<p>Or that it could stand up against Columbia.</p>
<p>By the way, you should probably forget about Yale if you want to live off campus. The Residential College system is the best part.</p>
<p>Oh puhleeze…you guys are judging schools academic challenges by some superficial measurement like admitted students SAT scores. </p>
<p>Fordham’s faculty COME FROM COLUMBIA AND NYU AND HARVARD AND YALE AND PRINCETON, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Brown, Penn, UChicago, BC, UCLA, Duke, UNC on and on and on. Surely you don’t presume their faculty to be inferior?</p>
<p>I didnt say Fordham was the MOST intellectually challenging in NYC. I said its in the mix with its well respected neighbors.</p>
<p>I hate these narcissistic threads.</p>
<p>“People wrongly presume the only colleges worth a hoot in NYC are NYU and Columbia.”</p>
<p>Not everyone presumes this, and no one posting in this thread has presumed this.</p>
<p>Third best private school in the New York metropolitan area is no consolation prize.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not that this says anything about Fordham in particular, but in any school, no matter what tier, you’re going to have professors from these schools. For instance, when I was looking into mathematics graduate schools, I was considering Northwestern. Despite it not being in the top 10 mathematics departments, almost every single professor had his PhD from Harvard. Whereas if you’d look at the top 5 schools, the professors tended to have PhDs from a variety of top schools. I also looked at the professors at my state school (which was top 30, but not terribly impressive), and they all had PhDs from top institutions as well. Your degree says nothing about your actual success in research.</p>
<p>This thread is two years old. </p>
<p>Read the dates, people, read the dates.</p>
<p>Williams, maybe… may be a bit outside of your geographical area specifications.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Only if third best cola brand is no consolation prize.</p>
<p>Its just another elitist thread to promote the schools that are top tier of USNWR.</p>
<p>I dont bash schools, high, low, medium, or somewhere in between.</p>
<p>“Third best private school” ? Its like saying a pear is better than an orange. Depends on who you ask and what they like. Come on.</p>
<p>Stop this narcissism. NYU, Columbia and Fordham are all fine schools. So are Sarah Lawrence and Vassar (up river a piece in Poughkeepsie). </p>
<p>NYU’s president is a Fordham graduate.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The thread is about the MOST intellectual college in the NYC metro area. And your response was:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sure sounds like you’re putting it at number one.</p>
<p>And we’re not talking about what school has the best faculty. It’s the STUDENTS that make a school intellectual or not. If we’re defining “intellectual” as a place where students might have discussions about Plato or the merits of capitalism at midnight on a Thursday, for example, well… In that respect, I don’t think Fordham holds a candle to Columbia or Yale or Williams or Swarthmore or …</p>
<p>I think that ghostbuster is our old friend nocousin. Her D went to Fordham and she’s a booster.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Since when Fordham was the third best!? That’s being generous…</p>
<p>I just drove down Fordham road this afternoon and, boy, it was something…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Fordham honors is not as intellectual as CUNY honors, let alone Columbia or NYU. Having said this, I bet the Fordham parent will accuse me of being “superficial” for pointing this out. Perhaps, but if s/he calls me out for being “narcissistic,” s/he’d be wrong because I do not go to Columbia, NYU or CUNY.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s entirely possible, as you claim, that Fordham honors students have higher SATs than CUNY honors students (although you should provide a source for your claim). But as the Fordham parent so persuasively pointed out, intellectualism is not necessarily a function of “some superficial measurement like admitted students SAT scores.”</p>
<p>EDIT: kwu has deleted his or her post. So either s/he does not have a source or s/he realizes that her claim does not contradict mine (or both).</p>
<p>“Fordham honors is not as intellectual as CUNY honors, let alone Columbia or NYU…”</p>
<p>The average GPA and CR+M composite of students admitted to the Macaulay Honors program were 93.3 and 1396 respectively.</p>
<p>The standards for admission to Fordham’s honors program are far, far higher.</p>
<p>Fordham’s president and director of admission are both alumni of my alma mater, from which a significant number apply to Fordham. For admission to the honors program, one needs both a 1500+ CR+M composite and a high class ranking.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, I concur. Fine, then:</p>
<p>On average, Fordham Honors students can read and do arithmetic at the seventh grade level more quickly and accurately than Macaulay Honors students.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I have given you more than ample opportunity to provide a verifiable and accessible link. Your “insider knowledge” is not a legitimate source, unfortunately. I don’t know you from Adam, so why should I (or anyone else, for that matter) take your word for it?</p>
<p>Not that it matters anyway because higher SAT =/= more intellectual.</p>
<p>
Lots of people on here are boosters. If someone wants to post about Fordham, more power to him/her. I think it’s refreshing to see colleges represented that typically don’t receive a lot of attention on CC.</p>
<p>
I am looking for educated opinions and impressions of different schools in the area.</p>
<p>“Schools,” taking the plural, is the key word here. I don’t think the OP would be at all displeased to hear opinions (both positive and negative) about various schools in the NYC area. </p>
<p>Besides, let’s be realistic - Columbia College had a 9% admit rate last year, and the RD rate was only 7.5%. The transfer admit rate, more relevant to the OP, is about 5%. Columbia is by no means anything close to a sure bet even for highly qualified applicants. </p>
<p>Limiting the conversation to one school only and bickering about other colleges does a disservice to the OP. It’s one thing to argue that Fordham is not as intellectual as Columbia, which may or may not be an important claim, and something else entirely to argue that Fordham may not be intellectual enough for the OP, which would be of value.</p>
<p>how about we stop knocking down other colleges :p</p>
<p>There are many intellectual colleges in the NYC metro…surely not just those with the most impressive names should be considered when choosing a school. I’m pretty sure you’ll find some serious intellectuals and some total idiots at EVERY school! 
</p>
<p>And to weigh in on Fordham…I’m pro Fordham myself, my S having chosen to attend at Lincoln Center in the Fall over NYU and other higher ranked schools! He’s pretty brilliant himself and not worried in the least that he won’t be stimulated intellectually at Fordham. People on CC can be so silly! :)</p>
<p>Interesting the comments about Fordham, I’ve lived most of my life in southern Westchester and attended school in the Bronx, and never thought of Fordham students as materially different from those attending Iona College or Manhattan College. I also never heard of its Honors program, perhaps that gets marketed more to the catholic schools? I know that nobody in my NYC private applied to Fordham, though that was years ago. More recently, over the last three years just one person from my son’s (pretty decent)Westchester public school has attended Fordham. Whereas over the same period about 21 kids have chosen to attend NYU.</p>
<p>It may well be a hotbed of intellectualism, I just wasn’t aware of it before so I’m a bit surprised.</p>