<p>I don't know if you guys figured it out yet but the statistic is perfectly correct (I'm actually shocked that this is the case.)</p>
<p>It's all three undergraduate program- CC (~1000) + SEAS (~300) + GS (~300). Or at least that's my hypothesis. And they even listed Barnard seperately! Much ups to the WSJ for actually getting the structure of the school correctly.</p>
<p>That being said the methodology sucks balls. The comment about Yale says it all- The reason more Yalies go to HLS than YLS is because IT'S THREE TIMES BIGGER. Idiots.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/opir/abstract/degrees_awarded_2005-2006.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.columbia.edu/cu/opir/abstract/degrees_awarded_2005-2006.html</a></p>
<p>Total Undergraduate Degrees in the Columbia Class of 2006- 1676.</p>
<p>Isn't GS like 150...not 300?
And either way, there's absolutely no way GS should be included in this. They're not standard undergrads...most never go to grad school.</p>
<p>Anyways, the methodology should be to use the acceptance rate from students applying from a certain school to top grad programs. Otherwise, this really is a piece of crap.</p>
<p>Last year, GS had an enrollment of 1226 students in its BA/BS programs. 239 of them graduated with a Bachelors degree in 2006.</p>
<p>It has every reason to be included in this list- they're getting almost the exact same education as you are and getting the same degree. What does being non-standard have to do with anything? They're entering the post-grad market with the exact same qualificatiosn you are, and some of them even have work experience, making them even better candidates in some cases.</p>
<p>Furthermore, what's your basis for claiming that they don't go on to graduate and professional schools? In fact there are an additional 450 students in GS who are Post-Bac Pre-Med students. They are most definitely going to Medical school afterwards. You seem to have a penchant for broad generalizations.</p>
<p>A few reasons why GS shouldn't be counted in that statistic:
1. It's inconsistent with the statistics for every other school. Not one other school on there has there "alternative students" school counted, regardless of whether they receive of a different degree or not. This rankings was compiled for the purpose of direct comparison from one school to another...therefore GS cannot be included.
2. As much as I have a penchant for making generalizations, GS students have a penchant for not going to grad school at the rate of standard undergrads.</p>
<p>1) You've now advanced two arguements for excluding GS. First that they don't send people to grad school (to call this reasoning flimsy is in insult to flimsy reasoning.) Please provide a reference that backs up this assertion.</p>
<p>2) Second, that it would be statistically inconsistent because no else counts their "alternative" students. First off, what makes them "alternative"? Is someone two years older than you that different? Furthermore by your reasoning Penn shouldnt be allowed to count Wharton grads or Nursing grads because Harvard doesn't have an undergraduate business or nursing school- it would be statistically inconsistent to compare the two otherwise. WHy do you insist on differentiating yourself from GS students when they're more "consistent" with CC students than SEAS students?</p>
<p>Look, it just doesn't make any sense to include GS if it's not including any other alternative (GS defines itself as an "alternative" undergrad school...I didn't make that up) undergraduate schools. There's no Harvard Extension School or Penn Extension School.
Secondly, SEAS has to be included FOR consistency. SEAS is the Columbia equivalent of graduating as an engineering major from any top school, Columbia just, like several other schools, separates them by schools, but they're still standard undergrads.</p>
<p>"Columbia just, like several other schools, separates them by schools, but they're still standard undergrads."</p>
<p>This applies to GS in terms of education- they're getting a standard undergraduate education- in your classes.</p>
<p>"There's no Harvard Extension School or Penn Extension School."</p>
<p>Unfortunately those are very poor comparisons. As I explained in another thread, HES students don't get Harvard BA's, they get ALB's in "Extension Studies." The classes are taught at night. Only 60% of the faculty are even affiliated with H, and HES students cannot enroll in regular Harvard classes or transfer to Harvard College. It's strictly segregated administratively, academically, etc. </p>
<p>GS by comparison is just administratively seperated from CC. GS students recieve instruction by the columbia faculty of arts and sciences in the same classes as CC students, and get the same exact degree (minus the latin text)- a BA from Columbia. How are they any different from CC students? The only difference is that they have a different dean and some core courses are optional. The fact is that there aren't many comparable programs to GS in terms of its scope and full integration at Columbia. Just because it wasn't mentioned in the color viewbook doesn't mean they don't count.</p>
<p>My point is this: On the day you graduate and walk out the gates, the 250 GS graduates will have the exact same standing as you on the other side- recipients of Columbia BA's. Your "alternative" arguement comes down to this. You're saying "they didn't get into columbia right after high school, so they shouldn't count." It's not the WSJ's fault that Columbia has a full fledged undergraduate program for those students.</p>
<p>I can't be certain about Penn College of General Studies (it seems to fall in between C and H's programs), since I can't find the Penn equivalent to the Columbia's Statistical Abstract (linked above).</p>
<p>After looking over it again, it doesn't seem fair that the GS students are counted. If these students were excluded, Columbia would be at around Dartmouth's level, which is just about right.
Penn also had its GS students included--if they were excluded, Penn's ranking would be around Brown's.
MIT's enrollment was overcounted by 100+ also.</p>
<p>However, I think that the most important variable in this survey is the number of students that WSJ found to be attending these schools, which could range from fairly accurate to completely miscounted. For example, I know for a fact that Amherst has 19 students at HLS, and 9 more at YLS this year, making a total of 28 at these two schools alone. According to WSJ, there are 33 Amherst alums attending these top schools- there is just no way that Amherst only has 5 students at these other 13 schools.</p>
<p>Again- is your rationale seriously "reality isn't matching perception, so let's fudge the numbers in order to match the perception"?</p>
<p>The methodology is incredibly flawed so lets leave the relative rankings aside. Nor do we know where WSJ actually got the enrollment numbers from- I'm citing Columbia's official statistical abstract.</p>
<p>The survey is theoretically calculating how well do undergraduate graduates from these place. Not counting Columbia GS is basically pretending they don't exist, which is ludicrous.</p>
<p>The proper methodology for this would have been to determine how well students who wanted to get into these programs did since it's a self selecting population, which is very difficult to determine.</p>
<p>not to butt in but Skraylor def said to destroy this thread...</p>
<p>just cuz i said it doesnt mean it will happen :P</p>
<p>well you're def one of the great champions so i only thought....</p>