zr1990

I think I would rather go to Columbia because of the location but Williams is nice too...

I know these are two great but very different schools. Could you guys offer me any advice that might help me make a decision?

confidentialcoll

they're on par academically, but columbia does put you at an advantage for pre-professional employment. If you want to go to grad school straight out of college either will do. williams is ranked higher according to wsj feeder rankings, but that's partly because the columbia school of general studies is included in columbia's calculation, - very few choose to go law/med/business schools and i imagine the % getting into the top law/med/b-schools is lower than CC&seas because it's easier to get into GS. it's also partly because some of the smartest columbia students get working and end up never getting graduate degrees if they're either very successful or start up their own thing. Williams is definitely cozier.

Visit and choose based on environment, williams is a third of the size, and more isolated. They're both great schools, congrats on getting in.

posterX

"columbia does put you at an advantage for pre-professional employment"
I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. Williams has a renowned undergraduate program.

ConfucianNemisis

Both terrific schools, but with very very different atmospheres and academic opportunities. Visit both, and go with what your gut tells you is the right place to be.

Either way, I doubt you'll regret your decision.

albionguy

confidentialcoll, check your facts before entirely mouthing off. There's an entire postbacc program in GS dedicated to getting kids into medical school, which I'm sure certainly amps up the stats of GS kids per capita who get into medical school, versus CC/SEAS.

- SEAS '09

confidentialcoll

albionguy, check your facts before entirely mouthing off. I say this because you, like me have no facts whatsoever to back up what you're saying. I never said I had facts, I was making an estimation under uncertainty, I shouldn't be prevented from posting just because I haven't found absolute truth.

There is little to no causal link between having a postbacc program and GS students getting into the top 5-10 medschools. Getting into those schools is extremely competitive, and as your college falls away from the top, the proportion of your class getting in decreases exponentially. as can be seen with the rankings - just look at columbia and barnard: 7.14 vs 1.87, for two 'similar' schools that students like to claim there is little difference between, you're nearly 4 times as likely to get into a top 15 professional program out of Columbia.

My reasoning is that with a 36%(higher than barnard) acceptance rate (and little self-selection to weed out the less than stellar applicant) GS is likely significantly easier to get into than CC or seas. Also students might not be as academically prowessed, possessing other 'real world' skills to compensate. On top of that, in my experience GS students tend to be less professionally geared.

No offense to GS (or Barnard) at all, they're great students and the GS school is a good one. I'm just explaining why GS might negatively affect the rankings, and why the rankings might underestimate one's real chance at getting into top med/law/bus programs graduating from CC.

ConfucianNemisis

Frankly speaking you're both incorrect, but that has nothing to do with Williams.

The WSJ Feeder Survey's major methodological flaw is that it doesn't account for self selection, a flaw that effects all three undergraduate schools at Columbia. If I'm not mistaken I've already had this same argument with you last year. There is no rational basis for discounting GS students from the pool. Your logic is flawed, and based on a compounded groundless assumption to boot: "fewer gs students go to top grad schools, which lowers columbia's feeder survey rate, so they shouldnt be counted. oh, and this is probably because gs is easier to get into."

First, the correct argument would be that Columbia's numbers on the WSJ survey are distorted by the addition of GS students while the OP, and the majority of undergrads at Columbia, are enrolled at CC. I would, and have argued that this is ultimately a pointless argument, since GS students are for all intents and purposes are academically the same candidate as CC students when applying to graduate and professional programs.

You're making a number of assumptions based on GS having a higher acceptance rate (when the same self selection effect that applies for SEAS and Barnard comes into play here- the people applying to GS are a very specific group of candidates)- including that they are somehow inferior candidates holding back Columbia's performance on the WSJ's survey. I would strongly dispute that this is the case. It would be a pretty damning indictment of Columbia's standards if that were the case.

The reason that the survey is flawed isn't that GS's allegedly 'inferior' students are mixed in with the purebred stock of CC students, but that the survey lumps all students together rather than seeing of the students applying to these select programs, how many got in.

RestmyChemistry

williams college is a well known force in the college world. go there and you will have a good shot getting into any graduate program of your choice. yet columbia is well...columbia. *an cool core curriculum that would dazzle anybody*

i'm having a similar struggle (penn v. williams v. brown v. swarthmore). don't worry. you have two awesome schools to choose from. and like a previous poster said, you will not doubt either choice.

confidentialcoll

ConfucianNemsis, I never said GS should be excluded from the calculation, I said that the overall calculation might well underestimate your chances of getting into a top professional program graduating from columbia college. GS is part of columbia's undergrad and should be included.

"GS students are for all intents and purposes are academically the same candidate as CC students when applying to graduate and professional programs"

even if grad schools don't differentiate between the two, the average gs candidates could well be weaker (gpa, test scores, EC involvement), and many of the stronger ones might not be interested in professional programs to begin with. I agree with you that the methodology of the feeder rankings is fundamentally flawed because of smart students not wanting to go to professional grad programs.

"You're making a number of assumptions based on GS having a higher acceptance rate (when the same self selection effect that applies for SEAS and Barnard comes into play here- the people applying to GS are a very specific group of candidates)"

Every school's applicants are 'self-selecting'. Self-selecting becomes significant when the program is difficult and less qualified students shy away - as is the case for seas and most engineering schools. I see no reason (connected to the GS curriculum) for a less qualified student to shy away from GS more so than applicants would from any other school at columbia, in fact it's possibly the opposite - GS's high acceptance rate might attract less qualified applicants thinking they have a good chance of acceptance.

"including that they are somehow inferior candidates holding back Columbia's performance on the WSJ's survey. I would strongly dispute that this is the case."

what makes you strongly dispute this? differences in the quality of applicants to grad schools exist. It's very possible that one school sends better applicants than another.


"It would be a pretty damning indictment of Columbia's standards if that were the case"

it's nice to think that students at every school are just as qualified for grad school placement and that columbia's stamp makes all schools uniformly qualified- but differences do exist. I certainly don't have enough evidence to prove that GS candidates are inferior. But i was offering reasons as an intuitive correction to the chances of getting into a top grad program from columbia college.

albionguy

Confidentialcoll, you seem to be proving "GS students, on average, do poorer with grad school admissions" by navigating from the hypothesis "GS students are inherently weaker students".

Certainly something could be inferred from the higher acceptance rate (Columbia University Statistical Abstract | Home, but given the nature of the school-- returning nontraditional students versus the college admissions process as we know it for CC/SEAS from high school-- it's hard to reasonably draw a conclusion. At least until someone in the administration releases a report indicating what the average GPA of GS students is, versus that at other schools.

It might be worthwhile to parse this document, the results of a survey of post-graduation plans of students from CC/SEAS/GSAS/GS/etc/etc. Columbia University Statistical Abstract | Admissions 2004-2006

The salary distributions, of those who answered the question (likely those employed, and not immediately going to graduate school)

General Studies Salary Distribution:
38% - under $40k, 56% - $40k - $69.9k, 6% - over $90k

SEAS Salary Distribution (of
15% - under $40k, 66% - $40k - $69.9k, 19% - over $70k

Columbia College Salary Distribution
51% - under $40k, 46% - $40k - $69.9k, 3% - over $70k

Percentage of respondents who immediately accepted post-graduation employment:
CC - 41.4%
SEAS - 37.6%
GS - 29.2%

Percentage of respondents who're pursuing graduate school:
CC - 21.5%
SEAS - 22.8%
GS - 20.4%

There are a whole bunch of ways to interpret these numbers without more data. For instance, the SEAS figures include those in SEAS as graduate students-- oftentimes masters degrees are crucial for higher salary. Of those who're undergraduate engineers, it is a frequent phenomena that engineers are paid the most immediately out of college, w.r.t to other majors, but tend to have a pay ceiling not far above.

It's also clear that the minority of those working in financial services from any of the schools, particularly liberal arts focused GS and CC, would have their salaries weighed out in the overall distribution by their lightly employed English major and Art History brothers.

There's probably also some selection bias with those choosing to report salaries versus those not.

I think it's also worth noting that of GS, 13.9% were already employed full time while in school-- this figure was 11.7 percent for SEAS (perhaps mostly grad students, but I can only speculate) and only .3 percent for CC.

Also, this data does not, of course, address a notion you introduced: that GS students fare poorer in school or have some inherent weakness when compared to CC students, in that they presumably didn't have to withstand a more rigorous admissions process. I have nothing of this data to reflect on that, given that admissions to Harvard Medical School and Wayne State Med would be treated equally.

I think it's worth reflecting on the nature of many GS students though. The stereotype of the slightly older student returning to school and putting more effort into his or her studies is well-examined. I can think of, and I'm sure you can too, of a number of undergrads in CC/SEAS who worked very hard in high school to win admissions, only to become complacent and fun-having on arrival. That greek life membership and athletics are aggressively pursued by that younger age group too, moreso than GS, would probably also contribute negatively toward the overall mean of performance.

I keep vacillating between my own biases of presumption in this analysis though, so I'll wrap it up.

tetrisfan

OK, let's keep this simple. You choose - the city that never sleeps or a bucolic cow haven?

zr1990

thanks for all the replies.

which school would be better for getting an ibanking job or something on wall street?

icy9ff8

The WSJ Feeder Survey isn't worth the cost of the newspaper in my opinion. Visit both schools and you will probably know which is better for you as they offer very different environments. Either school will get you where you want to go if you put forth the effort.

mythmom

I have a daughter at Barnard who takes many of her classes at Columbia and a son at Williams. Feel free to PM me with any specific questions I might answer.

My S at Williams could have gone to Brown, UofC or Columbia, but he chose Williams.

My D wouldn't be at any school in the country but Barnard.

Denzera

If Columbia has a single career-center strength, it is their ability to get their students job placements with investment banks. They are very good at ibanking and consulting, and not particularly strong (or weak) in any other area.

If that is a top priority for you, going to Columbia is a big advantage. Proximity and connections to wall street is one of columbia's best competitive advantages. It is certainly possible to get a job on wall street coming out of Williams (easier if you're a top athlete), because all the banks recruit there, but it's not quite as easy as it is at Columbia.