<p>hey guys, congratulations on your acceptances! this board has been very helpful to me even though i've never posted anything here. but this time i'm really asking for some help. could someone please give me the pros and cons(ESPECIALLY THE CONS) of Stanford, Columbia and Duke and compare them to each other. I have no majors on my mind but I'm leaning towards the social sciences, i also plan on entertaining the prospects of entering the work force or obtaining just a masters degree after my undergraduate studies. could you guys help me out deciding where i'd go? i won't give up until i get about 50 replies to this!</p>
<p>Thank you all for your time and patience :-D</p>
<p>Stanford is way better than either of those schools. Stanford is on the same level as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. There's a reason why it's HYPS - they're easily the most recognizable names in higher education around the country.</p>
<p>Social science is still a broad category, think you could distill that any more?</p>
<p>i'm reading a lot of posts about stanford. the school seems to be everyone's favorite here on collegeconfidential. but i been to their campus. it's very, very big. let's eliminate Duke (if u dun like it, then tell me why it shouldn't be eliminated), and compare the opportunities at Columbia and NYC with all the good aspects of Stanford. Which would you choose? please give me reasons! reasons!</p>
<p>Stanford does have sports teams worth mentioning, so I think that's a plus.</p>
<p>From my impressions of Stanford, it's undergrad is more sciencey (not that its humanities aren't good), and Columbia is much more humanities-centric (not that its sciences aren't good).</p>
<p>i4tunecookiei, you're not going to get valuable responses unless you give a little more information. Stanford and Duke are roughly similar, although they are quite different in many ways. Columbia is very different from either of them, in terms of social scene, pre-professionalism (much less), location, Core, size, and a good many other things. Any of them will give you a wonderful education, so don't be sucked into the "Stanford is clearly the best" parade. If you want a broad education, you might like Columbia's extensive Core or Duke's distribution requirements. If you like a big city and what it offers, Columbia is the obvious choice. For nice weather, head to Stanford or Duke. All have advantages and disadvantages, so more infomation will result in better responses.</p>
<p>I'm sorry, the truth is that I have very little ideas myself. I'm undecided about what I want to study, but I can tell you, yes, I do love the big city. I grew up in a big city and since my move to socal at the age of 11, i haven't been liking it...i don't even like the weather. I'm happy when it rains. I like a lot of the aspects of Columbia, but there are a few things that I'm concern about.</p>
<p>I dunno if I would be able to connect with people at Columbia the way I like to and will get to if I go to Stanford where everyone is very approachable from students to professors. Columbia probably has the eastern, pretentious attitude that I'm not very comfortable with. In addition, the fact that everyone is drawn out of the campus to exploit the opportunities in the city is probably not a good thing when the campus is emptied out with no chances of activity and involvement and even leadership unless you go out. can anyone address these issues?</p>
<p>It sounds like you favor Columbia but have reservations. Have you visited? Spending an overnight visit is often a good way to get a feel for a college. I also suggest PM'ing slipper1234; he should have some insight about life at Columbia.</p>
<p>slipp1234 transferred out of Columbia, so he has a very different opinion of the school (obviously a dissatisfied one), though it definitely couldn't hurt to get a broad perspective of the college.</p>
<p>i'd like to speak to a few of the generalizations about columbia. i'm currently a sophomore here, and i can tell you that it's a fantastic place. it has its downsides, as does any college. all the talk about the city sucking the student body off the campus is true to an extent but also tends to be exaggerated. there's always some sort of cultural event or talk going on on campus, and it's really not very difficult to find a party on a weekend night. if you're looking for the social scene, then it's there. you might have to look a little harder than you would at a place like stanford, but it certainly exists. the eastern coldness deal is, as some have noted, sort of a vague concept. i'm from socal, and i feel that ppl in nyc can have a get out of my way attitude at times. but that's the price you pay for living in a big city. and to be honest, it really teaches you a lot about how to deal w/ppl. the kids here are for the most part very smart. some are arrogant and pretentious, some aren't. ultimately you should remember that you're gonna shape your experience at whichever college you choose. you simply need to decide which environment would provide you with a better opportunity to thrive.</p>
<p>on a side note, speaking to slipper might help you. i have, however, read much of what he has written, and i can tell you that i don't agree with a lot of what he says. of course, his experience was his experience (or at least we have to assume so). the point, though, is that his perspective is not the same as everyone else's. this simply goes back to my point above about how the individual shapes his/her own experience.</p>