why columbia?

[Columbia2002]

<p>Your HYP ■■■■■■■■ is truly unbelievable. Your diatribes are really a bunch of nonsense when you boil it all down.</p>

<p>

Also, the most prestigious jobs that government and major corporations in the area do have for college students - e.g., financial internships and urban fellows - usually go to HYP students.

</p>

<p>You really believe that HYP kids take substantially all of the summer internship slots at the big banks? Guess all the Columbia kids who did summer internships made it up.</p>

<p>

It is more intellectual than most private universities, but when compared with HYP the students are just not of the same caliber in terms of intellectual and academic achievement. Just look at the % of the class consisting of National Merit Scholars, or the % of students who go on for Ph.D.s or to the top graduate schools if you want proof of that.

</p>

<p>Lets see those numbers. I’m not sure how variations in the number of kids that go onto PhDs says much about the caliber of the students at that college.</p>

<p>

However, having spent time on a number of campuses I stand by my claim that faculty at Columbia tend to be much more distant and less accessible than their counterparts at an HYP or liberal arts college, and in no small way is this due to the location and resultant commuting times away from campus.

</p>

<p>Yep, because HYP makes academic hires based on how distant and accessible their faculty will be. They’re all major research institutions and hire faculty mostly based on their scholarship. Plenty of professors at HYP, Columbia or any other research institution won’t want to associate with students any more than they have to no matter where they lived.</p>

[student113]

<p>I can’t believe there are still people who evaluate the caliber of a school based on the number of National Merit Scholars. </p>

<p>All it means that a greater number of their students were good SAT test-takers in sophomore year. I hope you don’t look to your own PSAT scores to score your own intellectual capacity.</p>

[Columbia2002]

<p>

I can’t believe there are still people who evaluate the caliber of a school based on the number of National Merit Scholars.

</p>

<p>How’s that different than evaluating the caliber of a school based on rankings generated by a news magazine or any other metric?</p>

<p>

I hope you don’t look to your own PSAT scores to score your own intellectual capacity.

</p>

<p>It’s probably a decent metric. There’s a decent correlation between standardized test scores and intellectual capacity. It isn’t perfect, obviously.</p>

[student113]

<p>yes, you are right.
I probably shouldn’t say posterx’s way of evaluating caliber is incorrect, even if I don’t agree with it. </p>

<p>I just didn’t see it as a basis for selecting schools, just as the % of people who go on to PhD programs is equally arbitrary.</p>

[brdc_2]

<p>Correction: junior year.</p>

<p>The caliber of the student body (these stats supposedly indicating intelligence here) necessarily reflects the “quality” of the school, as it reflects selectivity, and likely the quality of the faculty. Furthermore, these are the people you will be learning from as well.</p>

[slipper1234]

<p>As someone who has attended Columbia for grad school and a year of undergrad, I think this is a fair statement: Columbia has a great social life for an urban school, but a weak one compared to the other Ivies. I.e. don’t expect the social life of Princeton, but its also WAY better than NYU.</p>

[Columbia2002]

<p>

I probably shouldn’t say posterx’s way of evaluating caliber is incorrect, even if I don’t agree with it.

</p>

<p>If you’re smart and enjoy being around and learning from other smart people, you’d want to select a school with that is likely to have smart people. How do you evaluate that? Looking at metrics like % national merit scholars, average SAT scores, etc. It isn’t perfect, but what else is there?</p>

<p>

I just didn’t see it as a basis for selecting schools, just as the % of people who go on to PhD programs is equally arbitrary.

</p>

<p>This isn’t “equally arbitrary.” This statistic, in my opinion, is a horrible way to measure a school. There are good PhD programs and bad ones. You don’t know how many actually finish PhD programs, as a ton of people drop out of PhD programs. It doesn’t consider other grad programs (business, law, medicine, etc.) that may be equally/more impressive/selective. It doesn’t consider people who take jobs in industries where a PhD wouldn’t be helpful.</p>