Well, I’ll try to help keep this thread going and hope that, if there are other Columbia parents out there, they’ll chime in as well and we can try to gain the kind of critical mass that has kept the Harvard parents thread going for several years.
It’s been a couple of years since my son went through orientation, but I think he found it a good opportunity to start getting to know his classmates. They had a tragic and somewhat traumatic experience when a student in his dorm (John Jay) jumped to her death the evening of the first day of orientation. In hindsight, it may have brought the students in the dorm closer together, dealing with the shared shock and grief, though certainly not the way you’d want to have that happen.
John Jay is all single rooms off of a long hallway on each floor, so my son didn’t have to worry about choosing a roommate freshman year. He liked the idea of having his own space, so picked John Jay as his first choice, but found that the hallway was very social and he made lots of friends in the dorm (as well as through his classes). The Core curriculum gives all the freshmen a shared experience in terms of what they’re studying, so it’s a ready made topic of conversation for the students in the class. The other main freshman dorm, Carman, I believe is all doubles, and has a reputation for being more of a party dorm than John Jay, so there’s definitely a choice to be made there between the two.
As for justifying the cost of Columbia, I don’t try. It’s been an incredible experience so far for my son, and we’re able to afford it, so I just write the check (actually the online banking transfer) each semester and tell myself that I’m happy that he’s thriving.
Any other Columbia parents out there?