I’m thinking about adding Columbia at the last minute to my list. I come from a small town and I usually hang around home or my friends’ homes most days. I’ve been to New York City and I know it’s super, super busy and chaotic. Since Columbia is smack in the middle of that craziness and it seems like a lot of student life revolves around the city, is it worth even applying? Is it acceptable for students not to go out into the city all the time? Would I be happy mostly just staying on campus or should I just not bother applying? Academically, the school looks like a great fit if I can get in, but NYC may be a deterrent.
Why for something that doesn’t seem to be a match? There are plenty of great schools out there that are not in NYC.
@happy1 I like the school, in terms of academics/the Core Curriculum, and it has a very strong program for my main extracurricular. I have worked closely with one of their faculty members and I think he would talk to admissions if I asked. Not sure how much that would help, but I assume some. The only thing I don’t like is NYC.
There are a bunch of very selective schools that will be very strong with your main extracurricular, unless that extracurricular involves NYC, so unless this relationsihp with the faculty member will legitimately help you be accepted or if you think that that faculty member would be a mentor to you at the school then I don’t see why you’d go there. In terms of applying though, there is never harm in applying as long as you can fork over the application fee without any financial worries/or are able to receive free waiver.
Columbia is in a relatively quiet section of NYC. It’s not “smack dab” in the middle of all that craziness, but more uptown where relatively speaking there’s more quiet space and greenery. While it’s not a suburb, if you pull up a map you can see that there is a big long park on the west side of campus, on the right side too. One block further and you’re in Central Park, which is huge. The north end of Central Park is made to look like the Adirondaks. Within a short distance, you can walk down to the Hudson, which is really an estuary and is salty and oceany, with waves and sea creatures. Racoons populate the parks and wading birds. The campus itself has lawns and trees and quiet areas. Commonly spotted on the campus are cardinals, kestrels, red tail hawks and falcons that perch along the buildings. You might find this more manageable than you at first think. Columbia is nothing like the Times Square area or even the NYU area. It’s a neighborhoody neighborhood where you will often see people you know on the street, as the area is narrow. You might just like it . . . .
I would only ask a professor to contact admissions if the school is your top choice. Otherwise you may burn bridges with someone you may want to work with in the future.
I do think that NYC is a part of the Columbia experience (my D is there for grad school and we know many people who were there for undergrad) so if you don’t like NYC I think you should be able to find better fit schools. And while the campus is lovely and the neighborhood around campus is quieter than say Times Square as noted above, it has a decidedly busy and urban feel.
In the end, the decision of if you should apply or not is entirely your call.
If you’re not a fan of NYC then don’t apply. We visited and the city was just too much for what my daughter was seeking.
Columbia prides itself on announcing that it is “Columbia University in the City of New York,” and that it is the New York City experience you will find there.
@Dustyfeathers has drawn a remarkable picture of the NYC, in that one could find exactly that New York, true, but I don’t know how many young people would find themselves a part of the culture of their peers if that were the NYC they made their main environs.
Sounds like a respite, and more a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there…(I’m just joking.)
There are neighborhoods in NYC, with a feel all their own. There are quiet people, and those who cull out a place for themselves in the enclaves which abound.
Still, it doesn’t sound like it makes sense for you to apply to go to school there, to me.
I think you can take or leave as much of the NYC experience as you want–except getting to and from the airport.
^^^ That is true, but based on my D’s current experience as a grad student at Columbia as well as the experiences of some close friends who were at Columbia as undergraduates, shying away from the NYC experience would significantly diminish not only one’s social opportunities, but also the overall experience of attending Columbia. I think if one chooses a college in NYC, one should embrace NYC or there are probably better fit schools out there.
@Dustyfeathers, you intrigue me.
OP, I will tell you that a hundred years ago I got up verrry early in the morning and went out to…oh, maybe Jamaica Bay, to see the flight of the Monarch butterflies leaving Canada to fly south to Mexico, and was thrilled to have saved the day to partake in that event. I chose a year that there was a major downshift in the Monarch population, so there was no darkening of the skies overhead as they traversed NY.
I met lots of people - many of them much, much older than me - who regularly did such things. Perhaps they enjoyed city life in other ways as well.