<h1>4 in USNEWS & #6 in Forbes</h1>
<p>I know the rankings are rather arbitrary, but isn't Columbia known for a (comparatively) weak undergrad education?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>No, it’s not? Where did you even get that from?</p>
<p>-More grad than undergrads
- poor advising system
- core curriculum prevents individual specialization</p>
<p>Here is the answer to your question:
[Methodology:</a> Undergraduate Ranking Criteria and Weights - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/methodology-undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights-2]Methodology:”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/09/11/methodology-undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights-2)</p>
<p>
Why would you automatically assume this is a weakness? This is the heart of a liberal arts education.</p>
<p>Columbia is excellent in both undergrad and grad programs. I’m not sure where you’re getting that from. Also, I looked at the Forbes list and they’re #5, not #6 - [America’s</a> Top Colleges - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/]America’s”>Forbes America’s Top Colleges List 2022) . If anything, they should be ranked higher.</p>
<p>I don’t believe this is a serious question, but I’ll give it a serious answer. There are good reasons and not-so-good reasons that Columbia is ranked as highly as it is in US News. (I’m less familiar with the Forbes ranking methodology, so I’ll leave that one aside).</p>
<p>Good reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Columbia is a very wealthy university with a very large endowment ($7.6 billion in 2012, good for 8th place). This allows it, inter alia, to recruit and retain outstanding faculty and to spend far more per student than most other colleges and universities, for example by providing numerous small classes and relatively few large classes.</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia recruits and retains outstanding faculty, which makes it highly respected among its peer institutions who give it a very high PA score of 4.6 (out of 5).</p></li>
<li><p>It is even more highly regarded by HS GCs, who give it a 4.8 (out of 5). This matters because those GCs are influential in steering some very talented students to Columbia.</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia attracts some outstanding students, giving it high marks for selectivity.</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia has very high freshman retention (99%) and graduation rates (96% within 6 years).</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia has many small classes (80.6% with fewer than 20 students) and relatively few large classes (7% with 50 or more students). In comparison, at Princeton 11% of the classes have 50 or more students, and at Stanford that figure is 12%. This is widely underappreciated, but once a school gets above 10% or so large classes, students are likely to be spending as much or more time in large classes than in small ones. That’s so because by definition each large class is large, containing many students, and each small class is small, containing only a few students; you can’t just compare the percentages of each type of class, you need to count up the student-hours spent in each type, and those add up much faster in the large classes than in the small ones. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Not-so-good reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Columbia spends a lot of money because it needs to, given its location in New York City. Perhaps the clearest example is faculty salaries: Columbia pays very high faculty salaries in part because it can, but in part because it needs to do so if it wants to attract and retain high-quality faculty, given the high cost of living in New York City. The average full professor at Columbia makes $212,300 per year, according to the AAUP. At Harvard the comparable figure is $203,000; Princeton $200,000; Penn $187,000; Yale $186,300; Dartmouth $167,400; Brown $160,800; Cornell $159,800. Columbia in effect is rewarded in the US News rankings for having high costs due to its high cost location.</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia is disingenuous with its entering class stats. It reports SAT medians only for students in Columbia College and SEAS (engineering). It does not report SAT scores for undergrads in its College of General Studies, even though General Studies students take exactly the same classes as Columbia College/SEAS students, with the exception of a couple of classes in the Columbia College “core.” Also, Barnard College is part of Columbia University but Barnard College SAT medians are reported separately and are not included in the Columbia University totals, even though Barnard students may also take any class at Columbia except for some Columbia “core” courses. The point of rewarding a college in the rankings for high SAT medians is said to be that a talented student will get a better educational experience if s/he is in a class of similarly talented students. That purpose is defeated if a school like Columbia reports the SAT scores of only a fraction of the students in its classrooms.</p></li>
<li><p>A big part of the reason for Columbia’s current popularity and selectivity is that New York City is currently seen as a highly desirable place to be. This inflates demand for seats at Columbia and NYU, arguably out of proportion to any educational advantages they may offer. This was not always the case. In the 1970s New York City became very unfashionable because crime rates were higher, and Columbia in particular was perceived to be in a dangerous location. It’s good for Columbia, good for New York, and arguably good for the nation that New York City is “back.” But these things tend to be cyclical. Columbia’s trendiness may one day diminish, without major changes in educational fundamentals. To the extent Columbia is riding a wave of trendiness, part of its lofty ranking might be superficial and fleeting.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Columbia at #4 is a little high if you ask me. I am not sure with two of the HYPSM universities should be ranked below Columbia, but I personally think they are all better, even if only marginally so. However, Columbia makes a very strong case for being ranked between #6 and #9 in the US. I personally rate Columbia right below HYPSM and right alongside Cal, Caltech and Chicago. Schools like Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, JHU, Northwestern etc… fall in the next group, but again, only by the smallest of margins. All of those universities are world class, tier 1 universities and almost indistinguishable from one another in terms of undergraduate academic excellence.</p>
<p>Columbia’s been ranked top 5 in US News for years. When you’re talking about such small differences in rank (i.e. top 5 vs top 10) , a compelling argument can be made for putting any universities in the top 10 in the top 5, and vice-versa. Few universities can make a claim at the top 5, but Columbia is certainly one of them.</p>
<p>
Well actually, the 2011 US News ranking (released in 2010) was the very first time that Columbia was ranked in the top 5 by US News.</p>
<p>But your point is well taken. :)</p>
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</p>
<p>But do they spend a lot less to maintain the campus since it’s so small (32 acres)?</p>
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</p>
<p>Certainly. I’m sure you’d agree that Penn (currently at #8) could easily claim a spot at the top 5 (as it did a few years ago IIRC :))</p>
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</p>
<p>I can’t imagine that’s the case, given the expense of maintaining mid to high rise buildings on those acres.</p>
<p>
[Joseph</a> A. Ienuso | Columbia University Facilities](<a href=“Facilities and Operations”>Facilities and Operations)</p>
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<p>Well, I’d imagine they need fewer lawnmowers than most other universities, at least on the main campus. </p>
<p>But then they also have the 157-acre Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory campus in Palisades, NY, on a bluff overlooking the Hudson 18 miles north of NYC. And the Columbia University Medical Center campus, around 165th St. up in Washington Heights. This is all incredibly valuable real estate, and I’d imagine operations and maintenance costs on those buildings are not cheap. Not to mention the cost of a huge security force employed by the university to patrol not only buildings and grounds on the campus proper, but the surrounding residential neighborhoods, substantial portions of which are owned and operated by Columbia. I believe I read somewhere they’re the largest residential landlord in NYC.</p>
<p>
Penn has been ranked in the top 5 by US News NINE YEARS out of the last twelve, including four years at #4, so yeah, I’d agree that Penn could easily claim a spot in the top 5. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for bringing that up. ;)</p>
<p>Universities that have been Ranked In The Top 5 by USNWR
Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Stanford
Duke
MIT
Cal Tech
Columbia
Chicago
Penn</p>
<p>Am I missing any others? Was Dartmouth ever top 5?</p>
<p>^ UC-Berkeley in the '83 and '88 rankings. Dartmouth made it as high as #6 in the '88 ranking:</p>
<p>[U.S</a>. News Rankings Through the Years](<a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20070905010206/http://chronicle.com/stats/usnews/index.php?category=Universities&orgs=&sort=1983]U.S”>U.S. News Rankings Through the Years)</p>
<p>I guess I was thinking since 1986…but you’re right UC Berkeley along with Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin used to be top 10 historically</p>
<p>^ I edited my post to provide more detail.</p>
<p>The us news rankings are wacky.they changed the formula in the nineties and that really helped a couple of schools get into the top 5 a couple of times and made the list a little more interesting. Nevertheless ,The best students still tend to go to hypsm. And these schools have always been in the top 5 mix. The other schools just seem too exposed to changes in the us news methodology or the desirability of their locations.</p>