What is the difference between a school and a college within a university?

Parents Forum
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Hi, I was looking at a post you made where you called Barnard and Columbia, both LACs. Barnard is more commonly referred to as a LAC and Columbia College not. I started a thread several weeks ago asking What is Liberal Arts School? When I first started my research for my older son, I had a different impression of a Liberal Arts School is. I found it misleading that if my kid went a LAC, they would automatically emphasize Liberal Arts.

Is Harvard College a LAC? For example, if you’re enrolled at the College of Arts and Science at Wash U and studying history, are you in a Liberal Arts College? If you’re enrolled at the College of Management at Bucknell University studying accounting, are you in a Liberal Arts College?

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Sorry for my slip. Columbia has several undergraduate Colleges (some are professional, such as Engineering/Sciences, others are for non-traditional students, such as General Studies).

I was trying to come up with a simple term that grouped the two “not-professional, not-theological,… under-graduate colleges that confer liberal-arts degrees to traditional 4-year students” in my sentence. Since the original question was about “LACs”, and the user mentioned Columbia College, I was lazy and just used their “label” in my response, figuring the OP would read it in the context of their question. I apologize for any offense I caused.

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Columbia College is in Missouri. You don’t want to have them make that mistake in applying :rofl:

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Well - yes, and no. I know which college you are referring to - but that’s like saying the town of “Washington” or “Lincoln” etc. is in state “XX”…
https://www.college.columbia.edu/

“Columbia” is one of those names that many entities have chosen, including several colleges in various states.

Columbia Univ has 4 undergraduate colleges, one of them is “CC” (Columbia College), another is the aforementioned “BC” (Barnard College). Most people expressing interest “in Columbia”, or applying there, or attending it, are implicitly referring to Columbia College (of Columbia Univ.) - sometimes, it’s just a convenient verbal shortcut, othertimes because they don’t even realize that another college at the university might be available to exceptional young women.

So… certain conversations involving “Columbia” do require the extra qualifier, to be clear which of the 4 colleges someone is talking about, such as Columbia College (not the one in MO).

Then again, maybe that alone could be a disqualifying criteria… :wink:
(kinda like ordering tickets to the “wrong” Birmingham and wondering how low the fares are…)