<p>penn.</p>
<p>to ^ applesatyr: dude, that's a lot of apps and admits. i hope you got fee waivers.</p>
<p>Stanford, Penn, Duke, UChicago, UW-Madison</p>
<p>heckafunky: you turned down Cornell for SEAS? Man, then please answer my thread "Is SEAS underrated?" You will find it in the Columbia section</p>
<p>And to answer the question of the general thread: I chose Columbia because of its flexible deadline for admission!!!! Funny reason, isn't it. Although I also think it would've been one of my best options besides UChicago</p>
<p>my friend turned down stanford, yale, colgate, and dartmouth for columbia</p>
<p>gutrade - columbia is an excellent school and what people on CC dont realize is that HYPSM arent the only good schools out there. people at columbia/dartmouth/penn, many of them have turned down hypsm. its not that uncommon. if i had a choice between harvard and columbia i would choose columbia.</p>
<p>wesleyan, berkeley, harvard ...</p>
<p>turned down upenn w/ their university scholars program, cornell engineering w/ scholarship, dartmouth, jhu bme program, umcp full scholarship, wash u w/ scholarship, berkeley, and carnegie mellon</p>
<p>jhu bme is awesome, slvrclk313, columbia must really have something if you prefered it</p>
<p>applesatyr,</p>
<p>where are you from in Canada...</p>
<p>turned down georgetown, cornell. UVa, northwestern, WashU, NYU stern for Columbia (as a transfer).</p>
<p>I think some people also fail to realize that prestige DOES mean a lot. Especially if levels of education are pretty much the same, prestige is a very important factor. Many people have this idealistic mindset that the perfect student would not choose a school based on prestige. But realistically speaking, prestige is just as important a factor as level of education or location or extracurricular offerings to certain people. Quite frankly, desiring a school with fame is very legitimate. You'll be able to form good connections that you can use later in life to your advantage. Sure, one school might offer a "better education" but by how much? Would you get a terrible education if you chose the school with the higher prestige? Perhaps its more beneficial if you did choose the more prestigous of the two. Not only that, but it gives you something to be proud about. Sure you can be proud of whatever school you went to, but it'll be more exciting to be able to tell your relatives and people you'll meet in the future what worldclass famous school you went to.</p>
<p>I didn't want to sound cynical, but especially for international students and lower income families, prestige factors a lot more and I don't want people to criticize us for that.</p>
<p>BTW, I chose Columbia over Cornell, UPenn, CMU SCS, JHU, Northwestern, WPI</p>
<p>OK, expo2005, but shall we then agree that Columbia's prestige is also haevy enough so that we don't need to look up to Stanford and others?</p>
<p>nono, i would say that Stanford and Harvard and those schools have much more prestige than Columbia. Between Stanford and Columbia, I would have definitely chosen Stanford. But alas, I was rejected from Stanford, so no need for a decision, lol.</p>
<p>I was speaking to those who are alarmed that some chose Columbia SEAS over Cornell and others like that. I myself chose Columbia SEAS over Cornell Eng. Clearly Cornell has a better engineering department. But how much of a difference would it make if I studied engineering at Columbia instead? When I thought about this, prestige and location came to be more important factors than "where I would get a better education." Columbia definitely has a bigger name value, especially overseas.</p>
<p>first of all, i don't know of anywhere else where ppl heckle over prestige as much as they do on these boards. certainly your contention that prestige is important is valid. but when you take fantastic schools and start saying that school "x" is much more prestigious that school "y," it gets a little bit out of control. so you definitely would have chosen stanford over columbia...fine, that's you, and that's fair enough. take a minute to scroll through this post, though, and you'll see that a few ppl actually made the opposite decision despite being accepted to stanford. maybe this indicates that the vast gap in prestige that you perceive between the two schools isn't actually there...</p>
<p>Or that some people don't care as much about prestige. HYPSM definitely have bigger name-recognition than Columbia (especially internationally), but many people choose Columbia due to a number of factors, the biggest being location.</p>
<p>People don't "heckle over prestige" in real life. It's an unconscious act. There are obviously factors other than prestige that factor into one's decision of a college. But prestige, I think, merits just as much weight as education, size, location, and the usual factors. Sure, one may choose Columbia over Stanford for many of the reasons that make Columbia unique and great. However, as these factors wouldn't give me a clear decision, I would rely on the only factor that clearly distinguishes these two schools: prestige.</p>
<p>Yes, how a school is perceived is different based on the person. However, prestige is an aggregate of the opinions of the masses. Overall, Stanford or Harvard is seen as more prestigious than Columbia. This is clearly true in my country and if I'm accurate, in America too. Truly intellectual people would clearly understand that one can't rank colleges but not everyone is capable of doing this. The world isn't always fair and working through this unfair world is not something that I think people should look down upon.</p>
<p>I will reiterate. I am not arguing that prestige should be the reason you choose a college. I'm just saying, it can be a deciding factor. And I don't think people should get criticized for doing this.</p>
<p>Or because Columbia is really good and prestigious in some things: humanities, economy (together with Chicago), Med (together with a lot of schools). And by the way, if someone's gonna hire you for a very specific job, he will know if HYPSM really means something in that area or if you're a snob. Yale isn't prestigious enough in some areas like engineering of Med itself</p>
<p>That's not always true in all countries. If all companies in all countries worked like that, it would be an ideal world.</p>
<p>Plus, prestige also comes with connection. World class connections are formed at prestigious universities.</p>
<p>mmmmm... Conclusion: you're gonna study at a place you're not very proud about</p>
<p>no, it gives you confidence and pride to be going to a famous, prestigious university.</p>
<p>I'm not going to argue that prestigious universities dont come with connections. But, we are not comparing some little known private school or a state school with Harvard. I think the point here is that the difference is so negliable that it does not warrant discussion. What I mean is that Columbia is very prestigious and comes with its fair share of connections. In fact, I would say that it would be right on par with Stanford. And, spending four years working or interning in NYC while getting a Columbia degree will surpass any "name" recognition you would get from Stanford.</p>
<p>The way I see there are two areas in prestige. One is trying to impress people you know and the other is getting a job. If you are trying to impress people you know, then "prestige" is whatever the small group of people around you think like. For example, I would say people near me would think Columbia has the same or more prestige than Stanford. I also know people who dont know where Columbia is and I know people who dont know where Stanford/Princeton/Yale etc are. So it is different for each person. And, why does it matter what school is known better internationally as long as you want to work/live in America? </p>
<p>The second point on jobs/connections is a valid one. Prestigious universities give you a heads up in the job hunt. However, like I said, when you look for a job coming out of Columbia, Stanford, or Harvard, it wont be the school that gets you the job, It will be what you did there (grades, internships, etc). Columbia, just like the other school, is prestigious enough to get the door open. Whether or not you walk through it is up to you.</p>