@GSTourGuides Hello!
Sorry to bother, got accepted in Reims. A few questions:
1, Class size (how many students in one class)? 2, Does sciences Po offer dorm? or must rent apartment outside by ourselves? 3, Eat at school cafeteria or must cook by ourselves?
Thanks and have a good night!
Hey yall. Congrats on your admissions into the Dual BA! I also got admitted too and I am also considering some other options, but of course none of them is as good as the Dual BA. If not because of finance, I will commit right away. For context: I am a non-Europe, non-American international student. I got offered a financial aid package of around 80% of the GS tuition fee, but living cost and renting in NYC is insane, not to mention other expensive costs like health insurance. I am not sure I will be financially capable when I come to Columbia (considering how the coronavirus is destroying the economy and my parents’ business) to even afford studying there despite getting in. Therefore, I have some questions I hope @GSTourGuides can help answering.
I would like to know as well
So the answer differs a bit depending on which campus you’re at. The total size of the Dual BA cohort across all three campuses is something like 100 students, depending on how many decide to enroll who are accepted. This is just a rough estimate off the top of my head (I might be misremembering), but Le Havre tends to have about 15 Dual BA students, Menton has 15-20, and Reims has 70 (Euram and Euraf combined). As for the total campus sizes (first and second-year students), Le Havre has about 200-250 students , Reims has about 1,000, and Menton has about 300.
Sciences Po doesn’t offer dormitories themselves, as there are no on-campus residence halls. However, France offers CROUS housing, which is subsidized apartment living, for international students. It depends a bit on which campus you’re at, but most students live in CROUS housing during their first year, which is mostly partially-furnished studio apartments (with a basic kitchen and small bathroom). Some students opt to live in private housing during their first year - Yellow House seems to be a popular choice in Reims. After the first year, you have the option to stay in CROUS housing, but many students choose to move into bigger apartments with their friends for the second year. Upperclassmen moving on to their third year will usually pass their apartments on to underclassmen, so there are a number of private apartments which “rotate” through the Sciences Po community in each city.
The Sciences Po administration will help you get your CROUS housing. Usually they or the student associations send out information about all of the available CROUS residences, including location/distance from campus, size of the apartment, rent, etc. You tell Sciences Po which residence you want to live in, and they will reserve a spot for you (although some residences are more popular than others, and thus you might not get your first choice). Once you arrive, the student association (Bureau des
Élèves or just BDE) will help you get your rent contract so you can move in.
There will be more information provided about housing once students have committed to the Dual BA! This will also be covered in the virtual information sessions in June.
As far as I know, none of the Sciences Po campuses have cafeterias or dining services. They will have a small cantine with vending machines and microwaves. So because of this, students will bring their lunch to campus or go off campus to get lunch. Breakfast and dinner are on your own.
For a lot of us, buying groceries and cooking our own meals is a new experience and a learning process. Many of us have burned meals or made bad recipes, but you get better with practice! Potlucks become a common social event at Sciences Po; it’s fun to try home cooking by your classmates from all over the world.
Hi! I got accepted in Menton! I was wondering if there was a Facebook or Instagram group for accepted students that I could join? Additionally, I was wondering if there could be a way I could talk to a current student in the program? Thanks and congratulations everyone!
I would appreciate any advice as I am currently choosing between two of my top choice schools that I was admitted to: the dual ba program (le havre campus) and Swarthmore College – a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, US.
I’m interested in going to law school after college or going straight into the workforce – be it in investment banks or consulting firms. I would appreciate any opinion!! Thank you in advance and congrats to everyone who got in :))
To find the Facebook group, search “Columbia-Sciences Po Class of 2024”!
I’ll pm you about putting you in touch with a current student. Anybody else can feel free to message me if they want to talk to a current student from a specific campus; you can also email admissions, who can put you in contact with somebody!
APOLOGIES IF I END UP WITH DOUBLE/TRIPLE POSTS (I can’t share links, so my previous attempted comments could be approved or not)
Hi, so I can’t speak to the particulars of your personal situation, but I can answer some of the questions you have. (I’ve asked my Dual BA classmates who are also non-European international students and were in the same boat.)
It is possible to negotiate for more financial aid at Columbia, however this is not a guarantee. It doesn’t hurt to try. I would recommend calling them directly and trying to negotiate it now rather than later, although they do review your finances over time and decide accordingly whether to adjust your financial aid award. (In general, the aid package you are awarded when you are admitted can only get better and not worse, but again this depends a lot on your own personal circumstances.) Your academic performance at Sciences Po does not necessarily help you get more financial aid, although there are some institutional scholarships that we all apply for every year (it’s a general scholarship application) which could take this into account.
You should ask the GS Office of Educational Financing for more information about loans for international students. It might be that internationals only have access to private loans, for which it is recommended to have a US cosigner.
I would not recommend committing to the program if you’re not sure you can afford it. It has happened that people have dropped out of dual-degree programs to be in the regular Sciences Po track, but this requires a petition and is done on a case-by-case basis. So you should not rely on this as an exit option.
There are scholarships like the Jerome Lohez, Emile Boutmy, and Henri de Castries Scholarships which are offered to Sciences Po and Dual BA students. Information about these should be available on the Dual BA and Sciences Po websites. It’s possible that there might be government scholarships (from France and/or your home country) for students studying abroad you could look for. I would recommend searching for those and other kinds of scholarships. There are many websites dedicated to different scholarships by country; you could also ask your high school if that’s an option. (For example, there’s a merit-based scholarship for students of French Lycées outside of France.)
My best advice would be to try calling GS Office of Financial Aid to explore your options see if it is possible to negotiate financial aid or if there are other resources you can take advantage of. And I would also start researching and applying for external scholarships, especially ones that are specific to your circumstances.
Removing this comment bc it’s a double post
why can’t i delete comments
So the past few years have had a handful of waitlisted students each year. It’s a small waitlist, which is good, but at the same time the program has a high yield (meaning most of the students who are accepted end up committing to the program). I can think of a few classmates who did eventually get accepted off the waitlist, but I believe there were some years when nobody was accepted from the waitlist.
I know it’s stressful, but the best advice would be to be patient and keep your expectations low. If you are accepted from the waitlist, it may be a while before you hear back (very possible that this would be after May 1st, so you would likely have to put down a deposit for another program before you find out).
Thanks so much! So in Reims there may be 70 new enrolled students, are they in one class, or seperate into two or three different classes? I really appreciate your detailed response!
@GSTourGuides Thanks so much! So in Reims there may be 70 new enrolled students, are they in one class, or seperate into two or three different classes? I really appreciate your detailed response!
Not sure what you mean by “class,” but this would be about 70 Dual BA students all part of the first year (1A) cohort at Reims. Some of them (maybe 10-20, not sure about the exact number) will be in the Euro-Africa Program, which has their own course work (and thus could be considered their own “class”) and then the rest (maybe 60 or so) are in the Euro-American Program.
Since the Euro-Africa Program is in French, a lot of their classes are separate from the classes for the Euro-American program (and obviously each program will have classes specific to their regions of focus), but I understand there are some classes that overlap. And the Dual BA students will be fully integrated with Sciences Po students in the traditional three-year program and with other dual-degree students.
Hope this answers your question! Let me know how I can clarify if not
I was in a similar position when I was accepted - I was deciding between Dual BA and a competitively-ranked US college. I’m also very familiar with Swarthmore since I grew up five minutes away from the school haha
You can’t say that Dual BA or X College is better than the other, because they’re inherently different experiences. Ultimately you have to ask yourself what you’re hoping to get out of the Dual BA Program.
For me, it was really important to get outside of the bubble in which I had grown up and be exposed to people with different backgrounds from my own. And I also knew that I wanted some kind of international experience - I purposely applied to schools with abundant study abroad resources as well as those with strong programs in the social sciences, since I had wanted to major in economics/political science/international relations. I had some international experience in high school, including a cultural immersion program in China and a language and homestay program in France, which also influenced my desire to be in an international environment. In the end, I realized that everything that I was looking for in the traditional four-year programs I applied to was fulfilled above and beyond by the Dual BA Program. So the choice became obvious to me. I still think I would have been very happy had I opted for a traditional American college experience, but since I wanted a very specifically extraordinary experience, Dual BA was the best fit for me.
There are definitely pros and cons to the Dual BA, as there are with any other college program. For example, you save a lot of money (relative to large American institutions) while attending Sciences Po, but you are also paying for less - there are fewer career/advising/etc resources, the campuses are smaller, there are no residence halls on campus, etc. But this is very common for European universities. So you have to come in with the right expectations that Sciences Po does not offer as much as the well-funded universities in the US, but you are also saving money, and you get to enjoy Columbia’s (career, academic, etc) resources while you are at Sciences Po. Along with coming in with the right expectations, you also have to be ready to advocate for yourself and be independent and resourceful.
When applying for the Dual BA Program, I felt that this program - more than any other college program I applied - cared about who I am as a person and how I would fit into the Sciences Po, Columbia, and Dual BA communities. The admissions team is very good at vetting people who would survive AND thrive in this program and contribute to all of the communities that they’re a part of. I personally feel that I’ve gained so much more personal development from this program than I would have from a traditional four-year program, but then I wanted an extraordinary experience that would push me out of my comfort zone. I learn as much outside of the classroom as I do inside the classroom, just from having friends from around the world and interacting, debating with, and learning from them. I’ve also matured a lot more than I would have, from living independently and learning to advocate for myself, especially when dealing with bureaucratic stuff and living independently.
I would say that the Dual BA Program is not for everybody. Not everybody wants to be in such a different environment or to have a curtailed time at each school. Not everybody is willing to move to a totally different country to live on their own and deal with all of the bureaucratic, cultural, and “adulting” challenges that such an experience entails. By nature, this program is challenging, since you are pushed outside of your comfort zone and are always undergoing transition. But those challenges are exactly what makes this program so rewarding, if you are the kind of person who is interested in the challenge. If you know that you want to be in an extremely international environment, if you want to be pushed outside of your comfort zone and challenged to broaden your (intellectual, cultural, personal) horizons, if you want an extraordinary university experience that goes beyond learning in the classroom, then this program might be the right option for you.
I got some very good advice when I attended an admitted students weekend for a different school (lol): There is no right choice or wrong choice, but whatever choice you do make in the end, you have to MAKE it the right choice. So whether you choose Dual BA or a traditional four-year program or some other option, it’s up to you to make the most of the route that you choose. Dual BA can be an amazing opportunity if you take advantage of everything that it offers, and the same is true for any four-year college.
Sorry for the rambling! I would also encourage you to get other current students’ perspectives once you connect with them over social media, as this is just my own experience.
So this is kind of a broad question, but I can talk about life on the Le Havre campus and in the city in general. In terms of student demographics, Le Havre has about 1/3 French students, 1/3 students from Asia, and 1/3 other international students. It’s a very international campus (even a good proportion of the French students grew up abroad in Asia or elsewhere) and maybe the most anglophone of the three campuses available for the Dual BA campus. You’ll take standard social science classes like sociology, political science, economics, etc., but they will often be in the Euro-Asian context. For example, your 20th century history class might cover the rise of communism in China, Vietnam, the Soviet Union, Germany, etc.
The languages offered are specific to the region, and they include Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi, Korean, and Indonesian (I might be forgetting one). And a lot of the extracurriculars and student life events are specific to Asia too. Some of the clubs include Wushu, Southeast Asian Club, Chinese Dance, K-Pop Dance, etc. in addition to the “regular clubs” like sports, other dance groups, music performance groups, environmental associations, student publications, model UN, debate, etc. Some examples of events are Chinese New Year and Diwali.
Le Havre as a city kind of has a bad reputation among the French since the city is known for rainy weather lol. You grow to like the rain over time - it adds to the ambiance, and it’s the real Norman experience. It’s a small city, and it has nice attributes like the beautiful cliffs and the seas and the Sunday farmers markets and the seafood restaurants, etc. It’s quite a small city that some people dislike upon first impression, but I firmly believe that it’s the kind of place that you learn to appreciate over time.
This is just a brief overview - I can answer more specific questions if you have them! Your friend can also connect to a current student to speak to directly.
@GSTourGuides omg thank you so much!!! this is extremely helpful I really appreciate it. 
Hey everyone, I got into Le Havre!
Instagram: niharika.ghoshal
I’d love to be added to the Facebook and Instagram groups.
Thanks!
@GSTourGuides Thank you very much, do you know the number of students on the waitlist please? As I’m extremely motivated by the Dual BA I decided to write a waitlist letter, but should I do something else to prove my interest? Once again thank you very much, I really appreciate it!
I don’t know the number of students on the waitlist, but I believe that the waitlist is kept short. You can try writing a letter of motivation, but it’s not a guarantee. People have gotten off of the waitlist without having written any letter or doing anything else. There’s a space limit for the Program (each Sciences Po campus can only take a certain number of students from each dual-degree program in addition to the normal three-year track), so acceptance from the waitlist really depends on the yield rate (ie whether some of the accepted students decide not to commit to Dual BA).