the New Three; the Trinity

Colleges & Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>“The school of general studies is for students who for various reasons have decided to do undergraduate work at a later age than usual.”</p>

<p>I don’t see the relevance. Those people are still enrolled and attending the university, in its classrooms. We are told they are fully part of the university, taught by the same faculty. There are students there who are out of college for but a couple years. Not that that matters. The point is they are in the unversity’s classrooms, as enrolled students of the university.</p>

<p>Every college of a multi-college university is for a particular type of student. Penn College of Nursing is only for students who intend to study nursing. Yet their stats are (presumably) consolidated with the rest of the university when aggregate numbers are published.</p>

<p>Now, I happen to think it is highly misleading to consolidate entrance stats of the various different colleges of a multi-college university in the first place. When I was applying to colleges the data was not reported consolidated usually, the stats for each college were reported separately. If someone is actually applying to Penn nursing, they should be able to see the admissions profile of Penn nursing admits, not mixed in with Wharton admits. There are few useful purposes served by consolidating this information, and it obfuscates the realities for applicants who are applying only to a particular single college there.</p>

<p>But if someone insists that information must be reported on a consolidated basis, across all the diverse colleges of multi-college universities, picking and choosing to not include some has an odor to it, particularly when it so happens the stats of those not included are not good. It smells like a strategic decision, nothing more.</p>

<p>One can argue there is more reason for Penn to exclude its nursing college students than for Columbia to exclude its General studies students . The nursing students will be in mostly different classes only with each other, whereas general studies has a program of studies nearly identical with Columbia College and students can, and do, cross-enroll.</p>

<p>Really where there is separate admissions by college none of them should be consolidated for reporting. But if one university has to report stats for everyone attending as an aggregate, then they all should have to. All of these different colleges are specialized in some way, whether by student age or majors and curriculum who cares.</p>

<p>Smith College enrolls 10% of students as older,non-traditional students IIRC. Their stats are included in Smith College reporting, so far as we know. There is no known exclusion of stats of older students who attend schools like Yale or Brown.</p>

<p>If standardized test scores are irrelevant for older students, why do Columbia MBA and law school require standardized tests? Sounds like a slighly sleezy way to get the $$ from some less qualified people, without having to acknowledge that’s what you did by having to report who you admitted. Yet those people are in fact there nonetheless.</p>

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<p>That’s not true. Only Columbia has early decision. Stanford and Yale have single-choice early action. Only ED artificially lowers acceptance rate (since they don’t have to worry about yield and can thus accept fewer students).</p>

<p>FWIW, data released by Stanford admissions shows that fewer than 13 students each year choose Columbia over Stanford. I have a feeling it’s roughly the same for HYP.</p>

<p>Columbia is excellent, probably the best after HYPSM. But it’s not top 3 (or 4, or 5).</p>

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<p>I’m going to Penn’15 or maybe Brown’15, and as a Columbia reject, Columbia is far better than Princeton in almost everything. (I’ll still always love you Columbia! lol)</p>

<p>NYC=The Greatest City In The World
New Jersey= America’s Armpit</p>

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<p>Actually that makes it harder for some and easier for some…</p>

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<p>quantman, the following post was made only a couple of posts before yours</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12343549-post32.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12343549-post32.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>sorry that you spent one hour responding to this post of mine without having read the thread, particularly because of how you attacked me personally.</p>

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<p>you can apologize a little later</p>

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<p>you do understand that Columbia is located next to Harlem, which in the past has been considered among the most dangerous neighborhoods in the Country, don’t you?</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>you do undersand that Princeton is based in the town of Princeton, which is one of the wealthiest and safest towns in the country, don’t you?</p>

<p>and if you don’t “get it”, here is a picture of a “cleaned up” Harlem, which is much cleaner than what I have ever seen it:</p>

<p><a href=“http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Harlem_-_W125st_-_Madison_Avenue.jpg[/url]”>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Harlem_-_W125st_-_Madison_Avenue.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>and here is a picture of the lush green vegetation that you find in the town of Princeton (with a Princeton University building in the middle):</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.aerialarchives.com/stock/img/AHLB5249.jpg[/url]”>http://www.aerialarchives.com/stock/img/AHLB5249.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>New York is one of the safest large cities in the country and Columbia is in one of the safest areas of New York (Morningside Heights). So implying that it’s dangerous is bizarre. And fyi, Harlem is down a large hill and across a park – it’s not easy to get to.</p>

<p>Princeton, on the other hand, is in a nice little town, but there’s not much to do. The surrounding area is very boring, with typical suburban sprawl of highways and strip malls. </p>

<p>There’s really no comparison as to the better location for anyone interested in culture…New York City is the most interesting and exciting city in the country by far.</p>

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<p>Just to address the stats reporting, which is a ridiculous contention…I don’t think most folks have taken into account that most of the General Studies student population began their college studies elsewhere so they are often not first-time enrolling students. This key distinction makes all the difference. </p>

<p>This means most GS students are transfer students and thus don’t get included those special first-year stats everyone is so hung up about. This would be the same for Harvard Extension, Eli Whitney, Penn’s General Studies and so on. Similarly, transfer students to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Penn, and so on don’t factor in stats. </p>

<p>It is also true that students in 2 year programs even as first-year students are not included in stats because they are not degree-granting programs so LSP at NYU, which brings in a few hundred students a year as freshmen, and Oxford at Emory, an entire subdivision of the university, bring in significant cohorts of first-year students who do not factor into the stats submitted to US News.</p>

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<p>Columbia breaks out its admission numbers by College, and by SEAS (Engg). Since high school grads (first time applicants) do not apply to the School of Gen Studies (which is also known as Continuing Education) no high school applicant looking for the right school to apply will even care unless he is looking to mislead others.</p>

<p>But time will tell. Columbia will grow or lose by what it does just as Princeton. That will depend on the quality of the administration, the quality of the student body and the faculty.
As an avid historian, the trend line is clearly in its favor. Its endowment is growing faster, the courts have allowed a significant expansion of the campus (a factor that limited its facilities), New York city is the safest and fastest growing metro in the country (the college job market here is certainly the most vibrant) and technology change is more allied to marketing and advertising (social media etc).</p>

<p>I have no doubt that this will be noted by anyone applying and have no hesitation in predicting that Columbia will continually beat Princeton in almost every matric from now on.
Cooking up dubious facts and stats will be of no avail.</p>

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<p>“Since high school grads (first time applicants) do not apply to the School of Gen Studies (which is also known as Continuing Education) no high school applicant looking for the right school to apply will even care unless he is looking to mislead others.”</p>

<p>It is misleading to an applicant to aggregate statistics for any subset of colleges within a multi-college university whatsoever. For purposes of admission, the relevant statistic for assessing admissions chances are the statistics for the one particular college at that university that you are actually applying to, without any other colleges there, that you aren’t applying to, mixed in.</p>

<p>But once somebody is demanding consolidation , grouping with one college there you aren’t applying to vs another college there you aren’t applying to, who cares, one is no more or less appropriate than the other. Or rather there is no difference in the degree of inappropriateness, you aren’t applying to those other colleges either way. </p>

<p>However, if someone is for whatever reason trying to gauge the caliber of everyone attending the university: those people are still in columbia University classes, with virtually complete cross-enrollment access and the same faculty, according to Columbia. They are all colleges of the university and all are granted degrees of the university. Excluding some colleges and not others is done tactically. </p>

<p>All colleges of multi-college universities are different somehow, one can always find some artifice for justifying excluding one. If not because the applicants are a few years older, then because they are engaged in a special program of studies. In the context of a demand for university-wide consolidation, all such tactical omissions intiatives smack of rationalization.</p>

<p>“…unless he is looking to mislead others.”</p>

<p>The people are there, in your classrooms, who cares if they are 24 instead of 20. Once can equally argue that what is misleading is to omit them altogether. Yet once the students get there they find these people in their classes.</p>

<p>By the way, IIRC Columbia used to report only Columbia College statistics to US News, they only started consoidating SEAS as well when SEAS became more selective itself.</p>

<p>“(which is also known as Continuing Education)”
Columbia University goes to great lengths to explain to prospective applicants that this is not the case for this school, that its graduates get a full degree of the university, are taught by the same faculty, with nearly-complete cross-enrollment with the other colleges of the university. However I encourage you to post this assertion as a new thread on the Columbia sub-forum, and solicit comments from GS students. I might even do it on your behalf.</p>

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This is pretty silly. Of course, Columbia is in a big city, so you will have to use some sense–i.e., you will have to lock up your bike. But you’re not going to be in Harlem.</p>

<p>When we visited Princeton, a carjacking occurred on Nassau Street right in front of us. We’ve visited Columbia several times, and nothing happened. So which one do you think my kids believe is the dangerous one?</p>

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<p>Morning Side, is one of the safest places in New York lol. Yeah it’s in Harlem, but it’s in located in a very good area.</p>

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<p>ha!..</p>

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<p>say Hunt, tell you what</p>

<p>why don’t you drop off your kids across the street from Columbia in the Morningside Heights/Harlem area of NY</p>

<p>then, on another day</p>

<p>Drop them off on Nassau Street, across Princeton University in the town of Princeton</p>

<p>use about 9:00 pm for the time that you drop them off at each location.</p>

<p>then</p>

<p>pick them up a couple of hours later</p>

<p>At that point in time, tell us what your kids say about the safety of Columbia or Princeton</p>

<p>[note: there is a high probability that you will never find them again once you drop them off in front of Columbia]</p>

<p>any attempt, whatsoever, to state that the Harlem/Morningside Heights area is safer than the Princeton area is just plain lunatic.</p>

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<p>quantman, huh?</p>

<p>what “matrics” are you taking about?</p>

<p>and in the comparable metrics, shouldn’t Columbia include the full 25% of undergraduates that take the same classes, with the same teachers in the same facilities as the Columbia College and Fu undergraduate students?</p>

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<p>herenow, ha!</p>

<p>that is because when the Princeton student is not studying, going to class, eating or sleeping, he has plenty of things to do WITHIN the university - something with Columbia students are foreign to, since the only positive thing they claim about Columbia is that it is in NYC.</p>

<p>and then if the Princeton student wants to enjoy NYC, he takes the 45 ride to the city and enjoys the nicer parts of it, compared to the Columbia students that are stuck in the Harlem/Morningside Heights area.</p>

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<p>Definitely seems like Princeton is ceding ground to Columbia. Although, I really don’t think we’ll be saying HYC even 10 years from now. What we could see is Columbia branch out into a league of its own in the Ivy Athletic Conference. Currently, it’s compared to Dartmouth and Penn, but I don’t think that will be the case in a few years:</p>

<h2>HYP</h2>

<h2>Columbia</h2>

<h2>Penn/Dartmouth</h2>

<p>Brown/Cornell</p>

<p>As a happily-enrolled Stanford student though, I couldn’t care less. :P</p>

<p>EDIT: LOL, japanoko’s a Columbia-bashing ■■■■■ (possibly a reject?). It’d probably be best if everyone ignored his/her comments.</p>

<p>EDIT2: Thread of ■■■■■■, it seems lol. The OP JUST created an account for this?! Weird.</p>

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<p>^ japanoko is a Princeton ■■■■■. You don’t even want to know how he’s been lying to prospective Princeton students to get them to attend over Stanford.</p>

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<p>Japanoko – You’ve gotta be kidding. It takes 75 minutes to get from Princeton Junction to Penn Station NY. Plus 15 minutes for the shuttle from Princeton to Princeton Junction. So it’s more like 90 minutes each way…not to mention having to time your trip to hit certain trains. </p>

<p>More misinformation on your part: Columbia is in Morningside Heights, not Harlem. They’re completely different neighborhoods. If anything Morningside Heights could be described as part of the Upper West Side, since it’s a seamless extension of that. In any case, it’s a nice, quiet, and safe neighborhood with very easy access to downtown. Princeton really has nothing comparable to offer.</p>

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<p>Brown 9% acceptance rate! is with Penn/Dartmouth/Columbia; Cornell is alone as the worst, it’s funny how everyone ****s on Cornell lol.</p>