<p>TRUAZN8948532 we all have opinions, and I respect that fact. I just have much more respect for opinions that are based on facts, not hype or fantasies. Although I agree with other posters that (i) this thread should end soon and (ii) it serves no purpose to tear down other schools [if for nothing else, because those institutions don't really care about the rants in this site:-)], I do want to CONTINUE to set the record straight on a few of the items you posted.</p>
<p>1) Re Wharton's admit rate -- you are completely missing my point (in a self serving way may I add]. I emphasized the fact that Columbia is the only institution that proactively reports admit rates for portions of it's undergraduate program, and goes so far as to deemphasize the engineering school. It's quite silly actually, given that the Fu students have higher SATs. Without them, CU overall would look less elite than it does vis-a-vis board scores</p>
<p>And more importantly, 9% is 9%. I dont crow about Wharton's admit rate, primarily because its a super self-selective group. It's also not representative of Penn's undergrad overall. That's precisely why Penn doesn't market that fact either. </p>
<p>Nor does ANY other elite school. </p>
<p>And finally, the logical conclusion of your thinking is that each university should post admit rates to each of their majors to give students' a realistic picture of their chances/ Hahaha. Go propose that to an admissions officer, you'll be laughed out of the room. There's no point to doing that when 25-40% of all college students change their majors at least once. That data is pointless (and your recommendation is - yet again - self serving)</p>
<p>2) H-Y-P have excellent graduate programs (I wrote schools, which it seems you took to mean ONLY the professional programs). They are all - as I stated - on average Top 5. There are obviously exceptions: Yale business, Harvard Engineering are perhaps the most glaring. </p>
<p>But judge for yourself; this is (admitedly dated info) from the last National Research Council ranking of PhD progams in the US. It is FAR and AWAY the most objective and respective review of its kind. If you doubt that, ask ANY faculty member of senior administrator at CU. The updated rankings are actually due this fall. As you can see from both tables, HYP are all above Columbia. </p>
<p>TOP 20 UNIVERSITIES IN FACULTY QUALITY
BY NUMBER OF PROGRAMS IN TOP 10
Based on Results from
Study of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States
National Research Council
September 1995
Number of
Programs in Total Percent in
Rank University Top 10 Programs Top 10
1 UNIV OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY 36 37 97%
2 STANFORD UNIVERSITY 32 43 74%
3 HARVARD UNIVERSITY 26 30 87%
4 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 22 29 76%
5 MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECHNOLOGY 20 23 87%
6 YALE UNIVERSITY 19 30 63%
CORNELL UNIVERSITY 19 37 51%
8 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 18 30 60%
9 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 15 36 42%
10 UNIV OF CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO 14 29 48%
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 14 34 41%
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 14 39 36%
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 14 41 34%
14 CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 13 19 68%
UNIV OF CALIFORNIA-LOS ANGELES 13 36 36%
16 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 11 39 28%
17 U OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 10 37 27%
18 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 9 34 26%
19 DUKE UNIVERSITY 8 33 24%
20 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 7 37 19%</p>
<p>TOP 20 COMPREHENSIVE UNIVERSITIES IN FACULTY QUALITY
BY AVERAGE RATING OF ALL FIELDS
Based on Results from Study of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States
National Research Council
September 1995
Average Number of Rank University Rating Programs
1 MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECHNOLOGY 4.60 23
2 UNIV OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY 4.49 37
3 HARVARD UNIVERSITY 4.40 30
4 CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 4.29 19
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 4.29 29
6 STANFORD UNIVERSITY 4.21 43
7 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 4.13 30
8 YALE UNIVERSITY 4.08 30
9 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 3.95 37
10 UNIV OF CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO 3.93 29
11 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 3.92 34
12 UNIV OF CALIFORNIA-LOS ANGELES 3.85 36
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 3.85 41
14 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 3.79 36
15 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 3.70 39
16 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 3.63 37
17 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 3.60 39
18 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 3.58 30
19 CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 3.56 15
DUKE UNIVERSITY 3.56 33
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 3.56 34
U OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 3.56 37
NOTE: Institutions with fewer than 15 programs with ratings comparable to comprehensive universities
in the top 20 are:
Average Number of
Rating Programs
ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY 4.10 4
UNIV OF CALIFORNIA-SAN FRANCISCO 3.94 9
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE 3.87 6
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 3.84 1
HEBREW UNION COLLEGE 3.71 1
ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE 3.69 6
U OF TEXAS-SOUTHWESTERN MED CTR 3.64 7</p>
<p>Another reference - <a href="http://books.nap.edu/html/researchdoc/researchdoc_intexp.html%5B/url%5D">http://books.nap.edu/html/researchdoc/researchdoc_intexp.html</a></p>
<p>While Columbia has great programs especially in law, education and Intl Affairs(hence it's reputation as a giant among universities) CU is NOT H or Y or P or S or M. And it's not Berkeley or Chicago (which you inferred were inferior schools). </p>
<p>Check my post in the Columbia vs Penn thread. I state clearly what I think are CU's strong points. It is a great school. It's simply not at the high which you like to claim is it.</p>
<p>3) Research -- did you actually quote Nobels and patent revenue as a proof of research expenditures. The two are completely unrelated!!!! You are clutching at straws. Here's relevant data (apologies for the formatting):</p>
<pre><code> 2004 2005
1 Johns Hopkins U., 1,229,426 1,277,292
2 U. WA 625,218 606,317
3 Stanford U. 541,667 574,675
4 U. MI all campuses521,339 554,516
5 U. WI Madison 434,423 477,582
6 U. CA, Los Angeles 461,145 469,889
7 Univ. Penn 435,343 465,284
8 U. CA, San Diego 465,629 463,946
9 MIT 427,552 457,235
</code></pre>
<p>10 Columbia U. 406,576 453,188<br>
11 U. CO all campuses 414,986 449,366
12 U. CA, San Francisco 418,944 438,988
13 U. Pittsburgh all campuses 394,444 420,281
14 Washington U. St. Louis 371,043 400,699
15 Harvard U. 399,764 395,906
16 Duke U. 347,896 376,568
17 Cornell U. all campuses 339,107 365,694
18 PA State U. all campuses 347,996 358,569
19 Yale U. 330,837 332,702
20 U. Southern CA 312,589 330,126 </p>
<p>So, Columbia is a major player in research. That is clear. But it's in the pack, not #1 which you'd like for people to believe. </p>
<p>4) Re Natl Academy membership -- just check the Center's ranking and rationale. You can disagree but you can't dispute their logic of the efficacy of their metrics. It just won't show Columbia as #1 so I am sure you won't care for the data at all:-)</p>
<p><a href="http://mup.asu.edu/research2006.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://mup.asu.edu/research2006.pdf</a></p>
<p>5) Cross admits -- CRAP CRAP CRAP. The numbers are what they are. What is a schools RD yield when you exclude the effects of ED. It's very simple. The real pecking order is determined there. That shows true prestige and overall demand. And the RD yields are roughly.... Harvard (by a mile), then Yale/Princeton, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth/Columbia, Cornell. You can check any number of sites to verify RD yields. </p>
<p>Same goes for graduate schools; these facts are NEVER disputed for grad schools so it's silly for you to try to claim some mysterious exemption for CU undergrad. The data you provides only goes to prove the point I wanted to make - CU has a 47% RD yield, which is about 6th or 7th in the Ivies. </p>
<p>But I do congratulate CU on not doing what Princeton does to boost its yield (ie., preemptively rejecting students who it thinks it'll loose to H-Y-S to goose its yield).</p>
<p>6) Endowment - I am shocked you continue to write things like "..before the 1960s, Columbia has the largest endowment in the country". SOOO silly for SOOO many reasons: a) that is not true, Harvard has ALWAYS has the largest endowment in the country. ALWAYS. b) before the 1960s.....are you really hanging your claim on data that's over 60 years old. HAHAHAHAHA. c) CU has over 6 billion today, but MIT, Stanford, UCal and UT passed it long ago. Penn, UMichigan and Emory are close if not about to pass CU. And all the big schools are in campaigns or about to start campaigns. Whatever benefit CU gets from it's $4 bn drive is going to be neutralized by that fact that all of it's peers ARE DOING THE EXACT SAME THING. </p>
<p>And in point of fact, Cornell + Penn + Yale + Stanford all have raised a higher proportion of their fundraising goal than Columbia BEFORE they announced their respective campaigns (Penn had $1 bn raised a full year before announcement of their campaign which will be Oct '07). </p>
<p>7) Finally, you finish on another 1960s rant. Come on - give it up. (S Snack should too). CU is a fine school and it'll hopefully get alot better. You guys point to self serving stats that support your own insecurities about ranking. You fail to recognize how brutally competitive higher ed really is and the fact that ALL of the elite schools are investing and positioning themselves for the future. It's not only CU which is doing that. If you guys would focus on helping CU improve its attractiveness to students and donors and become a more efficient institution, that would do alot more for its stature that your web posts.</p>
<p>And yes I am a very loyal Penn alum. But I don't let that fact blind me from what the raw data abt academic accomplishment and shortcomings indicate. Nor do I ignore tha fact that - as wonderful as Penn is - it can do better. </p>
<p>I use these posts to inject a dose of reality into these pro-CU, pro-Brown, pro-Yale etc. etc. rants. Interestingly, Stanford boosters almost never rant about their school. They don't have to. And debating with Harvard kids would be a waste of time LOL.</p>