enonimouse

My younger son is thinking of Columbia. What is the difference between CC and GS? Also how large are classes and do they have a preceptorial system?

swingtime

Columbia College (CC) is the Ivy League undergraduate college of Columbia University, currently ranked number 4 (behind Harvard, Princeton, Yale) by US News & World Reports. Admissions percentage for the class of 2016 was 7.4% When high school students are applying to Columbia to be admitted as freshmen, they are applying to Columbia College (CC) of Columbia University.

GS is Columbia University's School of General Studies. It is intended for those who are non-traditional applicants: adults resuming their educations; older applicants who may not previously have attended college, or were perhaps in the Armed Services...GS students are not the "typical" fresh-out-of-high school applicants or, if accepted, Columbia undergraduates. They are admitted by the school of General Studies through an admissions process completely separate from either Columbia College or the undergraduate engineering school. However, GS students take most of their classes with CC students and are held to the same high academic standards, and curricular rigor, once admitted. They bring their own extremely valuable perspective to the classroom. GS is NOT the administrative unit to which a prospective freshman, applying in high school for college, would apply.

Columbia University has an extremely user-friendly, detailed website which describes all aspects of its unique curriculum, and it will answer any questions you might have about admissions to either CC or GS.

isabelwhatx

The US News and World report is not just the college... it's also the engineering school, which is just as much a part of Columbia University as CC.

tsar10027

Per US News' description of Columbia: "Columbia University has three undergraduate schools: Columbia College, The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and the School of General Studies."

National University Rankings | Top National Universities | US News Best Colleges

swingtime

Isabel. No need to be so defensive, after all the OP was specifically asking about difference between CC and GS, NOT between GS and Engineering. Hence I focused on CC and GS. Certainly didn't mean to offend the engineers, but the engineering school was not part of the comparative question originally posed! However, if OP did not know this, it is certainly important that she now also have this information.

Tsar10027. OP wanted to know difference BETWEEN CC and GS. Both are obviously undergraduate schools of Columbia University. However, they are intended for and indeed serve distinctly different student populations, though those two distinct populations -- traditional versus non-traditional students -- share classes and curriculum. OP's son is interested in applying to Columbia. She needs to know difference so that he can apply to the appropriate school.