<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I was accepted to Columbia College ED, and my main concern is this: Does Columbia have a strong math department, comparable lets say to MIT's? Or is Columbia College more oriented on the humanities? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>oops! I was accepted RD...not that it's important</p>
<p>This is a hard question... Columbia's math department really was never held to that high of a regard compared to its other science departments. Grad school placement is good, but students from the math department at Columbia don't have as good a matriculation rate into top grad schools as they do in e.g. the chem and physics departments.</p>
<p>However, I just recently had a talk with the director of undergrad math studies, and he told me that the math department is steadily improving, as more apt student mathematicians are going to Columbia than ever before. This year Columbia's sophomores hit a record number of math majors, and also a record number of very promising ones. So IMO, Columbia math is certainly on its way.</p>
<p>i have a friend who transferred to michigan because she had an epiphany, changed her major from english to math, and realized that she just couldnt pursue what she wanted at columbia. there is a math department, obviously, but i dont think its columbia's strength. i think my friend had a really specific interest and there was a professor at michigan (where she was in-state) who had done research on that interest, so dont get discouraged if you think you want to be a math major.</p>
<p>everything at columbia is "good." the math department is not of the caliber of a place like mit, but it is strong nonetheless. at a place like columbia you don't have to worry about bad departments. everything is at the very least up to standard.</p>
<p>Agreed. Unlike MIT or Harvard, Columbia does not draw the Olympiad winners. But, there are still talented students (I'm always hearing from my kid about the Eastern Europeans), and good math instructors to be had. Additionally, for a more sophisticated student, there is the wider New York City math community (city colleges, NYU, Princeton not far away) and the meetings and lectures that produces.</p>