Intellectually, yes, same level. But that’s where the comparisons end IMO. And IMO, give me Swat over Columbia any day.
LOL …I’d choose Columbia any day.
But the point is that academically they are equivalent, but they are radically different learning environments because of the urban/suburban, and LAC vs. research university factors. It’s somewhat interesting that a student would apply to both --I think sometimes students make their decisions on where to apply based on rankings & reputation without digging down to consider various fit factors. Not that it isn’t possible for a given student to thrive in both environments — just that they are quite different.
1 Like
@swarthcolum - These are such different schools, other than their proximity to cities, that it is hard to understand what you are looking for in a college, in general. They are both full of smart, even idealistic, professors and students. But the students who attend Swat are far more intellectual, quirky and liberal than Columbia students, who, as @calmom has said above, are very ambitious and career-oriented. Swat tends to attract students who believe in “doing well by doing good.” Columbia tends to attract students who want to attend an Ivy, live and work in NYC, are pre-med, pre-business, and don’t need /want a lot of administrative had-holding or close relationships with professors. Columbia is not a “warm and fuzzy” place. But I disagree with @calmom about grade inflation. I attended Barnard and then Columbia for grad school, and my daughter, also a Barnard student, takes most of her classes at Columbia. The science and math courses are very tough to do well in and it is hard to get A’s in humanities courses as well. Since I believe strongly that small classes, where students can interact with peers and professors, is the foundation for a great liberal arts education, attending Barnard with its access to Columbia, or Swat, with its access to U Penn, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, is the ideal compromise. Best of luck!
People have such different anecdotal experiences!
I am in the heart of Swarthmore country, both geographically and sociologically. My kids didn’t go there, but a number of their friends, and a number of kids of my friends, did. Some of my relatives did, too. My sister-in-law taught there as a visitor one year, and regularly sits on honors thesis panels. I know several faculty members and administrators socially. Based on my second hand experience, I have no idea what Dustyfeathers was talking about with the “one-upsmanship.” That’s completely inconsistent with everything I know about the place. (“Sweatmore,” on the other hand, is not completely inconsistent . . . )
My impression of Swarthmore and Reed is that they are essentially the same college in different communities, on different coasts. Their differences are minor, and more or less reflect the difference between Philadelphia and Portland, as well as a radically different competitive environments.
My kids and daughter-in-law all went to Chicago, by the way, and there was just about zero one-upsmanship there, too. There is (or was in my kids’ cohort) a huge number of kids who applied both to Swarthmore and Chicago. Despite their very considerable differences in size, location, and curriculum, they absolutely have in common a high regard for intellectualism and a focus on what you learn in your classes.
Columbia obviously has a lot of the same appeal. What differentiates Columbia in my mind is (a) the visible presence of lots of very wealthy students in a community where there is little or no social constraint on conspicuous display of wealth, not to mention the immediate availability of anything money can buy, (b) the strong sense on everyone’s part of being in the Center of the Universe and wanting to stay there at any cost, and © the alumni and financial supporters are right there and hyper-aware of what is going on, and of course full of the belief that what happens at Columbia matters in the world. As a result, Columbia is a place where every current social conflict gets re-enacted very much in the public eye. Swarthmore is much more the ivory tower where people are isolated from real-world pressures.
@JHS As the parent of a Columbia student, I cannot disagree more strongly with your comment that what differentiates Columbia is the “visible presence of lots of very wealthy kids in a community where there is little or no social constraint on conspicuous displays of wealth”. I’d say it is precisely the opposite. Columbia’s great wealth has enabled it to admit an incredibly diverse group of students where ability to pay isn’t a factor. Moreover, Columbia students do not feel they are the “center of the universe” but are incredibly grounded and are very aware that they go to school in NYC and in Haarlem. We have benefitted from this largesse as have many families. Is Swarthmore an “ivory tower isolated from real-world pressures”? Perhaps, but to paraphrase David Cameron, it is easy to be that way when you are located in the middle of nowhere.
@worriestoomuch Swats students are more intellectual? Hmm. Not sure. Columbia has long had the reputation of being, along with the University of Chicago, one of the most intellectual universities in the country. Do students who go there want to attend the Ivy League? That’s circular reasoning. Columbia is an Ivy League university and so if you go there, you are part of the Ivy League.
I find this conversation ludicrous. As a Columbia grad (business school, not undergrad) who has stayed somewhat involved, the ONLY undergrads that I know right now come from families at the bottom income rung. The idea that they are flying off to ski is hilarious. Not saying that there aren’t wealthy kids there, but that is by no means the ethos of the college. Most of the dorms are dumpy and old, the physical plant is pleasant and leafy but not fancy by any means, and sitting in the middle of Harlem for sure has made the university conscious of not flaunting its wealth in order to be a tolerable neighbor (sometimes a great neighbor and sometimes contributing to the gentrification).
Many of the feeder schools to Columbia are public high schools. If anyone reading this is thinking that the prepsters and the rich kids have their run of the place- that is not the case. And somehow Columbia manages to graduate respectable numbers of kids majoring in anthropology and sociology and history and philosophy- so the idea that it’s a pre-professional pressure cooker is also very far off the mark.
I would have agreed with the characterization of Swat 30 years ago. But as someone who has interviewed Swat undergrads for entry level roles in business, I’d say there is a serious pre-professional vibe there now which didn’t exist historically. Swat’s math and econ departments churn out kids destined for hedge funds and private equity and banks… just like the other top colleges. So whatever “intellectual exploration for its own sake” that Swat had going for it- that’s VERY old news. It has kids interested in the life of the mind; it has kids interested in making money; it has kids who want to change the world and kids who are very invested in keeping the world just the way it is until they’ve “made it”. I.e. just like every other college.
Columbia’s great wealth has enabled it to admit an incredibly diverse group of students, absolutely. But some of them can live off campus and others can’t. Some of them can avail themselves of all the forms of entertainment Manhattan offers and others can’t.
If you are in a place where there’s not much to spend money on, it doesn’t matter who has money and who doesn’t. Manhattan isn’t that place. Simply being present in Manhattan makes one constantly conscious of wealth disparities. The non-wealthy kids I’ve known at Columbia have been constantly aware of the differences between them and wealthy peers to an extent I have not seen matched at any other equivalent college.
As for Center-of-the-World-ness: It’s hard for me to imagine the Emma Sulkowicz circus playing out as it did for as long as it did anywhere else
I was an undergrad at Brown in the 1970’s and there were the sons of oil sheikhs and various European nobility and students with private body guards (and at least one student with Secret Service protection). By sophomore year they lived off campus; parked their fancy cars in private lots; and spent weekends partying in Boston and NYC.
The disparity between the truly wealthy and everyone else is not a Columbia story, and is not “new news”. We didn’t have social media then so we didn’t get to look at instagram pictures of people flaunting their wealth. Just like Columbia students- we did free stuff on campus, volunteered in the community which desperately needed the manpower and the commitment, did our work/study jobs to earn some cash, and didn’t worry too much about the lives of our fellow students whose partying budget for a month exceeded our spending budget for the entire four years. It just didn’t register.
I think Columbia attracts a lot of people who want to be in New York City because New York is the center of the universe. I really wanted to like Barnard when I was looking at colleges in the dark ages just for that reason. Columbia wasn’t co-ed yet and the class I sat in on had maybe one or two guys. Coming from an all-girls high school I was looking for a real co-ed experience. The lure of NYC was still there though when I was looking at grad schools and it’s a large part of how I ended up studying architecture at Columbia. I suspect there are a lot of kids like me out there, for who NY is the big draw. And face it, being Ivy League is a big draw for many as well.
CU undergrad has a rep for not-great undergrad advising, and many undergrads feel overlooked in favor of grad students.
As CU is IN the city, possibly wealth disparities are more obvious, in that kids leave campus to eat, go clubbing etc more than at Swat which is residential all 4 years and requires some travel to the nightlife of Philly.
Alumni giving at CU is lower than at Swat (14% vs 39%) so if that is a measure of satisfaction, CU loses there.
2017 suicide rate seems high - https://nypost.com/2017/02/02/suicide-wave-grips-columbia/
And I guess there is a competitive process for joining clubs and such that is stressful at CU.
I know more about CU than Swat, personally. But some of the differences seem to go beyond Lac vs U.
The inner ring suburbs of the 5th largest city in the US is hardly the middle of nowhere. I’m as much of a city snob as one can be without being from Manhattan – I live in downtown Chicago and found my two years at Bryn Mawr too suburban – and even I don’t think Swarthmore is the middle of nowhere. We’re not talking about Williams or Grinnell.
But these are unquestionably academic peers.
Factoid: Cam Wiley, the Senior All-American point guard for the Swathmore basketball team that just played in the National Championship, chose Swathmore over Columbia to study Philosophy.
My S went to Columbia for the idea of the Core–no pre-professional aspirations at all. He did love the Core, but did run into a lot of rich-and-planning-to-get-or-stay-rich attitudes among students some, though certainly not all. Outside of the Core classes, he found his best intellectual experiences when he cross-registered at Barnard classes. I think you can get an intense intellectual experience at CU, but you do have to look for it.
Nice to hear from a parent of a Columbia male confirming my daughter’s “Barnard is better” bias. 
But more important, the point is that there is a LAC option at CU, with most courses open to males – although Columbia has some restrictions when it comes to using Barnard courses to fulfill major requirements. But it is one more data point that makes it harder to generalize about the Columbia experience.
It really is irrelevant. The issue is what your son thinks. Why did he apply to each school and what does he want from his college experience? His answer may put Swarthmore above Columbia or it may put Columbia above Swarthmore. It seems so silly to debate about the level of these two amazingly well-respected institutions.
@Calmom --not to quibble, but just to reiterate, his favorite classes were the Columbia Core. So, even had he been female, he would not have chosen Barnard. Not because it’s not a great school, because it is, but because the CC really was his reason for choosing Columbia. Though again, outside of that, he loved BC, especially the class atmosphere.