<p>I have never visited the East Coast so I do not know how many people recognize the school or how they perceive it as. Based on my experiences with living in southern California, not that many people recognize the university or its existence. I would say 2 or 3 out of 10 people will know what I am talking about when I say Columbia University. But then everything is in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>I do not know why but I like having my university be not as well known where I live. It does not have any stigma to it that would fervently deter or attract people. </p>
<p>For example, this is how Californians perceive the following Californian universities:
UCLA - Bruins, rivalry with USC, blue and yellow, Ugly Caucasians Living with Asians
USC - Trojans, rivalry with UCLA, red and gold, University of Spoiled Children
Cal (UC Berkeley) - Civil rights movement, hippies, super smart competitive Asian school, liberal
Stanford University - the "Harvard" of California</p>
<p>And then comes Columbia.........
"Oh okay, cool"
"What? Where is that?"
"Is it in South America?"
"Why didn't you go to USC or UCLA instead?"</p>
<p>How does it compare for people in other regions? I am curious to know. :D</p>
<p>Dude, Harvard is the Columbia of cambridge, MA.</p>
<p>confidentialcoll, I really love your answer…</p>
<p>Gonna be honest, not many people in NY know of Columbia… and if they do know it, they don’t know it’s Ivy League.</p>
<p>^That is one of the most absurd things I’ve read on this board. I have yet to come across a single person in new york who hasn’t heard of columbia. If, living in new york, they haven’t heard of columbia they probably have not heard of any big university in the US. Few people in nyc don’t know that it’s ivy, but even if they don’t know it’s ivy, they regard it with awe/prestige, it even made headlines in September when Ahmadinejad showed up on campus. it’s easily as well known as NYU but regarded as a more prestigious institution. Most people in the north east have heard of and have a high opinion of columbia. Outside of cornell no institution in new york state comes close to enjoying the reputation that columbia enjoys.</p>
<p>[sigh] You would think with how often Columbia is featured in movies (or, at least, Havemeyer Hall) more people would know what it is.</p>
<p>Reach out of your Ivy obscurity, Columbia!</p>
<p>On that note, which Ivy do you think is the most obscure in the USA? I’m putting my money on either Cornell or Brown.</p>
<p>^people in general don’t know which universities are part of the ivy league and which are not, in addition to those two few people know that dartmouth is part of the ivy league, though that has no bearing on the caliber of education it offers, or even upenn for that matter, for the uninformed the ivy league is most commonly associated with HYP, stanford for people who don’t know that it’s east coast schools, and MIT.</p>
<p>Is that why the acronym that’s always thrown around is HYPSM? I was always confused about why all the other really high caliber schools were never in there.</p>
<p>^people perceive those 5 schools to be in a league of their own, I don’t think so, but incidentally they’re the schools with the 5 largest endowments.</p>
<p>I’ve also heard CHYMPS and HYPC but I guess Columbia went through a weird period in the 60’s. Before that though Columbia was practically Harvard status.</p>
<p>Man if I could only get into Columbia next year. That or Yale.</p>
<p>Also I come from Oregon and pretty much everyone here knows Columbia, so maybe that’s just a California thing or maybe it’s just my part of Oregon. I have a friend in California and he says that everyone in Cali is really big on UCLA.</p>
<p>CHYMPS</p>
<p>I always thought the C was a reference to CalTech :P</p>
<p>Wonder if it’s significant that CHYMPS reminds me of primates.</p>
<p>confidential – I go to a public school on Long Island, and certainly not 100% of the people know what Columbia is.</p>
<p>For example, this one time in my phys ed class, a girl going to Columbia was telling these other girls where she was going, and one of them said “What? Where’s that?”.. and another girl replied “It’s some school around Harlem, I think”.</p>
<p>Another occasion in my AP Chem class, there was a group of us talking about the Ivys, and a girl going to Cornell blurts out “Wait… Columbia is ivy league?!”.</p>
<p>“For example, this one time in my phys ed class, a girl going to Columbia was telling these other girls where she was going, and one of them said “What? Where’s that?”.. and another girl replied “It’s some school around Harlem, I think”.”</p>
<p>this is very very surprising, did she know of any other top colleges?</p>
<p>“Another occasion in my AP Chem class, there was a group of us talking about the Ivys, and a girl going to Cornell blurts out “Wait… Columbia is ivy league?!”.”</p>
<p>did she know cornell was part of the ivy league? if she did, she’s isn’t particularly bright or just shockingly uninformed, if she’s didn’t know cornell was part of the ivy league -well- she isn’t very bright.
i already said though that there are people who don’t know columbia is part of the ivyleague, because they use the term to mean an abitrary set of schools considered to be elite.</p>
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<p>Um, no, this isn’t how CA’ians perceive UCLA. It’s University of Caucasians Lost among Asians. The white UCLA girls have a reputation of being hot, and this is played out in a lot of movies/TV shows.</p>
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<p>Are you from the south or north shore?</p>
<p>No offense or anything, a lot of my friends are from the strong island and i’ve spent a good amount of time there, but I don’t think most islanders are exactly the most aware group of people in the world :P</p>
<p>Wow i’m from Strong Island too. I enrolled into Columbia 2 weeks ago, and just came off Princeton’s waitlist. the entries here make me feel that princeton is more well known than Columbia. it may be time to abandon Columbia</p>
<p>…You have to make your decision.</p>
<p>“the entries here make me feel that princeton is more well known than Columbia. it may be time to abandon Columbia”</p>
<p>that is the stupidest thing i have heard all day. the people that matter (employers) will know about both schools and average working class joes will know one or the other or neither. that is no way to spend the next four years of your life, trust me!</p>
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<p>Well, it actually is, isn’t it…? :)</p>