<p>
</p>
<p>Sorry dude, it boggles my mind how you can think this. There is no way a random Columbian you run into is going to “respect” you, “admire” you, or “have your back when things matter” just because you are a fellow Columbian. You think someone is going to feel bad for you because you bombed a midterm or didn’t get an internship? The only people here who would fit this description are one’s FRIENDS.</p>
<p>People are not going to give you credit just for getting into and attending this school. (This ties in with truazn’s point about the 20% alumni networking response rate.) My experience has been that the average Columbian doesn’t think much of his/her peers for a variety of reasons - too unintelligent/too nerdy, too obnoxiously loud/too socially awkward, too ambitious/too unambitious, too intellectually insipid/too intellectually pretentious…the list goes on. Most people are just really good at pretending to get along with each other. Check out collegeacb if you want to know what people really say about each other under the cover of anonymity. </p>
<p>Also, it’s not very constructive to dismiss truazn’s experience by saying “you are just ****ting on columbia”. He’s just trying to give prospective students another perspective to weigh against what they hear on the campus tours. Whether or not that bumps their impression of Columbia down (relative to Yale and other schools) is irrelevant. It’s important for people to know two things: </p>
<ol>
<li>There exists a non-trivial proportion of unhappy, socially unsatisfied people here at Columbia.</li>
<li>It is definitely possible (though it is by no means guaranteed, as others have pointed out) to be happy, content, and have an exhilarating college experience here at Columbia.</li>
</ol>