<p>beautifulday, I don’t think that having a core makes a school’s academics “better.” In the Center for Measuring University Performance for 2009, Columbia’s ranked with MIT and Stanford, but in the 2010 rankings, Penn is also ranked with them (and in 2009 was ranked with Harvard, whose academics are not inferior to Columbia’s). And the US News metrics between the two are minute differences that don’t speak to differences in quality.</p>
<p>For most measures of academics (like faculty strength, research, top programs), Columbia and Penn are extremely similar, so for all intents and purposes, their academics are equal.</p>