<p>It seems that most less-than-two-year (especially one year) master's degree at Columbia are VERY easy to get in. Also, no financial aid is offered. Some people say these masters programs are cash cows.</p>
<p>I have a concern that these programs hurt the school's reputation. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>All master’s degree programs (including MBA) are cash cows.
Master degree programs at Harvard MIT Yale etc. are all pretty easy to get in.</p>
<p>easy to get in?? </p>
<p>yea right, i mean, unless your application is among the best 20-30%. </p>
<p>Geez. I wonder how those schools can squeeze out the tuition cash from those 70% who get rejected?</p>
<p>I believe MBA are very selective (only 12% admitted)
People say some master’s program like statistics are just safeties!
It’s ridiculous they treat Columbia as their safety school!!!</p>
<p>The masters that Columbia offers through Continuing Education are typically quite easy to get into (e.g. higher education fundraising). Other ivies/top schools have these masters as well through the night and weekends divisions (like Penn’s Masters in Organizational Dynamics).</p>
<p>The masters degrees from SEAS, Grad School of Arts and Science, public health and professional schools are definitely not easy to get into- an applicant has to have strong undergraduate credentials, PhD program-comparable general GRE and relevant letters of recommendation. I think the typical applicant has a serious interest in the subject matter but either a) wants to work in the private sector so a PhD isn’t needed b) wants to test the waters for a PhD down the road.</p>
<p>When I visited Columbia SEAS a couple years ago, I noticed the vast majority of masters/PhD students are foreign, especially Chinese- but I think that’s similar to any graduate engineering program, including mine at a UC.</p>
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<p>This is true – law and biz schools at the top unis are cash cows. OP: don’t confuse cash cow with easy to get into.</p>