<p>Look, the OP is right to be asking, “what’s the big deal with a school like Columbia?”
One can try to explain its appeal, but if he doesn’t get offers from his top choices, there may be no compelling objective reason for him to leave California. UC Davis or UCSD are better “low match” alternatives, for a prospective engineering student from California, than UVa or UNC. Depending on net costs and specific interests, UCD or UCSD may be better alternatives (and in any case are more likely to accept him) than JHU or Cornell. Columbia definitely isn’t a “match” and for some students would not be clearly preferable to Berkeley.
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