Why so defensive? Surely there is room for dissenting opinion; after all, it IS opinion people are expressing. The academics are faultless, but then the visit rating isn't about academics, is it?
I'm not sure what part of my impression of Columbia you deem untrue---did you sit in on the very same information session? Meet the same tour guide? If you were there and shared the very same experiences, I'd be very interested in your impressions. Otherwise, you are negating an experience with your emotion. It's clear that you can't imagine anyone wouldn't like Columbia. I have news for you: there are probably others who didn't like it but for obvious reasons they wouldn't post it here!
Our son will be making his own decision about where he wants to attend college. You needn't worry about him
PBR, I didn't see your reply at first. We lived in NYC for seven years (spanning mayoralities of Koch, Dinkins and Guiliani)and I am well acquainted with the problems inherent in life there. I love New York and would love for our son to go to school there, and have no problem with the Columbia curriculum, professors, or any of the wonderful aspects of the education. I really don't see why calling it dirty and unkempt is such a problem, since that was my impression on the day that I went to see it. Our tour guide WAS a ditz, and the information session was a bomb. I wasn't the only one who though this, btw; several parents kept rolling their eyes at the tour guide and one asked those in the near vicinity, "When will she stop talking about herself and start talking about the school?" Several---and by that I mean four or five----parents complained in our small group about the information session, too.
I mention these things because I am not a malcontent, intent on defaming Columbia.
And the tour guide at NYU talked so much about himself that one man wondered if we were supposed to hire him or adopt him at the end of the tour, lol!