KB24yo

Yeah just a few more. Thanks again!

1) Do you have friends who are in relationships with people off campus?
I would guess that since you Columbia is right there in the middle of Manhattan then it'd be easy to find girls off campus if you don't find anyone on campus particularly attractive?

2) How much money do you think you spend per year (clothes, food, shows) aside from tuition/board/etc?

3) Do a lot of students usually have time to work part-time jobs?

4) How much time would you say you spend studying/homework-ing?

5) Do students usually have class everyday or do you have a lot of leisure time?

6) Which dorms would you recommend? & do students usually live off campus after freshman year

metsfan

1) Do you have friends who are in relationships with people off campus?
I would guess that since you Columbia is right there in the middle of Manhattan then it'd be easy to find girls off campus if you don't find anyone on campus particularly attractive?

People from Columbia certainly do party with people from other schools in the city, and a lot of people keep their boyfriends/girlfriends from home for a bit, but I really don't know anyone at Columbia other than my exgirlfriend lol that's in a relationship with someone from another school in the city. But yeah it certainly isn't hard to meet people from other schools, a lot of times there are FIT girls that come up to Columbia (not really sure why, wouldn't shock me if a lot of them were doing it to find future husbands that they think will be rich), and also there's always the exchange of students between NYU and Columbia on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.

2) How much money do you think you spend per year (clothes, food, shows) aside from tuition/board/etc?

I'm honestly pretty cheap lol, freshmen year I spent close to nothing, ate almost all my meals at John Jay (freshmen are required to get a mealplan) or other places that I had pre-bought food points, clothes I just wore the same Polos and stuff that I'd had senior year of HS or stuff that was bought for me (I'm reallllly not the "I need to have this year's styles or I'll die" type), and I just was pretty cheap in general. Although this year I was a bit more social and ended up spending a ton, spent probably around $500 in just the first semester pretty easily. So it really all depends on how much you wanna spend

3) Do a lot of students usually have time to work part-time jobs?

Umm, I guess a lot of people do work-study, and some people are lucky enough to get pretty nicely-paying tutoring jobs, I def wouldn't say everybody works, but a lot of people do.


4) How much time would you say you spend studying/homework-ing?

Depends on coursload, although I guess mainly on course difficulty. First semester junior year I had 4 pretty easy courses, would've made dean's list if not for one d-bag prof and I did maybe one or 2 hours of work a week. Then last semester I probably did like 10 to 20 hours of work a week with 4 hard classes and still got slaughtered.



5) Do students usually have class everyday or do you have a lot of leisure time?

Classes generally meet monday and wednesday or tuesday and thursday, w/ some language classes meeting fridays (AP-ed out of them thank goodness), but you definitely get quite a bit of leisure time (though obviously it depends on how you plan your schedule and what classes you take and when).


6) Which dorms would you recommend? & do students usually live off campus after freshman year


Different dorms for different people, depends on your personality, check out the link to the dorms post that i posted a couple posts back on this thread and if you have any more questions about dorms after reading it lemme know, and no most people don't live off campus, even up in Morningside Heights it's still the NYC housing market which isn't exactly cheap.

ajrover

Thanks for all the info metsfan.
1) I'm not familiar with Ivy Schools, but I did attend a private school in my life-time. My experience there was one I painfully remember. The extremely snobby rich attended and acted much like the characters on tv shows such as Gossip Girl. I mysef was picked on for not living a lifestyle like theirs, and not have a Louis Vuitton Planner. So my question would be, what type of students attend Columbia?
2) In regards to the Core Curriculum, do i have to take any math courses or is there a way around that? I'm good at math, but like cleaning house, i don't like to do it.
3) Are you able to take courses at the graduate schools? I'm interested in Journalism, Political Science, or Constitutional Law. I was looking into Northwestern because their J-School is for Undergrads.
4) What about campus safety? I noticed on my tour that there wasn't any blue-lights on campus, but there were a ton of guards.
thanks Again!

metsfan

1) I'm not familiar with Ivy Schools, but I did attend a private school in my life-time. My experience there was one I painfully remember. The extremely snobby rich attended and acted much like the characters on tv shows such as Gossip Girl. I mysef was picked on for not living a lifestyle like theirs, and not have a Louis Vuitton Planner. So my question would be, what type of students attend Columbia?

People from every race and every class go to Columbia, and while there are certainly some snobs, most of the kids are pretty far from snobby. Also the snobby kids are kind of fun to laugh at a lot of times, and there are even some kids who come from a really upper-class, spoiled, snobby background who sort of poke fun at themselves and I guess intentionally exaggerate a lot of the spoiled rich kid stereotypes to make fun of themselves (I know one kid like this so it's certainly not all snobs at Columbia that're like this, but it really isn't bad). Another guy I know, regular middle-class kid, could've gone to Harvard but instead chose Columbia 'cause he said that everyone at Harvard seemed really snobbish and full of themselves and Columbia wasn't really at all like that.


2) In regards to the Core Curriculum, do i have to take any math courses or is there a way around that? I'm good at math, but like cleaning house, i don't like to do it.

There's a math/science requirement in the core, you have to take Frontiers of Science either first or 2nd semester freshmen year (depending on the first letter of your last name), and you hafta take 2 semesters of either math or science, although they have courses for humanities people to get out of the requirement like a class they have that's actually called "Physics for Poets."


3) Are you able to take courses at the graduate schools? I'm interested in Journalism, Political Science, or Constitutional Law. I was looking into Northwestern because their J-School is for Undergrads.


Yes you are. One of my friends who's probably one of the smartest people I've ever met will probably have enough grad credits in math to have his masters by the time he graduates college.


4) What about campus safety? I noticed on my tour that there wasn't any blue-lights on campus, but there were a ton of guards.

Columbia's campus is super-safe. There were a couple of muggings or something a few blocks away from campus last year I think, but there's so many cops and campus security people around that you're really really safe. I think the muggings took place around 113th street and Broadway and for the rest of the year I always saw a cop car sitting around w/ a couple officers in just basically parked on the corner of 113th and Broadway. I'm not really sure what the deal is with the lack of blue lights on campus, but from pretty much anywhere on campus and most places within a 3 or 4 block radius you could probably yell out help and get at least a few campus security guys running over to you. I honestly feel safer on and around Columbia's campus than I do just about anywhere else I've been.


thanks Again!

no problem, keep the questions coming

SugarIncarnate

I'll be applying early to Columbia or Dartmouth (leaning towards Columbia heavily right now)

2310 SAT, GPA...ehhhhh could be better, 750 Lit (retaking) , 750 Math I

will be retaking Lit SAT II along with giving Bio (M) and Math II a try in October

really into music (piano and cello), politics, and community service


we'll see! I am in love with this school haha - but whether or not they'll take me is a completely different story; the SAT IIs and the GPA need to go up quite a bit, and it's definitely a stretch!

Good luck to everyone else!

KB24yo

To metsfan

1) can you shed some light on the 6 year program where students can recieve a BA and law degree

2) did you study abroad? Can you tell me anything about that

3) do you know anyone who got in with a below average GPA (3.5~3.8) bc they were unique

4) do many students participate in sports (non varsity)

5) I read your post and I feel like I'd fit in at Carmen. How does dorm selection work? Do ED kids get first pick?

6) this question is random but are there any half white half Asian girls? How are the white/Asian girls?

metsfan

1) can you shed some light on the 6 year program where students can recieve a BA and law degree

Tell the truth I didn't even know it existed, pretty much completely sure that I don't know anyone in it, so if it does exist as you say I'd imagine it's pretty darn selective and incredibly rigorous.


2) did you study abroad? Can you tell me anything about that

I wish I had but since my major requires more courses than most other majors, and I didn't wanna end up ever taking more than one or two classes in my major each semester, I wasn't able to. Columbia does have a pretty incredible study abroad program though, I know people who went to Australia, one person I know got into a Columbia exchange program with Oxford, few people went to France.....you can go pretty much anywhere for a semester (or sometimes two) with Columbia's study abroad program.


3) do you know anyone who got in with a below average GPA (3.5~3.8) bc they were unique


Not really sure, after the first month or two of freshmen year everyone forgets SAT's, grades, and everything else that went with HS and stops comparing stats after a week or so.


4) do many students participate in sports (non varsity)

A lot of people do, yeah, probably not the majority of students, but a bunch do. I think the most popular club sport (for guys at least, although there is a girls team that I know a few people on) is probably rugby. Or if you're like me and are crazy busy, there's always having a catch on the law every so often with some form of ball or disk lol.


5) I read your post and I feel like I'd fit in at Carmen. How does dorm selection work? Do ED kids get first pick?

For froshies there's not picking, after you accept Columbia's offer of admission they send you a bunch of forms, one of which is the housing form, you fill out your preference of dorms in order from 1 to like 8 (although there are only 4 dorms you also have to pick btwn single and double in certain dorms and stuff like that). And no, ED kids don't get to pick first, everyone's equal in freshmen housing, most people get one of their first choices, Carman isn't that difficult to get relative to someplace like Furnald, so you should be able to get it.



6) this question is random but are there any half white half Asian girls? How are the white/Asian girls?


Don't know of any myself, although I'm sure some exist at Columbia, it is diverse enough. I know a guy who's half white/half asian, but no girls.

bigjay71

metsfan you're a godsend for giving us all of this invaluable information... Even if your confirming everything I have already thought/heard it is nice to hear it straight up like this.

I'm having trouble getting people to chance me... Can some of you "get the fire going" and chance me for Columbia? That would be great.

Chance me!

KB24yo

Hahaha he doesn't do chances :P

metsfan

Yeah I mean honestly....admissions is a bit of a crapshoot, I'd love to help you get a better idea of your chances if I could but I really have no idea. One of the factors the admissions committee looks at in choosing candidates is class diversity, and I don't mean race-wise. If you're a......I don't know, Eskimo ninja with slightly above average (for the Columbia applicant pool), you'll have a pretty good shot of getting in, but but if there are 50 other Eskimo ninjas who applied in the same year as you, you could have well-above average stats and you still probably won't have that great a shot at getting in. That's why I really don't like doing chances. I would suggest trying to up your SAT's a bit bigjay71, but you'll be able to find people on here telling you to do that pretty much up until you get a 2400. I had someone tell me to re-take my SAT's, didn't do it, and still got in, so it's up to you really.

shaheiruddin

metsfan what did you get on your SAT's and SAT 2's? Also did you apply to CC or SEAS? I'm just really curious.

metsfan

CC, 2280 SAT's, perfect math SAT 2's, I think I did two other SAT 2's in science stuff but I actually don't remember more than that

Godfatherbob

Get atcha '14 CC ED'er!

KB24yo

Hey metsfan, I came up with a couple more questions :P

1) How would you describe the size of the school? Do you know most of the people, or are there too many unfamiliar faces?

2) How accessible would you say the professors are?

3) What are you majoring it and how is it?

4) How hard is it to keep As @ Columbia. From what I've heard in college, it's really easy to get a C, easy to get a B, but really hard to get As?

5) What would you say the negatives are about Columbia?

----
Welcome Godfatherbob! What's causing you to apply to Columbia?

metsfan

1) How would you describe the size of the school? Do you know most of the people, or are there too many unfamiliar faces?

Not exactly tiny, but you do start to see the same faces over and over again, although there always seem to be new people you've never seen or heard of popping up. A lot of times, especially after you've been here for a while, it starts to seem like just about everyone you meet or see you've either seen or heard of through facebook or a friend of a friend, but then whenever you start thinking like that it seems there'll pop up someone new in a class or something that you've never seen before, doesn't have many mutual friends with you, and actually seems pretty cool.

2) How accessible would you say the professors are?

Most professors, including the well-known ones like Gulati and some of the scientists, are very accessible, by either office hours or by email.


3) What are you majoring it and how is it?

Math...it's hard as ****. There are a few really good professors in the math department, but I've also had quite a few who sucked at English which.....isn't fun. I figure I'll go to math grad school to get a PhD, then...I've heard a lot of different fields want mathematicians, I'm just not sure what they want us for or where to find a high-paying job with math that's actually somewhat enjoyable.


4) How hard is it to keep As @ Columbia. From what I've heard in college, it's really easy to get a C, easy to get a B, but really hard to get As?

Depends on the course. Most courses have about a B or a B+ as the average grade, although I once had a course where the average was probably A or A-, and another course I just finished taking this past semester probably had about a B-/C+ average. Also obviously it depends on where you rank compared to your classmates I guess.


5) What would you say the negatives are about Columbia?


That it's such a bureaucracy, for me the relatively heavy workload that goes with my major, sort of the size of the student body (it'd be nice if it was bigger so that everyone didn't know everyone else and their business, although sometimes the small size can be kind of nice), umm, idk there really aren't that many negatives, although a lot of times people will say something to the effect of "wow i really wish i'd gone to a more fun/party school, it's usually just 'cause we're either stuck in studying when all our friends are out, or because there isn't much going on around campus that night, but the great majority of people are really happy to be here.