| "large classes with little professor interaction, and kids who just go to a school because of the name that shows up on their degree."
"Is it different from all of the Ivies because of that?"
this is rubbish. Most, perhaps all schools in the ivy league are small class oriented, it would hurt prestige if classes were big, it's become conventional wisdom that larger classes are less effective. your classes stereotype is a state school one. People going for their degrees is always the case, but it doesn't matter because it's a small proportion, and because fundamentally if they are achieving and driven individuals, with varied interests and experience them being there for a different reason makes no difference - your interacting with them adds the same value to your life because of who they are. Nothing is as black and white as going to a college only for the name, it's almost always a factor, just more so in some cases than in others. Colleges with seemingly prestigeous names, tend to attract more qualified students in the first place.
I would also vouch that columbia has very few who are here primarily for the name, columbia afterall does not have Harvard or Yale's name recognition.
"Williams emphasized close interactions and kids who are truly interested in receiving an intellectual education."
every college tells you this, columbia does a reasonably good job of implementation also. This is a strength of Williams I imagine. But I dislike educational institues that are too one-sided on either the idealism or pragmatism. For most LACs - students are concerned with higher ideals of purely academic learning, but after too much of this you begin to wish peers were more practical. At a very pragmatic school, education becomes almost vocational and kids miss out on the advantage of a liberal arts curriculum in the first place. Columbia has a pristine balance of both, and you can choose which types of people you want to have a greater involvement in your life.
"Do Columbia students frequently interact with professors?"
yup. They aren't searching for you, but I don't know of a single instance when a student has gone up to a professor and the prof has been rude or rushed the conversation. If they exist they're seldom. I personally work under a professor for a campus job, and have been over to his appartment several times for meals with him and others i work with. I don't feel like I loose out on any intimacy with profs.
"Would it be worth it to try to push up the wait list at Williams?"
what do you lose? but i don't think you have to, because columbia is a solid, possibly better choice. |