<p>17----Yale
16----MIT 14----Columbia
13----U. of Michigan
12----
11----U. of Chicago
10----NYU
9-----Cal Tech, Duke
8-----Penn
7-----Brown, UCLA
6-----
5-----JHU, Penn State, UC Santa Barbara, U. of Wisconsin
4-----Cornell</p>
<p>"Why does this even matter in the first place? You pick the school that best fits your needs and interests so you can be happy there. Going to one that most impresses your friends will only lead you disappointed once you get there. Really, all of the top 50 colleges will be good enough for any self-motivated student. "</p>
<p>Agreed. I would lower that to top 30, though …or maybe 25… ;D</p>
<p>It seems to me that Columbia is not nearly as well-regarded by revealed student preferences as would be suggested in the opening post. Here are some examples of informal ‘surveys’ which, though not scientific, should not have any skewing bias against Columbia. And yet, Columbia is not favored in any of them. </p>
<p>[edit] Sorry, links won’t work. Check the analytics section of mychances . net [/edit]</p>
<p>For those who think the Columbia yield will drop: today the administration sent an email stating that some upperclassmen may need to give up their housing next year to make room for the new class. The email explicitly announces that, even though it’s only been a couple of days, the number of acceptances to date from admitted students is far exceeding expectations.</p>
<p>^I was under the impression that Yale’s yield was higher than Stanford’s, but I may be incorrectly extrapolating that from the fact that Yale wins the Yale/Stanford cross-admit battle. </p>
<p>I would remind you that 30 years ago (when I was a lad), Stanford was basically a regional university, with relatively few students from the eastern US and international locales. It’s success was due in large part to riding the Silicon Valley wave that began in the 1970s. That’s still going on. Columbia’s renaissance was sparked by two things: coeducation in 1983 and the clean-up of NYC by Mayor Giuliani, which triggered a business boom in the City. The question is how long Columbia (and NYC as well) can continue the momentum of the latter.</p>
<p>Columbia claims the most noble prize winners in the world (at 97), claims various world leaders, has reformed undergraduate education with its Core Curriculum, lies in what has been deemed the Rome of our time, New York City, and is the second most selective school in the nation, after Harvard. </p>
<p>Whomever claims that it is not part of the New Trinity is practically mad. We can sit here and argue, but I can assure that the institution and its glory will live far longer than we will. </p>
<p>The New Three stands at Harvard, Columbia, and Yale.</p>
<p>And, for next time, please get MIT and Princeton out of my face.</p>
<p>bigboy2012yale, what is your actual agenda here? You’ve done nothing but try to force your own opinion of Columbia’s prestige upon everyone (though you’re apparently a current Yale student), and to make matters more odd, you didn’t even create this thread in Columbia’s forum! I can’t imagine how you expect anyone to take you seriously when you spout such nonsense as “get MIT and Princeton out of my face” and “Princeton is not up to par with any three.”</p>
<p>Oh, and for future reference, it’s “nobel” prize.</p>
<p>Guys, he’s just a ■■■■■, don’t waste your time on him. These are all fantastic schools. At the end of the day, everyone’s preferences are almost entirely subjective.</p>
<p>Since when is admit rate an indicator of anything? By the way, Columbia, Stanford, and Yale all have Early Decision, which greatly lowers their official admit rates. Thus, Princeton and Harvard, which don’t use any early admissions program, are actually much more selective.
Also:
US News and World Report
I think is what’s really happening. As more and more top students from all over the country are looking at top schools, the top couple of tiers are bunching up. All of the Ivies plus Stanford, MIT, Caltech, and Duke are rejecting large numbers of super-qualified students, closely followed by a whole raft of schools that not that long ago had mainly regional appeal–WashU, Rice, Vanderbilt, Chicago, etc.–and that’s not even mentioning the top LACs–including super-selective LACs in Iowa and Minnesota, of all places.</p>
<p>There are tides in the affairs of men…so said the bard.
I am an amused observer of affairs and I am greatly amused at how bemused the current denizens of Princeton, Penn etc seem to be at the turn of acceptances out of Columbia.
Back in the fifties when I was at school, Columbia was the leader in both Science and Social Affairs such as the law, history and business. In Physics, it was at the Pupin Building that the Manhattan project was implemented.
It then went through a long period of stagnation and decay because of a decision by its Trustees to honor the returning war hero Dwight Eisenhower by naming him President. Quite understandably, this hero used the University as a comfortable launching pad for a presidential run neglecting the University and leaving its affairs to a sidekick who subsequently became President until his ouster during the Vietnam war disturbances.
Meanwhile others such as Stanford and MIT did not idly wait. They seized the chance to grab the Nasa opportunity and all the funding that came from the computer technology cornucopia. Kudos to them. But for a few years now the Columbia tortoise has been gaining. And it should be no surprise if it soon regains its top spot of old. Princetonians will do better to acknowledge and try to improve their quality of intake by reducing quotas devoted to legacies, athletes etc which amount to more than sixty percent.</p>
<p>quantman, yep, I would imagine that the quality of undergraduate education of Columbia is approaching that of HYP. It must be the 25% of undergraduates that it fails to report admissions and other stats on. The brilliant high school applicants of HYP and Columbia will surely be turning down HYP at the mere thought of attending classes at Columbia whereby 25% of the student body is part-time 30-somethings with GPA’s of 3.0 and 550’ish SAT’s…</p>
<p>I am sure that no prof at Princeton has ever taught you anything even if by chance you happen to go there.</p>
<p>When you quote numbers it is truthful to explain what the percentages are. In this case you seem to be messing up Columbia’s School of General Studies and possibly Barnard College. Clearly you have not stated what your “25 percent” is of. Please reconsider the cost and expense of your education and the fact that you are probably using up a very scarce college spot. Clearly you are not capable of honest rational thought. </p>
<p>The school of general studies is for students who for various reasons have decided to do undergraduate work at a later age than usual. They come from the military and many of them are first-time immigrants. This program is not part of the numbers that are being discussed here as you probably know. Similarly Barnard College has its own admissions, its own program of studies and awards its own degrees. By arrangement, Columbia offers its classes to Barnard students much as schools do all over the world.This is just one way of how Columbia caters to the country’s needs instead of just to spoilt brats such as you who happen to be a privileged scion of a Princeton alum. </p>
<p>Misrepresenting facts and numbers seem to come easily to you just as dwelling in the past. As someone who has read some of your other posts, I urge you to get off this obsession and focus on your schoolwork. I am sure that even Princeton requires some work.</p>
…or maybe 25… ;D</p>