<p>Hello everybody.. I know Columbia is one of the most prestigious unis in the world.. No disrespect to it.. But is it as prestigious as the likes of Stanford and Cambridge? Location wise, probably none of those can beat Columbia.. But overall-reputation wise?</p>
<p>Dude. We're talking Ivy here. Is this even a valid question? Someone get me a gun!</p>
<p>People SWOON over the Ivy tag. Seriously. But that isn't what you ought to be focussing on. Instead, look at FIT. Is Columbia the school for YOU? Why? If you can answer the first question positively and give a great answer for the second one, then you're heading in the right direction. If not, look elsewhere, but please don't get blinded by that prestige tag.</p>
<p>Sorry if anyone get offended by my question.. Columbia is great.. But i just don understand why people always just say HYPSM.. And oxbridge.. But not Columbia.. IMO, Columbia is on par with them.. I'm NOT doubting Columbia, and not choosing based on prestige.. It's just that this issue baffles me..</p>
<p>Ah well, you know better than those people!</p>
<p>Stanford isn't that prestigious on the East Coast -- it simply doesn't have the HYP panache. And normal people don't think of Caltech and MIT as "prestigious"; rather, they see those schools as schools for super-science-nerds. But who the hell cares? Who are you trying to impress?</p>
<p>^ i second columbia2002's post. i'd even say oxbridge is glorified too much, they're fantastic univs, with deeper history than others, but in terms of the getting top students, i've seen a bunch of international students apply to both (top US and top UK), and most often if they are rejected by one and accepted by the other - it'd be a hypsm wharton, columbia rejection and an oxbridge acceptance. hardly ever the other way around. In the US you'll find it more difficult to get into oxbridge than the top unis here, because you are US citizens, - this does not make oxford and cambridge them better schools.</p>
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but in terms of the getting top students, i've seen a bunch of international students apply to both (top US and top UK), and most often if they are rejected by one and accepted by the other - it'd be a hypsm wharton, columbia rejection and an oxbridge acceptance. hardly ever the other way around.
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<p>this MAY be true but the conclusion you are drawing from it is completely misguided. First of all there is a selection bias against international students in top US universities with the most pressing being that admissions is not need-blind for them. It might also come down to the question of yield which is very important to US universities....UK universities in general are far cheaper than US universities and as a result US universities might reject international applicants who they feel might not matriculate following an acceptance for financial reasons. Furthermore, the admissions requirements that are set in the US like high SAT scores and ECs stack the deck against many strong students that didnt pad their resumes. UK universities usually require stronger academic preparation than US universities. British A levels and the IB are considerably more difficult and more intensive than the american system so as a result you will see alot of international people applying to both UK and US universities but very few US people applying to UK universities. In summary, the US and UK systems define strengths in two very different manners and you will actually find more academically prepared students in UK universities than you will in US universities that place alot of emphasis on other non-academic factors.</p>
<p>OK, for those who mention Wharton as being anything different or separate from UPenn have serious reality issues and anybody who suggests that Stanford isn't viewed to be that prestigious on the east coast is absolutely not in the know about college prestige. Tetrisfan, I agree with you. The ivies are the ivies, which is prestigious enough, but outside of Harvard and Yale, most U.S. schools aren't household names overseas.</p>
<p>datdude- you're spot on.. That's what i meant when i started this thread!</p>
<p>The Ivy League probably has some prestige internationally as a group brand name, but I would imagine that the vast majority of the people who have heard of the Ivy League would be hard pressed to name the universities in it. </p>
<p>But then Americans are particularly prestige-obsessed if the number of College Confidential threads about prestige and reputation is anything to go by. If you look on The Student Room, the UK equivalent website, you'll find it's hardly ever mentioned. What is the most prestigious university in the world is a question that we simply don't think about. I imagine that we'd be more interested in academic standards.</p>
<p>Sorry for saying this.. But probably because in the UK, only Oxbridge can be associated to the word 'prestige'?</p>
<p>""only Oxbridge can be associated to the word 'prestige'"</p>
<p>um... i'd add LSE, imperial, UCL- to name a few internationally renowned ones. albeit ox and cam do stand out more than the others.</p>
<p>Actually Yale's name abroad is not very good. Princeton enjoys a better name. as for what most people outside of America believe to be the best schools in America are MIT, Stanford, Harvard and UC Berkeley. Columbia is a fine institution but it is not considered one of the best universities abroad because most believe the future is in technology, engineering and the science in which Columbia is hands down beat by those four schools. Columbia undergrad, teaching and law school are considered to be its best strengths but abroad this means nothing. Columbia med might be top 10 but most people don't consider it to be anything too special although it does produce some of the best doctors/ surgeons and I mean best. However, it is not really pushing the frontiers of science as Harvard and Johns Hopkins have done for so long ( and yea I know about Eric Richard Kandel).</p>
<p>Haha, we have a class called frontiers of science.</p>
<p>So generally people consider Columbia to be the best of the rest after HYPSM?</p>
<p>Although i do not agree with what said above..</p>
<p>columbia business school, social work (for those who are in the loop) and journalism (pulitzer prize) are also highly regarded and well known. SIPA to some extent also. hopefully columbia econ will join too.</p>
<p>Like I said Columbia dominates fields like sociology, social work, law, and economics but abroad this doesn't mean anything.</p>
<p>C business school, and journalism (not social work, because abroad [and perhaps in the US] people don't care about social work schools much) are known internationally, that's in my experience, we probably have no way of resolving this since it is entirely subjective. but the pulitzer prize is awarded at columbia - one reason the school of journalism would be well known, and the financial times at least seems to think CBS is up there. - <a href="http://rankings.ft.com/rankings/mba/rankings.html%5B/url%5D">http://rankings.ft.com/rankings/mba/rankings.html</a> - hopefully econ will deservedly gain more recognition. and of course there is law and teaching.</p>
<p>columbia's econ department is ranked top 10 in the world....don't remember where i saw that but it was well publicized when it came out.</p>