<p>Columbia University actually has FOUR undergrad schools. Barnard College is considered a part of the university.</p>
<p>A university is an umbrella for a bunch of schools, all of which share a common campus and central administration (and financial resources, etc). In Columbia’s case, there are 22 graduate schools, such as the Law school, Business school, graduate school of Arts and Sciences (sort of the collection of liberal-arts departments), Social Work, Medicine, Continuing Education, etc. You have to apply for those once you already have a Bachelor’s degree (and in some cases, a master’s, esp for the PhD programs offered by a school). </p>
<p>To get a bachelor’s degree, you attend an undergraduate school, also commonly called a College. Columbia College is the original school from which the rest of Columbia University sprang from, or expanded from. SEAS used to be the School of Mines, and has had a huge curriculum overhaul since a major donation back in the 90s transformed it and sent it shooting up the rankings. Barnard College was founded back in the 1800s as a women’s college, before Columbia College went co-ed (which it took until 1983 to do). And the school of General Students is also an undergraduate college, serving “nontraditional” students seeking a bachelors, i.e. those who haven’t proceeded to college straight from (or nearly straight from) high school.</p>