alessandro16

I met a few people at Columbia who turned down schools like Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Caltech, and other top schools to go to Columbia. If you turned down school such as these to attend Columbia, why did you do so?

lvilleslacker

comparable educations + less eating clubs.

you know, some people actually care about having a good fit - location, culture, student body impressions etc.

alessandro16

Yes, I realize that those who chose Columbia felt it was a good fit, but I'm interested in why they felt Columbia fit them better.

confidentialcoll

new york city was a swing factor

but more important was a unique curriculum that has a good idea of what it means to be 'educated' not only being well trained in a discipline but forcing you to take classes that they know will be beneficial regardless of the discipline. (univ writing, contemporary civilizations (philosophy course), principles of econ for engineers etc.)

recreating the core at another school just isn't the same, when a university emphasizes it, they put good teachers to teach, everyone does it and they've thought immensely about the order and structure in which you learn the material. after studying here, you begin to feel like you have a broad base of knowledge, and these new reasoning and critical thinking skills that you're grateful were imposed on you.

this is from my perspective, so opposing opinions are welcome.

viva_sweet_love

New York City, immediate surrounding area, less pretentious people who care more about fit of a school and less about a name, less emphasis on frats/eating clubs, lack of jock culture, social scene which lets you do pretty much whatever you want and whomever you want to do it with, much less competitive feel, emphasis on individuality and independence, access to resources, Core Curriculum, Core Curriculum, housing, emphasis and access to culture, particularly strong liberal arts departments, interesting 5-year programs, access to internships during the year
I'll be happy to elaborate on any of these.

jhl

viva- mind elaborating about internships? Especially for internationals? thanks..

Gatsby

The preference mainly stems from NYC--other arguments are not persuasive to me. 1) The city allows you to intern during the school year 2) Culture 3) In keeping with this urban image, the school is more "democratic" (historically, less of a WASP/prep culture, still true today).

The core argument (I love CC b/c of the Core) is not so persuasive to me since 1) You can re-create the core at most other schools while leaving out the core courses that are horrid (I speak of UW, which is Writing for Dummies, and Frontiers, aka Science for Dummies) 2) The teachers assigned to the core are not uniformly great. A lot of grad students and recent PhDs (some of whom are great, most of whom aren't). You have exceptions like Eden, Mendelson, Rosenberg, Tayler, tenured professors who are committed to teaching the Core--but, since Lit Hum and CC have, respectively, 50 some-odd sections, these profs are certainly exceptions.

viva_sweet_love

Jhl- the access to internships during the year is a result of both Columbia's Career Services (from my experiences so far they are very helpful and seem to know what they are doing) and Columbia's location in NYC. I am told that many places are always looking for interns during the year so you can get to intern at places that would be MUCH more competitive during the summer during the year instead. I have been to several information sessions already about internships both coordinated through the Columbia community and within NYC. You have easy access to conferences and sessions which people travel across the country for.

Gatsby- although the core isn't perfect I see a lot of benefits for the prospective student. One of them is small class sizes for particular classes - about 20 in Lit Hum/Frontiers at MOST and less than 15, often even 10 people, in University Writing. Another aspect I really like about the Core is the fact that everyone has to take it. Yes, the Core is important intellectually, but I've found it to be far more important as a common bonding experience between people. I don't believe it would be that easy to recreate the Core experience at other schools. I am honestly not sure if I would have had the self-discipline to take things like lit hum, art hum, and music hum and compete with majors in those subjects without feeling as if I were at a competitive disadvantage.

One thing I forgot- No class Fridays!! (at least for the vast majority of students)

Gatsby

I agree with the smaller class sizes. On the other hand, when the majority of the teachers are not good (usually, but not always, out of inexperience), individual attention means less. Who it is that gives the attention is important.

And the idea of Core as Shared Experience--I don't know about that. Sure, it's a great conversation starter. Socially, I don't know if it's more than just that. Anyway, the idea of Core as Shared Exp. naturally extends into Columbia as Shared Experience (school spirit, bonding bet. students, etc.), and that's a difficult position to defend. School spirit here is comparatively low, students are generally very independent, etc. But, yeah, the core classes are usually small.

confidentialcoll

^gatsby, do you go to columbia/ are you an alum?

I echo most of what viva said.

the core is far more than a conversation starter, and it usually doesn't start conversations (we aren't that engrossed with work).

TA's aren't just chosen at random for core classes, Phd students really know there sht, and what they may lack in experience they regain in enthusiasm to be very general. But in my experience the TAs teaching have been as good if not more engaging that full time profs. Most would agree, that it doesn't matter whether a teaching assistant or a tenured prof is teaching you, the material doesn't require lifelong expertise to be thought well and for engaging discussions to be facilitated.

the absense of a competitive disadvantage is key (grades don't suffer), and everyone around you doing it is a huge motivator because if you're having a problem, so are many of them, there is also an intellectual benefit to those around you doing it, because they know what you're talking about when you discuss Plato or the Qu'ran or Machiavelli in a normal conversation, and anyone can contribute to that discussion.

School spirit is comparatively low, because our big athletic teams don't do too well. there's nothing like a comprehensive beating by Upenn on homecoming to dampen school spirit. The core enhances school spirit, gives you something in common with classmates, and most people form good friends with their lit hum, u writing etc classes. The classes are small there is discussion and debate all semester with those people, and they all have different interests and areas of study which make the discussions more multi faceted.

in my mind being in the core has a few distinct advantages over trying to recreate it at another school:

1) I and most people would not have the self discipline to take those classes at a different school

2) no competitive disadvantage so grades don't neccessarily suffer

3) discussions are more multi faceted because the philosophy class doesn't only have phil majors. econ, science, pure math, psycology, poly sci are all discussed and constantly touched upon in CC for example because the students in the class bring their own areas of knowledge to the discussion.

4)there is a fair bit of bonding, from doing it and btching about it together, debating it out of class, studying together. the bonding is more pronounced because it can occur with anyone, not just people within your class

5)good teachers are directed towards the core classes (obviously there are exceptions)

6)curriculum is structured to give the student the greastest sense of continuity, and to build upon what has already been taught.

7)since the courses are compulsory, they get the greatest criticism and modification to make/keep them optimal, frontiers from what i've heard has improved considerably over the years, it still isn't a great class, but they've improved it, and are improving it.

Gatsby

Oh, sure. I've probably understated Core bonding. I made quite a few good friends in some of my core classes.

My main intent, though, was to connect the post back to the main idea of the thread--"choosing columbia over other top schools." We can argue over the extent that the Core is a Shared Experience but Columbia as Shared Experience is more significant. The lack of sports success may have something to do with school spirit--I have doubts. More relevant, I believe, is the bureaucratical apparatus that separates the school--one of the smaller Ivies enrollment-wise at the undergrad level--from its students. You'll get far more individual attention at Yale/Princeton, no doubt.

Musil_the_Muse

I'd agree with Gatsby. Most of the advantages of attending Columbia stem, in some way, from its location. Most of its drawbacks as well--as delightful as Morningside is (stop laughing children), it's not nearly as vibrant as Greenwich Village, or my hallucinatory imagination (oh, who's laughing now?).

ramaswami

Another thought: when I was a child in India my father had a few volumes, Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustine etc. Started me reading widely, this in 1960. A few years ago I discovered that my reading, from the preSocratics thru Montaigne and Burke had a name, the Great Books. My S applied to Columbia, no thought of great books, I didn't mention my background, didn't want to influence him, got into a no of good schools, chose Columbia SEAS and is planning to take both Lit Hum and Contemp Civil (time in schedule since he will major in applied math).

It is kind of neat that a poor man's grandson (my father had been given these books by a departing Brit at time of Independence) will keep the tradition alive.

To participate in the Great Conversation is a profound blessing. Of course, it has not happened only in Western Cult but no time to study everything, there is a strong thread in Hebrew-Christian-Renaissance-Enlightenment writings and I hope you will all embrace this. You cannot reproduce it anywhere else except at ST. John's, perhaps Chicago.

Denzera

1) Students seemed more 'chill' than at peer schools - took themselves less seriously.

2) Lack of football success meant that the school truly focused on academics and there was no 1st-class-citizen mentality for athletes in glamour sports

3) NYC gave all sorts of opportunities, for one thing it was urban and thus never boring, for another it was just far enough away from my hometown - close enough i could go home for thanksgiving but not so close that i'd feel like someone was looking over my shoulder

4) The core meant that a science/math student such as myself could take all these great liberal-arts classes without being at a competitive disadvantage for choosing to do so, i.e. choosing to go outside my comfort zone where i could be expected to get the best grades. In other words, because everyone had to take it, I could actually enjoy taking it.

5) guaranteed on-campus housing all 4 years, and a real sense of campus community, neither of which were true of NYU when i visited.

Although this didn't really factor into my decision, Columbia is also easily the most diverse Ivy. Historically, it catered more to working-class and middle-class kids from the city rather than the old money, and you can still see that as true to a certain extent. Of course, Jews still make up like 20-30% of the campus population, so it also depends on what you consider diverse =)

Denzera

FYI, this thread is also probably a goldmine for those looking for inspiration on their Why-Columbia blurbs. We may want to add it to the index of Helpful Threads.