Columbia vs. Princeton

Denzera
Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:48:31 +0000

I’d like to clarify one misconception:

It is not at all ‘easy’ to get into NYC from Princeton NJ. It’s actually very difficult and expensive to get back late at night. Even an express train takes 70 minutes to reach Princeton Junction from Penn Station (seriously, look at the schedules - [MTA Home Page](http://www.mta.info) ) and then you have to wait for the jitney bus to take you the last 5 miles to campus. And it stops running at midnight so if you had a fun evening you have to pay a cabbie the $30 they ask to shuttle you those 5 miles. Trust me, I lived with a Princeton guy for a year after we both graduated, he LOVED his school but it was not transportationally convenient at all.



There is no way that Columbia can be undergraduate focused. It has 7,000 undergrads compared to 16,000 grads. I am not arguing whether it has a good undergraduate experience, but Columbia is definitely more of a graduate institution.

that would be true at most large prestigious research universities. For example, one that rhymes with Starvard. But at Columbia, the amount of care (And faculty resources) devoted to the core is sort of proof positive about the amount the University cares about the education of its undergrads. We’ve always had the most “traditionalist” curriculum of the top schools, and in a way that too is proof that Columbia cares about its undergrads. As an undergrad I often saw ways in which grad students were discriminated against in favor of my fellow undergrads - lots of little things, in the student center or at the gym or little fees here and there only for grad students… they really emphasize it.

that, plus everything admissionsgeek said.