<p>Agree.</p>
<p>Schools that should be <em>highly</em> considered over Columbia (combination of academic opportunities, and social experience/networking)</p>
<p>Princeton
Yale
Dartmouth
UPenn</p>
<hr>
<p>Brown
Duke</p>
<p>Hey beardtax, do you think the experience is different for someone who has lived in NYC before?</p>
<p>letās just bring things into perspective - truazn, slipper and beard offer opinions. some held by other columbia students and alums, but certainly not representative of all students. please (as always) research to find what you think is accurate.</p>
<p>i think that collegegrad did hit it as being a matter of perspective. if you want columbia to be like other schools it will fail. if you want it to be what it is - one of the premier urban university experiences in the country - then it is hard to not respect it for what it is.</p>
<p>Hi, nil desperandum, I used lived in NYC before college and am currently a junior at Columbia.</p>
<p>Funnily enough, I was initially set against coming to Columbia because of that factor. I wanted to move away from my parents and use college as a time to become more independent and go somewhere new. I was considering other schools truazn and other people on these boards have mentioned. Columbia hosts a program called Days on Campus for admitted students (I strongly recommend attending!) and after it, my mind was basically made up. I had attended a couple of these admit weekends. As I participated in the different activities, walked around campus, sat in on a class, and, most important, spoke to other students, I realized that I wanted to spend the next for years of my life here. I could imagine myself learning from these other students in a classroom, joining extracurricular activities with these students and simply hanging out with these students. I made a decision and have not regretted it since.</p>
<p>Speaking to the social scene, a topic which some posters have raised, Columbia has pretty broad campus life. We have college Greek life. Many students host events within their dorms (particularly as upperclassmen, when they start picking into suites). Many students become heavily involved in social events held by clubs (for example, the Caribbean Studentās Association hosts events such as Dollarama dance in Lerner Party Space). Many students frequent the nearby bars. There are other types of events students participate in. For example, I try to participate in restaurant week with some friendās every year. There are a ton of cultural/music activities that happen on Columbiaās campus (we are having our spring concert weekend coming up:) ) and several in New York City too. Also, beard tax, no chilling on the lawn? What about when the weather gets warmer and basically the whole undergraduate campus is sitting outside on the steps and Columbia grass?</p>
<p>In terms of Columbiaās social scene, you will be able to find an environment that suits you. Each class is small enough that you become familiar with many people in your year (as well as those in years above/below), but big enough that you will constantly be meeting new people and be able to move between different social environments. You will need to put in effort by trying different activities, introducing yourself to different people and making plans to hangout. I think that this factor, however, is true of any college environment. Hope this helps!</p>
<p>@nil desperandum</p>
<p>I donāt think Columbia differs too much if you live in the city as an adult. However, it will differs greatly in that thereās a huge transition from high school to college. This happens at all universities; youāre given much more freedom, you arenāt forced to stare at your peers for hours or do group projects. Essentially, your social life is what you make of it, because time is less regimented and āafter classā can be anywhere from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM. </p>
<p>It depends on how you handled high school in your respective location. The social life, as in anywhere, is like a snowball. The more people you know, the more likely you are to meet more people. However, keep in mind that at a city campus, it might be difficult to meet people because there are lecture style classes, the clubs on campus have difficulty accessing space, and events are poorly attended because of the shining lights of the city. Iād say the biggest difference between Columbia and a traditional college campus is the lack of space and the lack of a location where people constantly meet up. </p>
<p>Slipper1234 brought up good points about Dartmouth, that all students know of one party of event happening every weekend. Think of this like Bacchanal, the spring concert at Columbia, where everyone is invited. Itās a good place to bump into random strangers and meet people. However, at Columbia, theses events are rarely put on and more importantly, thereās no central space just for undergraduate to hang out or mingle. Youāll have to make a real effort to even talk to another student. </p>
<p>I remember that the RAās this year put on a game to try to get people to speak to each other. [Columbia</a> Will Now Pay Its Students to Stop Avoiding Each Other > awkwardness, Columbia, contests, friendship | IvyGate](<a href=āhttp://www.ivygateblog.com/2010/11/columbia-will-now-pay-its-students-to-stop-avoiding-each-other/]Columbiaā>http://www.ivygateblog.com/2010/11/columbia-will-now-pay-its-students-to-stop-avoiding-each-other/) You can take a look but it reminded me of how socially fragmented the campus was. Columbia and Morningside Heights can be a hostile location, there are lot of strangers and itās a bustling location where you might be quite lonely if you arenāt outgoing enough.</p>
<p>Iām not the only one feeling this, and I think a sizable portion ( > 20%) of the campus feels this way. Feel free to say that my experience is occurs to only a few students, but really ask unbiased students and friends for their experience. Ask friends from high school whoāve attended Columbia to see how they like it. </p>
<p>Youāre not going to get a straight answer from Days on Campus (itās a sell day where everything must go right, all freshman throw crazy parties and RAās donāt write anyone up, the lawns are open even though it was scheduled to open for late May, freshman come and tell wonderful things about the university) or College Confidential. No one on this forum has to believe what Iām saying (especially since I can be the turd in the punch bowl), but seriously, ask your friends and family whoāve attended Columbia. These people donāt have any incentive to tell you non-truths to either entice or deter you from the university.</p>
<p>Hi, as a longtime viewer of posts, I would just like to provide some context.</p>
<p>Slipper - Student in the 1990ās, probably attending Columbia 15 years ago. How many threads have there been about how Columbia and most peer schools (e.g. Penn, Yale, MIT, Duke) have changed over the past decade, if not two?</p>
<p>Tru - Faculty child so had the chance to attend Columbia for little cost, which is perhaps why it was chosen over other schools that may have been a better fit.</p>
<p>Beardtax - Correct me if I am wrong, but are you not a transfer student to Columbia?</p>
<p>I am not trying to squash their opinions, thatās not the Columbia way. But context is king. </p>
<p>Columbia is not for everyone but 99% of first-year students return for their sophomore year, which is the second highest retention rate in the country. The senior funds regularly have higher participation rates than our Ivy peers. And there are lots of ardent supporters of Columbia and fans in its undergraduate student body.</p>
<p>Columbia is also different than a lot of our peer institutions. NYC. The most diverse elite institution in the country. The Core Curriculum.</p>
<p>you have a mix of opinions on this board and even varied perceptions of what the greater Columbia student body thinks of Columbia. Some call Columbia polarizing, I would say that it fits many sorts of people, but it also does not fit many types of people. Youāll find the whole spectrum of āI effing love Columbia, no where comparesā to āI wish I studied at Middleburyā. Some of categories of donāt quite fit in: people who donāt take good initiative to build their social lives, people who want to be comfortable hanging around others similar to them in terms or interest, background or beliefs. </p>
<p>And I will say Columbia has changed considerably in the 2000s and I saw it change substantially from '06 to '10. The administration still hurts campus life and student satisfaction, but they have improved and life is getting easier for Columbia students. Columbia needs the administration to run like butter if they want to continue moving up in rankings/prestige/students outcomes, it still has a way to go, but it is improving every year. </p>
<p>Overall I had a great time - social life, close friends, solid extra-curriculars, leadership, crazy antics, large network, school spirit, research, a few inspirational professors and a job when I graduated. I donated to senior fund, Iāll probably donate one day, I interview high school kids now and I tend to be quite a critical person. I strongly disagree with many of the criticisms, assumptions and facts discussed in this thread, but Iāve debated them many times already so I wonāt repeat. Just know that graduates like me are around, and Columbia is a uniquely special place if you take advantage of it.</p>
<p>beard - do a survey. youād be surprised. 20% is a large number of people. you only need 5 of your friends to feel the way you do to all of a sudden ābelieveā that a problem is more widespread than it actually is.</p>
<p>letās stop arguing in conjecture. i will too.</p>
<p>and in any case your figure still leaves 80% of campus feeling the opposite, aka the vast majority.</p>
<p>Itās not the fact that I need to find 5 friends that feel the way I do. Itās when I meet someone I think whoās living the life at Columbia (parties on campus, parties downtown, easy major) who feels dissatisfied with the social life and Columbia in general.</p>
<p>I was being conservative with my numbers and thereās a gradient of satisfaction. I was highlighting the number of people I think are highly dissatisfied, extremely lonely, and dislike the school a great deal. Thereās also the more common āEh, this sucksā and āAt least thereās only one more yearā. </p>
<p>Regardless, no point in telling anecdotal evidence. I think alumni donation rates, alumni reunion attendance rates, and the general points that slipper, truazn, and I have highlighted are as close to objective evidence as possible. </p>
<p>All youāve argued is that there exists certain elements of social life at Columbia. āGreek life, student clubs, and dorm parties exist at Columbia so hence the social life is satisfying, you just have to find it.ā The same argument can be made to Caltech and CMU, not exactly the most socially active campus. However, Iām sure you can find parties every night of the weekend, so by many of the arguments presented, then it should be fairly easy to have fun and those who donāt are just a small minority who are complaining. </p>
<p>Once again, look at some statistics, compare it to peer institutions, and use this as an objective indicator. Better yet, ask your friends and realize that the admissions committee at Columbia would be awfully negligent if they didnāt have a couple people here posting positive information.</p>
<p>so the fact that columbiaās alumni donation rates are in line with yale, harvard, penn (mid 30%, though all of them are lower than princeton and dartmouth), what does that suggest? us news rates columbia giving āhigh.ā</p>
<p>i donāt understand your accusation there at the end that admissions folks would want people to post positive things. i can tell you my affiliations, are you saying that admissions folks want me to post for them? </p>
<p>also i think that cmu and caltech are solid places, and i know folks who attended both that had an awesome time. of course maybe it is not what everyone wants when they go into the app process, but you learn to weigh the good with the bed. all schools have down sides that someone must grapple with.</p>
<p>for instance - i couldnāt attend princeton, despite the fact that to you and others such a statement seems silly. i went into the app process wanting to avoid the kind of arrogant prickness that i found in my high school. i thought columbia would be just as bad, but i visited and found it to be refreshing. perhaps because folks have chips on their shoulder because they didnāt get into HYP (that is certainly a potential answer), but students i found were smart and yet not zuckerbergs, cultured and still approachable. my continued interactions with folks from princeton have affirmed to me that columbia was the better personality fit.</p>
<p>iād give up a lot of what you consider sacrosanct (parties and knowing everyone) to be in a place where i felt i could be myself, meet great people, and be excited about the world. that is what makes columbia a place i think worthy of excessive praise. it is different, and that is what makes it special.</p>
<p>I think Columbia definitely has its advantages. Without perspective, itās difficult to know what other schools are like, but I agree that students are in general more down to earth. However, given your arguments that each experience is different, how can you argue that there arenāt approachable and kind students at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale? Why are you allowed to make these generalizations about other schools when you criticize me as well as other posters for generalizing our Columbia experience? </p>
<p>My biggest beef with your posts is that itās always rosy and paints a picture of Columbia that many students donāt experience. Read Bwog, many students see Columbia as a depressing and dark place. Why donāt you highlight this aspect instead of glossing over the inconvenient facts? Iāll be more than happy to admit that there exist a large proportion of Columbia students who are satisfied with their social experience. Iāve pointed out that youāre more likely to be happy if youāre in a frat, play a sport, or really connected to your freshman year floormates. Iāve also been more than willing to admit which departments are good at Columbia and which departments are terrible. Whatās the point of saying that a friend of a friend took this one class that they canāt name in XYZ department and thought the professor was great? Whenever the debate is cornered, you pull out generalizations like āEach department and professor are different so take what beard says with a grain of salt.ā</p>
<p>I read your āWhy Columbia?ā and āInternational Relationsā post. They all have an agenda of pushing students to Columbia. You point out some solid arguments against IR, but those arguments can be applied to political science as well. What are you going to do with that major, do you think that youāll be a strategist for a congressman, does a student know what Poli Sci entails before they come to college? Why demean IR as a major just because Columbia doesnāt offer it?</p>
<p>Iāll leave this comment that I read from Bwog regarding housing, a very frustrating time of the year when tensions flare and the thought of living in a blind double in Wien scares the hell out of sophomores. This comment had 39 agrees and 0 disagrees. I admit I agreed with it on my computer so you can count it as 38. Regardless, it paints a picture of the social experience at Columbia and the frustrations that me as well as fellow students feel.</p>
<p>"
ā¦ next time thereās some *<strong><em>er talking about how our social life is hanging from a string and thatās the biggest problem facing our campus, letās talk about how columbia doesnāt have enough housing options to comfortably house a considerable fraction of our student body. the fear bwog cooks up isnāt a trite fear ā it is a legitimate fear of unacceptable living spaces that definitely play a role in oneās academic performance at this institution (let alone the performance of oneās well-being). most sophomores and many juniors will not be able to easily cook in a kitchen, yet they have few other options for accessing inexpensive and healthy food. our dining plan has a stigma attached to it for upperclassmen ā and rightly so, it *</em></strong>ing sucks. so our student body is probably more malnourished than most others, and guess what, weāre also the more depressed/stressed/manic/whatever. wonder how that happens.</p>
<p>down with columbia housing and dining! or rather, up with it. this isnāt something we should just accept. why isnāt this front and center at student government meetings rather than the platitudinous **** you guys love to **** about</p>
<p>**** yall"</p>
<p>[Bwog</a> SURPRISE!](<a href=āhttp://bwog.com/2011/03/19/surprise/]Bwogā>SURPRISE! - Bwog)</p>
<p>Trust me, I realize that Iām sharing a biased view of Columbia but itās something to temper the non-truths that I hear. It gets on my nerves when my views are cast aside as āHaters will hateā and āEveryone I know who wasnāt socially ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā was happy at Columbiaā.</p>
<p>An interesting discussion. The first time I read it I was simultaneously keeping one eye on the TV. But I had so much trouble comprehending things that I thought I might be going insane. So I turned off TV and read it again. Re-reading it, I quickly adapted to the lack of capitalization and hyphens acting like dashes. But there remained some of the most tortured language Iāve ever read:</p>
<p>Post 2: āiād say there were 2 experiences of the 40 classes i took at columbia that i would say were ābad,ā another 10 that were ok, another 15 that were good, 8 that were great and 5 that were excellent.ā (āGreatā is inferior to āexcellentā?) </p>
<p>Post 2: āā¦it takes someone who is keen on diversity to see why it is such a valuable intellectual/social experience to be around such diverse people.ā (Circular reasoning?)</p>
<p>Post 2: āiād say there is a really big small party scene. ā (One of a lot of sentences in which hyphenating [āsmall-partyā] would have clarified things.)</p>
<p>Post 5: āam i somehow not related to his schema or might it need more explicating.ā (Say WHAT?)</p>
<p>Post 5: āsome of the most loyal alums i know were folks that you wondered - you really loved your time in college, i always saw you in the library.ā (??)</p>
<p>Post #11: āNoone wants toā¦.ā (āNooneā?)</p>
<p>beard -</p>
<p>so do something about it? or has that not crossed your mind? </p>
<p>you can make columbia betterā¦you can wallowā¦you can transfer. all fair options, and all things that every student wherever they go faces.</p>
<p>i think though that the amount of time you spend on college confidential warding off students could be better spent doing other things, and making the most of what you have, but that is just my opinion.</p>
<p>the truth is i knew a lot of students like you at columbia, who disliked columbia because it wasnāt yale (usually the school of choice was yale during my day), and you could read it in every interaction. in the end i gave up trying to get to them because i knew they would just make me unhappy. i donāt deny the fact that beard taxes exist at columbia, but rather that your existence was taxing to the rest of us. </p>
<p>schmaltz - you can come out an dislike my writing, i wont say it is perfect, but it isnāt meant to be read as proper english. and it sure is a hell of a lot cleaner than some of the things you read on here. but if you have a bone to pick, pick it.</p>
<p>as for my agenda - </p>
<p>i first got on here to tell folks facts about admissions because, and it is still very apparent, people get wrong information or misinformation. </p>
<p>i do have an interest in pushing kids to consider columbia because i do think it is great. i have a problem with a lot of majors/programs, and yes a lot of that has to do with the fact that i enjoy/prefer columbiaās brand of education. </p>
<p>i have stated on here before: if individuals like you were not on this board, i would be more fair in my assessment. for instance, i have a lot of problems with the way the university runs, which has been the source of my own frustration and behind the scenes activity as a student and an alum. my dream is to make columbia more responsive to students and better at interacting with folks of different stripes. </p>
<p>and lastly, as i have also stated, part of my agenda in being rosy is the fact that students on here really do not need to take what we say as facts. why? because they are able to when they attend columbia make their own version of columbia. if they enter with positive vibes and the kind of unnatural love (that you even say you wish was at columbia), then maybe we would see the university improve. </p>
<p>if you want to privately commiserate with me, i am happy to tell you my share of war stories, and things that upset me about columbia.</p>
<p>i donāt think it is necessary to air out these grievances on here (especially when others do such a completely over-the-top job doing so). but mostly because i actually believe what i am selling. that despite all the mud i could throw on even the rosy image i paint of columbia, it still is something that sparkly. i care a lot about columbia - ask my friends - because for a kid like me, who didnāt have a lot of self-esteem heading into college, columbia was ideal.</p>
<p>i am not you. that is fine. but there were kids like me at columbia that feel the same kind of debt that i do. there were kids who had it all going to college and believe columbia made them better. there were kids of so many stripes that attended columbia, and many of them (not all) left feeling better because of the experience. and some of those that disliked columbia, certainly were impacted by the experience that you have living in NYC from age 18-22 and going to a school as rigorous as columbia.</p>
<p>admissionsgeek, if you donāt mind me asking, when was āyour day?ā</p>
<p>not long ago, i graduated in 2007.</p>
<p>That was a fair post. Thanks for your perspective. I think we should just let this rest and in the future try to be as fair as possible. Iāll try to not make over-the-top statements (though from my perspective, it doesnāt seem so) and please try to give prospective high school students a realistic view of the university. Save the rosy picture for the Columbia 201X sub-threads.</p>
<p>Iāve always wanted to meet beardtax and admissions geek to talk about their experiences and get some advice about how to make my 4 years here as good as possible.</p>
<p>Iām a CC sophomore.</p>
<p>So, I had an unbelievably long winded post about how I arrived at a social life Iām really comfortable/happy with, but no one wants to hear about that. And I thought about it, and itās true that there are a lot of people very unhappy at Columbia. The question is: is there something about Columbia that contributes to that. And Iāve said it in another one of these threads, but I really think that it boils down to the fact that Columbia doesnāt hold your hand. There are no institutions at Columbia, be they student-led or faculty-led, that are going to hand you a bunch of friends on a platter and say āpick one!ā But you CAN carve out a comfortable social life at Columbia; you just might have to work at it a little harder than at some schools. I think thatās true of CU in general, not just social life. </p>
<p>And thatās for some people and not for others. I donāt know how the administration would feel about it, but I for one would prefer if the people who are going to benefit most from Columbia would apply in larger numbers, and people who are going to benefit less would apply in smaller numbers, even if it reduces the all important acceptance rate. Columbia, due to its location and administrative set-up, is a very particular kind of experience. I canāt speak for others schools, 'cause Iāve never attended another college, but Iāve even heard from professors that Columbia is not the kind of place that holds your hand. If you want to start a student group or do something with your student group or whatever, thereās usually a meeting thatās held like once a year and if you donāt get to that meeting, well youāre just out of luck. Thereās a lot of red tape, a lot of applications to file, a lot of forms to fill out, a lot of permissions to get, in order to do basically anything. And that sucks, but the reward is that a) Columbia students get to take on a LOT of responsibility in all areas of student life, b) you get some practice for what the real world is like (I promise applying for a permit from NYC is worse than trying to get a ramp table in lerner), and c) the opportunities are basically limitless, itās just that the opportunities arenāt going to seek you out.</p>
<p>One thing about myself: I was a bit miffed to read that frats and sports are seen as the best activities for building a social life. The performing arts community here is very tight and extremely friendly, for the most part. And most of my friends have a good mixture of friends met through floors and general life and friends met through whatever their primary club/activity/job is. </p>
<p>Also, @Schmaltzā¦ really? REALLY? Youāre joking, right?</p>