<p>hey ya’ll, i know this thread is more than 2 years old haha, but just to add in my 2 cents here, COLUMBIA IS BETTER!!!</p>
<p>its ranked 4th this yr, stanford 5th…<3 columbia</p>
<p>disclaimer: Columbia ED acceptance makes me love columbia and hate stanford with a passion :D</p>
<p>but seriously though, columbia has been steadly rising over the past years, hope it passes yale to become number 3 next year <3</p>
<p>stanford. but columbia is an ivy…so you cant go wrong with either one.</p>
<p>"its ranked 4th this yr, stanford 5th…<3 columbia</p>
<p>but seriously though, columbia has been steadly rising over the past years, hope it passes yale to become number 3 next year <3"</p>
<p>Stanford all the way. Stanford undergrad is on par with HYP and MIT. Its yield second only to Harvard. Stanford overall is the second best university in the world. Columbia undergrad is on par with Dartmouth, Penn, Duke, Brown, etc. Its undergrad program is at 93, only a high school student would day dream about it gaining 6 points to pass Yale. Columbia overall is a level below Stanford, on par with UChicago, Berkeley, etc.</p>
<p>Stanford, obviously. There’s a solid gap between that top level and the bunch of schools that move around in that level below. Columbia’s a great school, but it’s just not at that level of prestige. That’s just the way it is.</p>
<p>Stanford is more prestigious. </p>
<p>And, no, I don’t feel there’s actually a California bias for or against Stanford. That’s only true for more regional west coast universities such as Cal, USC, and UCLA.</p>
<p>Columbia is ever so slightly more selective than Stanford, if you consider not only admit rate but also GPA/rank and scores (as USNWR does). Columbia has slightly smaller average class sizes. Manhattan is arguably the best college town in America, offering unparalled opportunities for entertainment, culture, and internships. Columbia has a more coherent, time-tested undergraduate arts and science curriculum than almost any of its peers. </p>
<p>Columbia professors invented FM radio, the laser, the field of biomedical engineering, and MPEG-2. Stanford can claim an equal or greater record of engineering accomplishments, but I don’t think it can claim the same breadth and depth of accomplishments across so many other fields. Columbia professors invented the Dewey Decimal system, the field of anthropology, and the “Great Books” concept. More Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Columbia than with any other university in the world. More Pulitzer Prize and Oscar recipients have been affiliated with Columbia than with any other American university. Columbia alumni have included 5 Founding Fathers and 4 US presidents.</p>
<p>I’m not claiming that Columbia is more prestigious or less prestigious than Stanford. I just don’t see how anyone can say flatly, without explaining more clearly what prestige is, that Stanford “hands down” has more of it than Columbia.</p>
<p>Very sound facts, Tk21769.</p>
<p>The question of “prestige” is not critical and shouldn’t overwhelm a student’s decision whether or not to apply for admission. The important thing is the gravitas of the place. A Stanford education is significant and excellent, but Columbia’s record is distinguished and nearly unmatched.</p>
<p>
Well a lot of your claims are unsubstantiated.</p>
<p>For example,
There is NO WAY Manhattan is more intellectual than the suburban, upper class of Palo Alto. </p>
<p>By romanticizing the “big city”, realize you are appealing to the uneducated masses of foreigners who have been mislead by marketing that NYC is the epicenter of the United States. Manhattan is a jungle and for every intellectual, there is a vagrant and a street corner crack whore. </p>
<p>The upper class intellectuals of the United States have long been repelled by the plagues of the inner city slums, thus the phenomenon of urban sprawl. Intellectuals long to flee the violence, pollution, and crime of the city for the calm, yet still moderately urbane, lifestyle of the suburbs. At prestigious Palo Alto, practically every person you meet will be highly educated.</p>
<p>Your description of Manhattan as the ideal “college town” is but a nice, glossed “Sex and the City” take on New York.</p>
<p>
It is quite ironic that you would even mention technology because Ivy League engineering is far from top tier. Stanford offers one of the finest engineering programs in the nation (rank #2 Stanford vs #18 Columbia) and it is nestled in the heart of Silicon Valley, the present center of most of the innovation in the United States and where the most lucrative engineering opportunities lie.</p>
<p>Columbia’s history has less bearing on the present.</p>
<p>Also, Stanford is a part of HYPSM, which means its already commonly acknowledged to be more prestigious than Columbia. People arguing against the status quo do the explaining, not the ones who defend it.</p>
<p>“Columbia is ever so slightly more selective than Stanford, if you consider not only admit rate but also GPA/rank and scores (as USNWR does).”</p>
<p>A much higher proportion of Stanford undergrads are athletes, and they are usually among the best in their field. Although Ivies like Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, etc. have more athletes (proportion to the student body) than schools like MIT, Caltech, and Uchicago, the quantity and quantity (in proportion to student body) cannot be compared to those at Stanford. Stanford undergrad is one of 5 schools ever ranked #1 (with HYP and Caltech), and it is almost always ranked in the top 5. Columbia is more like Duke; it may be ranked #4 in one year, but it’s just a special year for a school that belongs between #5 and #10.</p>
<p>At the graduate level, Stanford dominates in business (#1/2 vs #8/9), Stanford is a level up in law (#2/3 vs #4/5/6), both are about the same in medicine (#11 and #10), Stanford dominates engineering. In academia, Stanford has more #1 ranked PhD programs (ranging from Biology to History) than Columbia.
[Best</a> Graduate Schools - Education - US News](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools]Best”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools)</p>
<p>I would say Stanford. Not only is it going to be more prestigious but they have VERY GOOD sports teams so the experience will be so much more fun. You guys forget, everything is SOO MUCH more expensive in NYC, i dont think its a great college city, i think boston is a much better college city.</p>
<p>
You can Google for the Nobel, Pulitzer, and Oscar counts.
[Columbia</a> University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University]Columbia”>Columbia University - Wikipedia)
[List</a> of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation]List”>List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Here’s a source for my class size claims: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/708190-avg-class-size-4.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/708190-avg-class-size-4.html</a>.
I cannot quarantee the poster’s arithmetic, or that the facts haven’t changed. If you think they have, please cite a better, more up-to-date source. Not that I think the difference is all that significant.</p>
<p>Here’s a source for my selectivity claim:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html</a>
If you think the poster’s arithmetic is off or that the numbers have changed, you are welcome to cite another source. Again, not that I think the difference is all that significant.</p>
<p>I certainly did not claim that all of Manhattan is “more intellectual” than the upper class subset of Palo Alto’s population. I’m also not romanticizing the big city. Actually, I do tend to prefer rural life. I simply stated that Manhattan is arguably the best college town in America, offering unparalled opportunities for entertainment, culture, and internships. What other place in America do you think offers more of these opportunities? Has a major stock exchange or a publishing industry, a fashion industry or anything akin to the United Nations recently set up shop in Palo Alto? How’s its museum of natural history, its opera house, or its selection of ethnic restaurants compared to Manhattan’s? How memorable is the Palo Alto Pizza or the Palo Alto Cheesecake? </p>
<p>As for my reference to the undergraduate curriculum, it is of course a matter of opinion whether Columbia’s famous “Core” program is preferrable to other models. I don’t think it is too controversial to describe it as more coherent than programs based on loosely-defined distribution requirements or on no requirements at all. It is certainly time-tested (having evolved over many decades.) But I would agree, it’s not for everyone.</p>
<p>
Goodness. You presume to speak for all intellectuals? </p>
<p>
Have you visited Manhattan lately? One big challenge for many Columbia students is that so many of the city’s neighborhoods have become so affluent that a typical college student can’t afford to enjoy more than a fraction of what the city has to offer. Even that fraction is still quite a lot … though I agree with zhess72 that Boston-Cambridge is a great college environment, too. It just depends on what you really want.</p>
<p>I don’t know about west coasters but here in NYC, Columbia gets the WOW factor and is considered much more prestigious than Stanford. </p>
<p>Plus, Columbia has the Ivy League brand that Stanford does not have.</p>
<p>Stanford would be ivy league if they sucked at sports. Isnt stanford rated higher than a couple of ivies?</p>
<p>All I would say is:</p>
<p>HYPSM. They are truly a tier of their own.</p>
<p>“in NYC, Columbia gets the WOW factor and is considered much more prestigious than Stanford.”</p>
<p>Are you a high school student who attend a no name school somewhere in the Bronx? At Stuyvesant, Stanford is considered to be more prestigious than Columbia; its considered more desirable than Yale and Princeton by some. This is one of the most outrageous comment I’ve ever heard.</p>
<p>I’m from NY and I considered Stanford more prestigious than Columbia. Although that wasn’t my main motive for applying and matriculating, I think that USNWR should be disregarded. If it’s like that, then you might as well say CalTech is more prestigious than a lot of the Ivies it trumped on the list, which is obviously erroneous. </p>
<p>And besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if the rankings change this summer in favor of Stanford moving up a spot or two past Columbia again after the new data from the current freshman class.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I spend a lot of time in NYC and have many friends and family who live there. Stanford is considered more prestigious by almost everyone (parents, high school kids, employers or whatever). They both are great schools, but Stanford gets the WoW factor that Columbia doesn’t</p>
<p>I am from NY and live here and Stanford is not more prestigious than Columbia. </p>
<p>Harvard is by far the most prestigious so this notion that there is a HYPSM level of prestige is ridiculous and just self serving for those minions who want to promote those other schools to Harvard’s level. It gets really tiredsome seeing this false construct on this website.</p>
<p>
This “mine is bigger than yours” bickering between Columbia and Stanford bores me, so there seems to me only one appropriate response:</p>
<p>Congrats on the Columbia acceptance!</p>
<p>@IvyPBear, at Brooklyn Tech, which is a specialized high school as well, most students consider Columbia on the same level as HYP. In fact, I don’t know anyone who applied to Stanford EA, but I know plenty who ED Columbia. I’m not saying that Stanford isn’t prestigious, but Columbia beats Stanford by a tiny margin in NYC.
It’s simply more desirable.</p>