<p>Who cares??? I certainly do not care what Joe Public or status-fixated high school kids think. Educated persons know Columbia. What uneducated persons think or do not think is utterly irrelevant to me. If you believe that prestige is all that matters in education, you are seriously uneducated. Columbia and Harvard are different schools with different strengths. You seem to be one of those persons who only cares about prestige and not about quality of education. Having attended Harvard, and taught there, I can say that there are other schools that offer undergraduate educations equal to and in some ways superior to Harvard’s. Columbia, with its rigorous core curriculum, is one of those schools. Does the man on the street know this? Maybe not. I couldn’t care less! </p>
<p>Columbia is one of the most selective schools in the country. It is more selective than Princeton, by the way. It attracts a phenomenal student body; many of its students are attracted to Columbia by its unique core curriculum, one of the most rigorous curriculums in American higher education. I doubt any of them are tearing their hair out screaming, “but it is only ranked number 4…” Get real. </p>
<p>If Joe Public’s perception of prestige will define your own college search, by all means try to get into HYP so that you can impress the man on the street. If you want an EDUCATION, however, stop fixating on prestige as defined by the public and look for a school that fits you. </p>
<p>Columbia is a great school. It is not HY or P. Thank goodness!!! And it doesn’t need to be. It is Columbia, one of America’s great universities. If it isn’t prestigious enough for you, so be it and so what.</p>