@Multiverse7 I find Columbia’s campus really attractive. It’s an urban university, which makes it very different from Princeton. Depends what you want. Dartmouth is beautiful but way too rural for me.
@Multiverse7 Having gone to Harvard, the facilities there are very spotty. Some (business and Kennedy School) are awesome. But some of the engineering and science buildings, and many of the residential houses, need serious renovation. That said, what I like about Harvard and Columbia is that they are very urban and part of their respective cities. Cambridge has some very run down areas (especially around Central Square) but the city has its charm.
Having now lived and worked in the UK, the interesting thing is that in biopharm and medical research, it is Harvard, Columbia and Penn that are most famous. People confuse Stanford with UCLA.
@exlibris97 Agree with you about Harvard but that’s why they are building a state of the art science and engineering complex in Alston. Also, it should probably be mentioned that from the River Houses to say Maxwell Dworkin (CS building), it’s probably over a mile walk. Of course, distances at Stanford are as far, if not further, but everyone rides bikes and the weather (except the last month) is exceptional. Walking that mile at Harvard back and forth a few times a day trudging through snow and slush with wind chills that sometimes fall below zero can be brutal. It’s one of the reasons I chose Stanford over Harvard (my field of study was the main reason though).
I don’t agree with @DeepBlue86 about Stanford looking like an office park at all. If he is referring to the area around the Engineering Quad, I happen to think that it is rather awe-inspiring and the facilities themselves are almost without parallel. i believe this is one of the reasons for Harvard’s relocation of their science and engineering facilities along with a major investment in the area.
agree that Columbia has some serious issues with its buildings. One of the main buildings where we met to register looked like it had been raided in its lifetime. It was very sparse and run down and surprisingly even a new paint job couldn’t hide the fact it hadn’t been well cared for over the years. Surprising, but agree that you have to look past the buildings at the community, and that seems like a real gem of an academic community.
^^ Agreed!
Although, there is a separate thread going about the seven suicides and drug overdose deaths at Columbia this academic year. It is an anomaly in my opinion and not a new normal. Columbia has a vibrant, energetic student body in a noisy and somewhat crowded environment but it’s the din of NYC that probably attracted them there in the first place. Others prefer places like Dartmouth, Cornell, or Williams. To each their own.
First day it hasn’t rained here in Palo Alto in a long time, btw. I came here for the weather, lol.
@multiverse My daughter is a swimmer, and so she made sure to visit the pool at Columbia. It was underground, and she said it was, “Like a dungeon.”
Manhattan goes all the way to Inglewood, Columbia is near the middle. NYU is near the bottom. But I get it, most people don’t go further north than central park.
Agree, that the campus isn’t that great looking. The quad is ok, but that’s about it.
Columbia is pretty isolated and considered uptown. You have to go 60-70 blocks just to get to the theater district and much further to get to SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown etc. NYU is still quite a distance from the southern tip of Manahattan where the financial district is.
But enough Columbia bashing. It’s a great school academically and the whole city is its campus. Your ID allows you free access to some of the greatest cultural centers in the world. Plus, as I said, the new Manhattanville campus should alleviate some of the space problems and the new campus promises to be state of the art…
@Multiverse7 Columbia is isolated? Compared to what, NYU? My D.hops on the subway each day to go to an internship near Times Square. Takes minutes.
@Much2learn I personally think one problem is that too many American universities are now busy turning themselves into holiday camps with landscaped yards, climbing walls, “natatoriums” etc. Back when I was at Harvard, many of the buildings were in urgent need of repair. Cambridge and Central Square showed signs of decline. Dorm rooms I saw at Michigan, Penn, Georgetown and UCLA were definitely dingy. But the educations being provided were outstanding. All those fantastic facilities cost money. This cannot continue.
@Multiverse7 Harvard’s Allston campus is highly controversial. Many faculty and parents are outraged at its cost. It’s great to have these state-of-the-art facilities, but for the 40% of parents who pay the full whack, it is infuriating. The annual cost at Harvard tops $75k. That’s outrageous. And notwithstanding the university’s endowment, it’s debt is also enormous. I for one think the university should rein in its building and stop treating students as cash cows.
I loved the bits of the Columbia campus I interacted with - mostly Avery Hall which has a very pretty library, the main library and the gym where the track runs around the inside of the building - you see people jumping rope a couple of basketball courts and other stuff as you whiz through the building. I liked the way the city was there, but at bay. And it was super easy to get to midtown. And now the subway cars aren’t covered with graffiti.
I love Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, but not the version at Stanford. I agree office park. IMO, Caltech is an almost perfect version of it. Except for the awful modern tower library they put where a turquoise domed library had originally been planned.
To be fair, the office parks that you speak of are copying Stanford, not the other way around. That campus has looked the way it has for nearly a century, long before there were office parks.
@exlibris97 John Paulson donated $400 million for the new science and engineering school a year and a half ago. Steve Ballmer gifted something like $60m for the CS dept. The school is definitely not treating the students as cash cows. It actually costs Harvard (or any other top school) well in access of the sticker price to educate each student. I wouldn’t be surprised if it costs Harvard in excess of $125,000 per student.
What would you rather Harvard spend its mega-endowment on if not new facilities? The science and engineering departments are way overcrowded as it is and Harvard is well aware that it is losing ground to the office park in the west.
Minutes to Times Square? Hmm. Once the subway comes it’s 10 stops unless you try to catch an express at 96th st and good luck with that if it isn’t rush hour. But I agree, Columbia is not truly isolated, it’s just not within walking distance of any of the major venues. A lot of students don’t take public transportation and venture downtown the way your daughter does which is a shame. Just as surprisingly few kids go into Boston from Harvard. There’s a lot of inertia when you’re on a campus. People here rarely go into San Francisco even though it’s just a Bart train away.
The track at Columbia is in the old gym which is depressing and always a thousand degrees. The floorboards of the basketball court you speak of need replacing. Avery Hall does have great library. Next door in Schermerhorn there’s a small but nice art museum.
Agreed unless you’re someone who is used to walking long distances. Incidentally, when I was home on a summer between sophomore and junior year of college, I walked from the Battery Park area all the way up to Columbia U on a summer day while carrying ~20 pounds worth of computer gear in a backpack. Took a few hours, but it’s doable.
This must have been a few exceedingly unadventurous shut-in-types.
Most Harvard undergrads I knew frequently went into Boston and explored the area…including the pre-meds.
Especially considering there wasn’t much of a party scene on the Harvard campus back when most Harvard alums I knew from HS classmates/work attended(‘mid-90’s to early 00s)*, Final clubs weren’'t considered very cool/happening places for most of the students then.
- Even though most will deny it, they attended some MIT campus/fraternity parties as they were known for throwing the best college parties in the Boston area.
@cobrat Agree with your comment about “few kids going into Boston”. You always hear stories about these students but I’d say they are very rare. These days especially the College organizes many events in Boston, starting with orientation events, and students are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the city. One of the most attractive aspects of Harvard is that it is an urban university and that getting into the city is dead easy.
Indeed. Incidentally, I’ve walked from Boston to Harvard and back several times. 50 minute walk on Mass ave on a nice day.