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<p>Doubt that. Often, being elitist pays off. Cases in point: Princeton, Harvard and Williams. It makes the institution’s network stronger. And as bad as it sounds, exclusivity matters in creating a more loyal network.</p>
<p>I disagree PrincetonDreams, elitism in any form is not a virtue. Harvard and Princeton students and alums have accomplished much because the universities themselves (faculties, facilities, curricula, endowments etc…), not their students, are the best. I do not see how Williams (or any other non-HYPSM university’s) “elitism” has served it better than Columbia’s or Cornell’s lack thereof, because academically, they are not better. Elitism adds nothing positive to the campus community.</p>
<p>I think it’s great that Columbia gives nontraditional students a second chance. But I also think it’s disingenuous not to include them in their admissions statistics, esp. their overall acceptance rate.</p>
<p>^^ Alexandre, I never said it makes an institution more academically superior. Exclusivity adds loyalty to a school’s network. It makes it more tight-knit and connected, don’t you think?</p>
<p>GS adds a lot to Columbia’s diversity and general level of sophistication of its students. But GS is a separate applicant pool with its own admissions, so it’s silly to demand that the stats be mixed. Should Barnard stats be mixed in also just because they can take the same classes? Hey maybe grad student stats too since they can take some of the same classes!</p>
<p>It really seems to me that stanford and princeton type folks (the lower end of the holy hyps pecking order) are a bit bewildered about what to do about Columbia’s rise into their ranks and are grasping at straws to try to maintain their status.</p>
<p>PrincetonDreams, exclusivity and alumni loyalty are not necessarily related. Michigan and Notre Dame are not nearly as selective as Harvard or Princeton, yet I would put their alumni network’s loyalty up against Princeton’s or Harvard’s any day. I think alumni loyalty is more a function of campus culture and quality of the undergraduate experience than about exclusivity.</p>
<p>imagine what all of you would accomplish with your time if you focused this much energy on getting career/life/internship/starting a business/curing cancer, and not ranking the prestige of colleges.</p>
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<p>Exclusivity isn’t created by just admissions rates, but also by the campus culture. The more divisions there are in the student body, and the less tight-knit the campus is, the less loyal the alumni network will be. Yalies, and Dartmouth students are more loyal to their own because of the campus culture there, while there is relatively little loyalty shown by Cornell alums, where the campus culture is fragmented.</p>
<p>P.S: Are you sure about the Michigan network? I’ve heard it’s mostly Ross.</p>
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<p>Nobody cares about Columbia’s placement ahead of Stanford in US News. But some of us realize that Columbia is being disingenuous. I also call other schools out on this–ones that are ranked way below Stanford.</p>
<p>But if thinking that makes you feel better, please continue to do so.</p>
<p>“But GS is a separate applicant pool with its own admissions…”</p>
<p>The same can be said for nearly every other special-mission separate college at nearly every university that has them. Yet as far as can be discerned all these other separate colleges are all consolidated into the reported aggregate at these other universities, despite their separate applicant pools.</p>
<p>“…stats be mixed in also just because they can take the same classes?”</p>
<p>For purposes of assessing admissions chances no, they are separate applicant pools. For that purpose, no two separate colleges at a university should be consolidated, they each should be reported separately. Columbia College should not be consolidated with FU for that purpose either.</p>
<p>For purposes of discerning the academic profiles of who is actually attending the university’s undergraduate classes, arguably yes. Not because they can take the same classes, but because in fact they do, in materially vast numbers, they are in fact very present in the classrooms there. By comparison, the curve at a Princeton class will be set pretty much with only students who are counted in Princeton’s reported academic profile, without thousands of unreported students also present in the classroom. If the numbers were insignificant this can be legitimately and appropriately ignored, however in this case we’re talking about thousands of classes, about 20,000 credits taken by Columbia students at its affiliate on other side of Broadway, and nearly 25,000 credits taken by its affiliate’s students at Columbia.</p>
<p>In all cases, the appropriateness of consolidation, of any sub-group of colleges either within a university proper or also including affiliates where multiple thousands of courses are in fact shared, depends on what the point of the exercise is.</p>
<p>The above does not apply to GS though, which is undisputedly and unambiguously wholly a part of the university proper, just as much as Columbia College and FU are.</p>
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<p>Ok, great. Please let us know when you’ve incorporated all the stats of the graduate students in SEAS taking upper level classes side-by-side with undergrads. As many have mentioned, the relatively small number of GS students if anything improves the quality of the overall experience. As do the graduate students. This sort of quibbling over the stats of GS students is clearly the result of people from other schools unsettled with the improvement in Columbia’s status.</p>
<p>^ no, we’re not going to include the grad students, because we aren’t doing that for every other school. You don’t seem to understand that the intent is to level the playing field, and your attempts to straw-man that are weak. The grad students are not being counted at other universities, so they are not being counted here. But the nontraditional students are being counted at other universities, so they should be counted here.</p>
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<p>Keep telling yourself that, but this was a point of contention long before Columbia rose in the ranks.</p>
<p>Shouldn’t that be, “Why are Duke, Columbia, and Penn underrated in these forums?”?</p>
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If you’re so concerned about what GS students do to the average student quality, then you <em>should</em> be doing that for every school for grad students. They’re not part of the incoming undergrad student statistics, and yet they change the classroom experience just as much or more than GS students. Your argument makes no sense.</p>
<p>I’m not concerned about what they do to the average student quality. But it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison until Columbia includes everyone who is getting an undergraduate degree. By your logic, why shouldn’t Columbia’s peers just cut out the people who bring down their SAT averages? Why not just exclude them from acceptance rates, for any arbitrary reason (I’m sure they could come up with something)?</p>
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<p>If you’re not concerned with the effect on student quality, what’s the big deal? Is it just that Columbia has a separate school and admissions for them while most places don’t? That the world isn’t totally consistent? Columbia has had a separate school for them for a long long time, so it’s just the way they handle it. Plus there’s a real difference between these and other students, so it’s not at all like the artificial example you give.</p>
<p>^ the point is that they are not equal. The other schools include their nontraditional students, even though they are part of a separate applicant pool, but your argument is that it’s okay that Columbia doesn’t include them because it’s done it that way “for a long long time.” That’s not a valid argument. In the end, Columbia is not nearly as selective as it seems (definitely nowhere near HYPSM). If you want to insist otherwise, that’s fine; everyone else with a discerning eye can tell that Columbia’s gaming the numbers in its favor.</p>
<p>the pains that phatasma wtvr will go to to convince himself that columbia is not as selective as hypsm is amusing.
hate to break it to you but despite your sincere efforts on cc of using the gs applicant pool to prove that columbia is not as selective, i doubt it really changes people’s opinion about anything.
USNews, which im pretty sure has a much large viewership than you, or this website in total will have Columbia as the college with the second-lowest rate admit rate when the time comes around and probably as the second most selective college. THAT STATISTIC, is all that matters and im sorry it upsets you so much. </p>
<p>oh and btw…how exactly are hypsm ‘non-traditional students’ in any way comparable to GS students? do they have a separate school at yale for students like that? because I am pretty sure that these ‘non-traditional’ students constitute one-off exceptions at the undergraduate schools of these institutions.
your argument is biased, based of an obvious prejudice and highly unfounded. the academic community and people that matter in college admissions cycles agree on Columbia GS as a school with a unique mission that does not render it on the same wavelength as regular college admissions processes.</p>
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<p>First of all, chill. No one’s insulting Columbia. It’s selective, and we all know it. </p>
<p>Secondly, every school at Stanford that offers an undergraduate major has a “unique mission”. So does that mean we should separate data too? GS is a part of Columbia undergrad, and a huge one at that, and by not adding its data, Columbia is simply lying about its admission statistics. Also, GS really is an embarrassment. The non-traditionals at Stanford, although they might be far fewer in number, are very accomplished individuals because they go through an admissions process as rigorous as the one for traditionals. I can’t say the same for Columbia, which refuses to even make public its GS admissions data lol.</p>
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<p>I am not trying to change anyone’s opinion (rather, responding to challenges to a claim I made *before *this thread was moved to the Columbia forum). As I said above, “everyone else with a discerning eye can tell that Columbia’s gaming the numbers in its favor.” The bold part was included because the hordes of people who read this site and US News are in general not discerning. (You are proof of this.)</p>
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<p>Of course they don’t, but the only reason that GS was created is because Columbia has tons more nontraditional students. But as was already stated, separating them administratively does not provide a legitimate exemption. Other universities have separate schools and still aggregate admissions data.</p>
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<p>You have no idea who I am, so you can stop with the personal assumptions. I have the utmost respect for Columbia (nearly decided to attend for my PhD). But I call it as I see it, and this is one of those situations where it’s obvious they game the numbers in their favor. I also criticize WUStL for waitlisting too much; Tufts and similar schools for rejecting students they fear are over-qualified; and Harvard for luring unqualified applicants into applying just to lower its acceptance rate. All these distort the perception of selectivity. Columbia is not above criticism.</p>