<p>I've read from various posts that Columbia has a weak school spirit and weak collaborative(?) atmosphere, since most of the students there are the perfect-scorers and everybody wants to be ahead of everyone else. As a consequence, the network isn't that good either. This seems to be the prevalent opinion about Columbian students, although I'm pretty sure not all people are like this. </p>
<p>I wouldn't be too surprised since it's situated in NY, but I just want to confirm.. are people in COlumbia generally "unfriendly"?</p>
<p>âUnfriendlyâ? No, not in my experience, which admittedly is brief (two friends at Columbia spent a weekend there once). The basic Columbia stereotype, and in my (brief) experience itâs true is that students just get off campus and go into the city during their free time. As a result, thereâs not much school spirit. This also leads to a tendency for small, close groups of friends to form early and then remain fairly static. </p>
<p>Take it with a grain of salt, though. I donât go there.</p>
<p>Thanks for your posts, guys. Perhaps having the small, consistent group of friends is better for me since thatâs what seems to be lacking in my life right now. I moved to California abt 2 years ago and in general (at least from my experience) friends here seem to be pretty spread out; I like meeting new people, itâs just that there doesnât seem to be much âdeepâ friendships you can count on. </p>
<p>Students donât generally choose NYC colleges primarily for the purpose of having the traditional campus-centric college experience. They choose them because they want tom be in NYC. Iâm sure thereâd have to be a trade-off there.</p>
<p>if you go to columbia youâll have nearly limitless opportunity to make friends in the bustling city of new york⊠weâve got everything (except nature I guess) and everyone. So even if your fellow students donât make good friends for some reason, millions of others are walking by every day. I donât see how you could be ever be lonely unless youâre extremely shy.</p>
<p>But for many (maybe most?) Columbia undergraduates the truth is that you wonât spend as much time-off campus as you might like. Typically, great New York City clubs and other entertainment venues are a bit out of reach financially for a lot of students to attend regularly. And bars are off-limits for students under 21 (though there was many a place on the upper west side that didnât scrutinize I.D.s when serving alcohol, if you behaved yourself; but Iâm guessing that the new appeal of the neighborhood has changed that. Lost of fancy places within a few blocks of the campus nowadays). The exception is that many things in NYC are free or very low cost for city residents, including the Met Musuem, the Planetarium, Central Park etc. So Columbia students can enjoy those attractions and many other free cultural activities sponsored throughout the city.</p>
<p>Getting back to the OPâs questions, itâs my observation that the typical Columbia student today is much different from an undergrad during Obamaâs days Morningside Heights. I gather that Columbia is much more friendly and animated place since the administration began to take a greater interest in student activities, and consequently built new facilities like the Roone Arledge building (named for the former producer for ABC TV Network).</p>
<p>The only caveat Iâd mention is that politically Columbia is no longer unaffected by the fractious politics of the outside world. After the âDays of Rageâ in the late 1960s, the great majority of undergraduates were markedly non-political (or at least non-demonstrative in their politics) from the 1970s until just after the turn of the century. The Arab-Israeli conflict is now a regularly present friction on campus and itâs caused students and faculty to take sides and to abandon civility, in some instances.</p>
<p>Thatâs sort of the problem with Columbia. Much of its appeal is due to NYC, which is its de facto âcampus.â But the appeal of NYC is cyclical; so the appeal of Columbia will be as well. Remember from the late 60âs to the early 80âs, NYC was not a very desirable place to live. As such, Columbia was not a very desirable place to go to school. (The 60âs protests didnât exactly help its reputation). </p>
<p>As recently as the Cold War era, Columbia was arguably an equal to HYP. Since then, it has forever ceded its position to Stanford and MIT, which have indeed become true equals to HYP. Not only that, Columbia may not even be the next best school after HYPSM. Caltech deserves that honor. Unlike 50-60 years ago, Columbia faces much more competition from the other non-HYP Ivies, Chicago, Duke, etc. Currently, Columbia doesnât exactly stand out from these other non-HYPSMC schools. And NYC is at its peak right now and has been for at least a generation. Whoâs to say what will happen in the foreseeable future?</p>
<p>To respond to a few posters, kids donât actually choose Columbia primarily because of nyc, while some might apply for that reason, the vast majority 9/10 donât get in and for those who do, it is one among a number of reasons. Every school is affected by its surroundings, it is just more emphasized for urban schools, but ask Yale admissions if they believe New Haven doesnât seriously impact applicants, or if Durham doesnât affect Duke admissions.</p>
<p>Finally life at Columbia is very much campus centric, because there is a real, separated campus. There are additions to the traditional college experience, but there is a strong traditional college campus experience for students (frisbee, snowball fights, sun bathing, protests etc.) this is significantly less the case for schools like NYU which do not have a centralized, cut-off campus.</p>
<p>No, thanks. The perspective in the open forums is less biased.</p>
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<p>But kids do choose Columbia OVER OTHER non-HYP ivies primarily because of NYC. One could arguably get a better undergraduate education at Brown or Dartmouth, neither of whose campuses are dominated by graduate students. That is if you count Columbiaâs tiny campus as a real college âcampus.â</p>
sheesh, whatâs your axe to grind with Columbia? Columbia offers unquestionably the finest education one can getâŠstarting with its core and ending with the ability to take classes in all divisions of the university.</p>
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<p>Who says NYC is at its peak? Can I borrow your crystal ball?</p>
<p>but far less informed, which is the problem, it unbiased and often inaccurate. If you look through some of the threads on the Columbia forum (and other school forums hopefully as well), there is a healthy criticism of the university from various current students and alums. We might be proud of our school but we are not admission officers and are fundamentally around to give out information and discuss experiences both good and bad.</p>
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<p>again this is a vast generalization, is it even based on anecdotal evidence, or are you grinding that axe? we know well the problems with anecdotal evidence. There are a plethora of reasons apart from NYC why kids choose Columbia, no need to Platonify Columbia into being some urban merry-go-ground.</p>
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<p>While Brown and Dartmouth offer fantastic undergrad educations, it is incorrect to assume that Columbiaâs campus is dominated by grad students. Ask any current or past undergrad and they will disagree with this, which is (I hate to break it to you) merely a stereotype of large universities that doesnât apply to all cases. Columbiaâs undergrad student to faculty ratio is 6:1 (pretty high, better than most LACs), % of classes under 20 is something like 75-80% (better than most LACs), and the freshman retention is close to 99% and second only to Yale. You have pre-conceived notions about Columbia, but the aggregate data disprove most of what you argue.</p>
<p>Many of the grad schools have their own faculty and are distinctly separated from undergrad life (unless you want to be involved with research / take a few classes in them) - Yes I am having it both ways, because in my experience that has been the case. Undergrad resources are exclusively for undergrads, but opportunities to be involved with grad schools are available, this is one of the reasons we get so many applicants in the first place.</p>
<p>Finally while Columbiaâs campus is small, it fulfills its role as a real college campus - giving students an concentrated, isolated (and some would say beautiful) common space to interact, a separation from the city and non-college life, and a space to hold large student events.</p>
<p>Columbia is unarguably still in that small group of institutions that provide the finest undergraduate education in the U.S. and one of the best academic experiences in the world, for the underclassmen who seek it. And while the campus cannot physically be mistaken for the sprawling grounds of U of Virginia or the U of Maryland or even Duke University, itâs still an attractive liberal arts campus. Sit on the steps in front of Low Library on a warm day (or any day) and you canât deny that fact. Yes, New York is an attraction, and Columbia was still attracting students immediately after the âDays of Rageâ in the 1970s and 1980s (including one Barack H. Obama, a Hawaiian for Godâs sake!!!). But to kids for whom NYC was the main attraction but whose fear of urban life was equally present, those kids could have easily applied to Manhattan College in Riverdale, Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville or even applied to Princeton. Those neighborhoods were a bit tonier than Morningside Heights back in the day. But no, high school applicants chose Columbia for likely greater reasons than the NYC environs.</p>
<p>I have a friend who goes to Columbia, and while she is competitive, she isnât out to step on other people to get ahead. She works hard and takes pride in her work.
Iâve never heard any negative stories about students from Columbia; this other guy I know who was accepted is smart and laid-back. So most likely, as with any other college, youâll find both smart and laid-back types and the smart and cutthroat types.</p>
<p>Wow. Youâd think that youâd develop thicker skin after living in NYC for a while. </p>
<p>Calm down. I have nothing against Columbia. Among the colleges to which I was accepted, it was definitely in my top 5. FWIW, I am probably going to apply to Columbia for grad school. By then, a traditional campus life wonât be very important to me at all.</p>
<p>Come on. Who do you think youâre kidding? Iâve walked up the steps of Low Library and eaten at Ollieâs right down the block and what not. But honestly, thereâs really not much to Columbiaâs âcampus.â No iconic landmarks or anything (unless you count the basement of Pupin Hall). No sense of undergraduate residential life that youâd find on more traditional college grounds. Nothing of the kind. And we obviously have totally different aesthetic standards.</p>
arguing against you implies someone has thin skin - I like it.</p>
<p>so much Columbia bashing yet it was in your top 5, I wonder what youâd say about schools not making it into the top 5, just angry about world dimsum? - hereâs a virtual hug.</p>
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<p>oh no, I plan to go to grad school only to rally around sports teams.</p>
<p>and finally if you have to mention that you made it to Columbia to give your post credibility it usually implies either:
a) you didnât make it and are pretending
or
b) need to justify the decision to yourself by hammering it into the ground</p>
<p>No, I donât plan to ârally around sports teamsâ in grad school. Thatâs the whole point. Because I donât exactly count Columbia football and basketball as real sports.</p>
<p>âIâve read from various posts that Columbia has a weak school spirit and weak collaborative(?) atmosphere, since most of the students there are the perfect-scorers and everybody wants to be ahead of everyone else⊠are people in COlumbia generally âunfriendlyâ?â</p>
<p>Columbia has weak body cohesiveness because of its location in New York City. Why stay on campus on school nights or on weekends when youâve got the entire city at your disposal? Thus, students flock outward in their cliques. </p>
<p>Moreover, in its blatant practice of affirmative action to create diversity, the opposite effect is achievedânote the prevalence of members of certain races isolating themselves and forming packs, of race-based fraternities that attempt to create a semblance of community through fierce and single-minded loyalty to the respective racial group.</p>
<p>Columbia students arenât âunfriendlyââthatâs not the right word. Coldly skeptical, and always on guard, perhaps, but thatâs the attitude of the NYC elite.</p>
<p>The Columbia representatives on College Confidential are nearly uniformly hostile for some reason, especially when their institution is under scrutiny. However, the nastiness of a handful of students shouldnât reflect badly on the student body as a whole.</p>
<p>As the parent of a very happy first-year Columbia student, I find the frequent recounting of this reputation fascinating. My son is a social beast, a party animal, a frat member and rugby player. In a word, he has described his Columbia experience as âperfect.â He has ventured âinto the cityâ less than a handful of times, although he applied ED to Columbia because of the city and the core (not necessarily, but perhaps, in that order). He simply canât find the time to explore the city. He finds tremendous school spirit among his various crowds, and sees no competition (in the pejorative sense of the word). I suspect the overwhelming majority (all?) of Columbia students seek to be all they can be. In that sense, they are most certainly competitive. One can maximize oneâs own performance without treading on anotherâs, however, and the positive learning he gains from working all of his problem sets in âstudy groupsâ is proof of that. Perhaps itâs because heâs a suburban kid from several thousand miles away (i.e., naive?), but my son has not experienced the negative stereotypesâat all. </p>
<p>Usually I find anecdotal testimonials like mine unhelpful, but my son would not be enjoying his experience the way he is without being surrounded by a HUGE cast of fellow travellers who also embrace the traditional college experience.</p>