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<p>do dee do dee do</p>
<p>Columbia doesn’t have a really strong school spirit, but it certainly is not overly competitive. In my experience people are always helpful. I actually think we are pretty collaborative compared to other schools.</p>
<p>So dim sum wants to believe that Columbia today is just like Columbia 50 years ago: all the focus is on undergraduates. He wants to believe that Columbia students are NYU students, primarily interested in attending because of the chance to be in Manhattan. Laughably, he believes the admissions office would actually admit students who only want to come to Columbia because it’s in NYU. Moreover, he wants to believe that Columbia students (who, after all, only care about Columbia because it’s in New York) are foolish for choosing Morningside Heights over Greenwich Village. Finally, wants to believe that only objective “facts” matter; if an opinion cannot be quantified, it is subjective and therefore invalid. </p>
<p>He suffers from the same myopia that afflicts every kind of supremacist and exceptionalist: the idea that what he’s familiar with is objectively better than alternatives, and there can be no legitimate reasons to choose alternatives other than ignorance and stupidity. For whatever reason, he refuses to entertain the notion that students LIKE having the best of both worlds: a semi-permeable campus that allows students some insularity while still exposing them to the intellectual life, culture, and entertainment of the city. He refuses to consider that many students choose Columbia primarily because they LIKE the opportunities that being part of a large research university, with many renowned graduate schools, provides. Not everyone wants to go a university primarily comprised of undergraduates, and not everyone wants to go to HYPMSC! </p>
<p>When we chose Columbia College in Columbia University, we knew it wasn’t full of rah-rah school spirit BS and we knew it wasn’t like an upstate LAC where you can have dinner at your professor’s house once a week. At the same time, we knew it wasn’t in the center of a downtown gentrified bohemian paradise, right next to the club scene. We considered all this, but we still came to the conclusion that it was more or less what we wanted for our undergraduate experience. You can respect that or not, but there’s no way you’re going to convince us that we should adopt your values and realize we made the wrong choice.</p>
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<p>No. I said the exact opposite. This is what I said verbatim: “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.”</p>
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<p>What’s laughable is how you completely misread my statements. I never claimed that students enroll at Columbia ONLY because of NYC. I said that NYC is a primary reason why students choose Columbia over other non-HYP ivies.</p>
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<p>Exactly. NYC plays a role in the college decision for Columbia students.</p>
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<p>By “C,” I assume you mean Caltech. That’s good because not all Columbia students are willing to concede that Caltech is the next best thing to HYPSM. Some even hopelessly believe the “C” to stand for Columbia.</p>
<p>While it’s true that “not everyone” at Columbia wants to go to HYPSMC, many do. Most RD applicants would’ve chosen HYPSMC had they gotten in. Many ED applicants prefer HYPSMC but chose the ED admissions boost over the uncertainty and unlikelihood of a HYPSMC acceptance. The Columbia admissions office acknowledges this fact, which is why Columbia relies upon ED in the first place. If Columbia thought that it could compete on an even playing field with HYPSMC, then why not lose the crutch of ED? Because it knows that if it were to do so, HYPSMC would eat Columbia’s lunch in cross-admit battles. When Princeton gave up ED, its yield rate dropped 10-15 percentage points. Do you think Columbia would fare any better?</p>
<p>Again, I have objective data to back up my claims:</p>
<p>Of cross-admits, Columbia loses 91%, 85%, 78%, 79%, 80% to H,Y,P,S,M respectively. (Caltech info is n/a in this chart.)</p>
<p>[The</a> New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17/weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html]The”>The New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices)</p>
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<p>I made no value judgments, only factual and descriptive claims.</p>
<p>are you scared of big heights?</p>
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<p>It’s interesting that you say this. Let’s consider:
You assume that your opinion of the campus is fact and that students are as dissatisfied with it as you are.
You assume that the proportion of post-grads alone indicates that undergrads are cheated and that Columbia offers an inferior undergrad education. It’s very difficult to really know what an undergrad experience is like without actually considering the opinions of undergrads.
The NYT chart you present does not support some of your previous claims that Columbia is desperately competing and losing against every school in the top 10.</p>
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<p>I said the Columbia “campus” is tiny. This is a fact, although size is obviously a relative matter. juillet (Columbia grad student) agrees: “Columbia’s campus is the size of a postage stamp.”</p>
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<p>I made no such assumption. I only asked this (rhetorical) question: “Given that Columbia graduate students outnumber undergraduates nearly three-to-one, who do you think gets the lion’s share of the attention from faculty that teach “mixed undergrad-grad classes” or teach either or both undergrad and grad classes?” (Do you like my pun? “Lion’s share”?)</p>
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<p>I did not say this. My exact words: “Unlike 50-60 years ago, Columbia faces much more competition from the other non-HYP Ivies, Chicago, Duke, etc. Currently, Columbia doesn’t exactly stand out from these other non-HYPSMC schools.” I never said that Columbia was “losing” to the other non-HYP Ivies, Chicago, Duke, etc.</p>
<p>dimsum, are you scared of heights</p>
<p>It’s not accurate to imply that Columbia is any less selective than HYPSM. According to the data below (enrolled class statistics from the last year) Columbia’s 50% SAT ranges are higher than Stanford or MIT. Columbia and Princeton’s average SAT scores are on top of each other. Columbia’s admissions rate nearly matches Princeton’s and is lower than MIT.</p>
<p>Princeton:
[Princeton</a> University Overview - CollegeData College Profile](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=111]Princeton”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=111)</p>
<p>Stanford:
[Stanford</a> University Overview - CollegeData College Profile](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=781]Stanford”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=781)</p>
<p>MIT:
[Massachusetts</a> Institute of Technology Overview - CollegeData College Profile](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=186]Massachusetts”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=186)</p>
<p>Columbia:
[Columbia</a> University Overview - CollegeData College Profile](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=399]Columbia”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg01_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=399)</p>
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<p>You don’t really judge the “selectivity” of private universities by their SAT profiles, do you? By that logic, Caltech is more selective than Harvard. The beauty of schools like the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, etc. is that they treat their applicants holistically, not formulaically.</p>
<p>Given that 4 out of 5 students prefer either Stanford or MIT over Columbia, don’t you think Stanford/MIT could “steal” Columbia admits if they wanted these students? It’s no secret that the highest SAT scorers at Columbia are the engineering students. You don’t think they’d jump at a chance to attend Stanford/MIT if they could? Some of the Columbia engineering students I know couldn’t get into Cornell engineering and Berkeley EECS, let alone Stanford and MIT.</p>
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<p>Actually, Columbia’s yield rates are nearly identical to Princeton’s as well. But then again, unlike Columbia, Princeton no longer has the luxury of guaranteeing 100% yield for the 40% or so of its class that it enrolls Early Decision. See what happens when you get rid of ED. Princeton was exposed as a “Paper Tiger.” If Columbia were to do the same, it’d be nothing but a “Paper Lion.”</p>
<p>I have to admit that dimsum is partially right. Although I know people who turned down MIT/Stanford to come here, those who wish they could’ve gotten into M/S (or knew they never had a chance and thus didn’t apply) definitely outnumber those in the former category. </p>
<p>Isn’t it possible, though, for students to make their college choices “holistically, not formulaically”? To some, having the engineering firepower of M/S might not factor into their decision as heavily as say, having an extracurricular experience that is greatly supplemented by NYC. You could argue that Columbia’s application/enrollment numbers would plummet if it weren’t in NYC, but guess what? It’s in NYC, and that’s not going to change any time. Most students (or at least the ones who would probably be fun to be around) choose to attend a college based on the whole picture.</p>
<p>Thus, </p>
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<p>is an unnecessary generalization. I’m sure you are aware that the 1 out of 5 students who prefer Columbia to M/S wouldn’t “jump at the chance” as you put it - they had the chance but came here instead.</p>
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<p>This, on the other hand, I don’t find surprising at all. Although there are some ridiculously intelligent people in SEAS, there also exists a disconcertingly significant amount of deadweight. Let’s just say that more than a handful of people have expressed their disappointment with the less than stellar intellect/motivation/work ethic etc. of their gateway/preprof group project partners.</p>
<p>This is seriously the most pointless, ineffectual conversation. Dim sum, if you don’t like me or Columbia, get out. I’m not even a Columbia student. I’m a junior in high school. YOU ARE AIRING YOUR GRIEVANCES WITH A JUNIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL. Do you have a job? Or do you just get pleasure from making acronyms out of the schools you didn’t get into? I’m not hostile, I’m just a realist.</p>
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<p>Do you usually butt into “pointless, ineffectual conversations”?</p>
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<p>Who are you again???</p>
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<p>Yes, but I am not hiring high school interns right now. Sorry.</p>
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<p>Actually, I am a recent graduate of one of the “acronym” schools. If you work hard, someday you could be one too. I see you’re interested in applying to Yale in the fall. Good luck with that!</p>
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<p>Maybe, but you should really stop screaming (TYPING IN CAPS).</p>
<p>As the OP of this thread, it certainly seems that the conversation strayed out of control. I am thankful though, to everyone who gave me their thoughts on Columbia (especially the undergraduates’ insights; those were extremely helpful), whether positive or negative. After all, what I wanted was a clarification on several rumors I had been reading about Columbia, from both sides (what had caused those rumors to start and the truth behind those talks). Overall, I have gotten a much more positive and favorable view of Columbia. The thread has served its purpose to me and I hope that any further posts continuing to bash each other will stop; I think it’s possible to state one’s opinions without being flammatory, and disagree with someone without attacking them.</p>
<p>SATs are not the end all be all metric, but they are very relevant. And yes, I don’t think it’s that far of a stretch to say that Caltech may very well be more selective than Harvard from a raw numbers perspective (i.e. SAT scores). Is that the only metric? No, but it is the most quantifiable. </p>
<p>Whether one school is more preferable to another has nothing to do with selectivity. Selectivity has to do with the difficulty of being admitted in the first place.</p>
<p>Agreed. Let me say this in Yoda-speak for you to understand: A school for HYPSMC rejects Columbia is.</p>
<p>Too bad dim sum didn’t get into HYP or Columbia</p>
<p>Accepted @ Harvard & Columbia.
Waitlisted @ Yale.
Did not apply to Princeton.</p>