Columbia vs. Princeton

admissionsgeek
Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:35:24 +0000

concoll - amen.
i don’t think anything coffeeaddict says purely means that P>C. And often I think many of the comments made are actually stronger arguments the other way around (nightlife for instance).

regardless, very different places that have different feel to them. I think Princeton gives off this vibe of upperclassness (e.g. eating clubs as the dominant social institution) that is not only a turn off, it makes me question the institution and by extension the students who would choose it over Yale or Stanford (great schools that I like and often vouch for when I am not overpowering everyone with my light blue love) and particularly over Columbia. Princeton is the last remaining bastion of some late 19th century aesthetic of what a college should be (well save they have women in it now), and in that i think it is backwards and more of a museum than an educational institution. yeah i am being negative, and so please see through my retort. i am not jealous of princeton, but rather i am more incensed that an institution that i firmly believe lacks good priorities (read their admissions stats and how they admit more legacy students into their class than black students) exists and that people continue to buy into its branding (hmm, the crazy money prolly helps). But then again, I never quite understand when people vote against their interest - there is a term for this somewhere.

I digress, one man’s ditch is another man’s river, so please see through my princeton hating. if you want it, want it, love it, and enjoy the experience. But when I think in my head why I would go to college, Princeton to me feels like a safe place, where nothing really great will happen, no one will push you, you will be coddled, you will rarely face people who are unlike you, and you will repeat it day after day for four years. If I wanted to do high school over again, well I probably wouldn’t ask my parents to pay for that…but that thought process itself probably tells you why I chose Columbia, I expected and wanted something more out of my experience than high school. And I got it.