may be a few more jerks at Columbia University than elsewhere, I am sure they are in the minority. If not, maybe you and I will be lucky enough to get accepted and we'll change that, eh?</p>
<p>really? I visited Columbia through an overnight engineering program and all of the other prospectives were amazingly nice, and not snobby at all!
The students were also incredibly welcoming.. I really did not get "snobby" from Columbia at all.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yet I have read many student reviews on the school and have realized that many of them said that the teachers are snobby, the students are snobby, and the campus is unsafe. They said it is not worth the money.
I have already applied to Columbia early decision so I cannot change my mind. But I just want to hear about the experiences others have had at the school. I dont now if I can trust the student review website I went on.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>anyone can claim to be whoever they want to be online....the reviews are probably by kids who got rejected</p>
<p>you should read through a bunch of the threads on this board and pay special attention to posts by alums and current students...there are at least 6-10 regulars on here and you'll get a better idea of what the school is really like....we also don't pull any punches and none of us have any vested interest in lying (as far as i know)</p>
<p>
[quote]
anyone can claim to be whoever they want to be online....the reviews are probably by kids who got rejected
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I was just going to post this. This thread is ridiculous. The premise for it is some "student reviews" that the OP has failed to even post for us to consider. It's almost flame.</p>