52 Comments
People have been having problems with this year’s Senior Week, and they go well beyond the slightly questionable placement of the cigarette in its Bondian logo. Beyond the fluctuating functionality of its website, many have complained that they’re finding it difficult to get in to events, many of which sold out early. A tipster attempted to explain: certain amounts of tickets were being allocated for each school’s senior class, in order to prevent “unfair advantage” going to any single one. When each allocation sells out, another group of tickets will be released en masse, for purchase by any senior, university-wide. Whether this system eventually placates them or not, some seniors have complained for other reasons: seemingly steep ticket prices for many events.
Bwog attempted to contact members of the Senior Week committee with these concerns several times, to no avail.
-CJS
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52 Comments
@shit i had my prom at the waldorf astoria and we paid $140 for no liquor
@coming from someone that has worked hard for school wide events i know that the committee members deserve to be able to not pay for the events. also, i heard that the event at chelsea piers alone costs 125,00+ (i mean, were talking nice venue on a weekend nite, open bar, and buffet dinner) if 1200 people actually attend (thats the number of tix available) and each pays 90 for their ticket, that means the revenue for the event is $108,00. In which case Columbia has subsidized $17,000 for this event. I dont have a clue about the cost for other events, but this should mean something to all the people that are annoyed about the cost of the events. Perhaps if people are that enraged, they should advise next year’s incoming senior week committee/ SDA advisors that they would prefer a crappier location and non-top shelf open bar.
one more thing: senior prom costs about $60 at most places…. food just as shitty… not open bar.. no alcohol at all… just FYI
@uhm a college with a senior prom?
@hmm i think the prices and the actual events of senior week are acceptable. i was one of the lucky seniors who got tickets to all the things i wanted to go to. so thanks, swc.
but the defense of “you didn’t apply to be on the senior week committee, therefore you have no right to criticize anything they do” is such a flimsy argument. if you choose to apply for a position and you commit to it, your ‘constituency’ has every right to expect a certain level of performance from you. to say that people aren’t allowed to complain about what they see as inadequacies in planning simply because they didn’t try to be on the committee is like saying people have no right to complain about politicians’ performances and policies because they didn’t run for office themselves.
@yes, but politicians have many advantages to being politicians (salary, power, etc), whereas the senior committee has no compensation except just for the sake of doing something nice for their class.
it’s more like going to a soup kitchen and complaining that the meals are hastily prepared.
@well except you’ve actually got to pony up the dough to go to the Senior Week “soup kitchen”
@not entirely true the senior week committee gets free tickets to all the events, plus a lot of free columbia loot. i know this from a friend who is going to senior ball with one of the committee members. that and the whole resume-padding thing. i’m sure there are some people on the committee who are doing it because they genuinely feel like they want to “give back” to the class or whatever, but it’s not exactly as if nothing is in it for them.
@yeah but i don’t think the committee knew that going in
@these events are fine. everyone quit their bitching. think you can plan your own event for cheaper? great, no one is going to stop you.
90 dollars does seem like a lot for the dance, but it really isn’t. my senior prom 4 years ago was 90 bucks a pop and i went to a pretty average high school. come on kids, you are graduating in a few months, ie making a goodly chunk of money.
@props Props to the senior committee for planning this, as I’m sure it’s a pretty thankless job and I don’t really see what incentive they have to do it except that they want to do something nice for their fellow students.
My gripe is that some of the decisions about things seem a little bizarre, like separating tickets by class so that while tickets to certain events are sold out for SEAS, they’re still open to other schools.
And this “you must purchase all your tickets at once” system is just such a lazy, user-insensitive design. That needs quick reform, whichever dept. is in charge of that. CCIT, I’m looking at you…
@#14 again The six flags is shorter to allow people the chance to get to the booze cruise (if you have tickets for both, or in the case of a few planners to be able to do set up work). The early bus leaves early b/c there is a shabbat dinner that night, and to allow for Jewish students to get home before sundown (how’s that for good planning in the wake of 40 days.)
As for other schools being free: Can we get the name of the schools and the scope of their events? My friend at Boston College has said that our tickets are incredibly cheap compared to hers, and that her events are somewhat cheesy (a night at Jillians, a “decade dance” etc).
So officially: Thanks to the committee, I’m looking forward to a good week.
@seriously I’m very happy with senior week.
It’s not as if
(1) you HAVE to buy these tickets
(2) there are cheaper alternatives (I’m going to a broadway show, great adventure, and the senior ball for less than $150. That’s a good deal as far as these things go)
I’m pretty sure that if it was reasonable to offer greater discounts and more tickets, they would’ve been offered (with the resources that the committee had available).
@i was just looking at the events schedules from previous years, and i see that in the past the six flags trip has been 2 or 3 hours longer than it will be this year. for example, last year they left at 8 am and returned at 8 pm. this year, however, we’re leaving at 9 am and arriving back at columbia at 6 pm (the “early bus” is arriving back at CU at 4 pm). so that’s 5 hours maximum that we’ll be in the park (roughly 11 am to 4 pm), and only 3 hours maximum for the people on the early bus. considering the length of the lines for popular six flags rides, that’s not much time at all. i’m sure it will still be fun, but it’s a shame they didn’t follow the pattern from earlier years and give us those extra 2 or 3 hours. anyone know the reason for the change?
@people didn’t like getting up so early and spending the entire day there. it also cost a whole lot more with the buses. renting them at different times costs different things…
@tao tan? tao tan?
@for all those that are curious— i know for a fact that all of these problems are the fault of people in SDA. one person, probably, in particular, whose name shall not be named.
and no, im not on the committee.
@insecure senior oh shit, am I going to be missing something by not going to the senior ball? is everyone going?
@dude seriously, i think the committee did a fine job. all the shit that went wrong probably has to do with columbia bureaucracy which we all know is slow and moronic. furthermore, the boat selling out makes total sense. it’s a boat! you only have room for X amount of people. What were they going to do rent the intrepid to fit the entire class AND give you open bar? that’s a) just like having another senior ball and b) absolutely insane! and lastly, my boyfriend at fordham’s senior formal is at chelsea piers the next night, and theirs costs $115 without open bar on a MONDAY where it should be cheaper, so it could be worse.
thanks senior week committee!
@wow If you think about it like that, that’s interesting. $25 x 1000 tickets = $25,000 subsidy at the minimum…
Food for thought.
@or... maybe fordhams tickets cost more because there are fewer people (i dont know this to be the case, just a possibility) and our event actually costs more overall but they simply have to pay a higher per person cost? its possible though not necessarily the likeliest possibility
@also No job in the world cares if you put “Senior Week” on your resume. Or student council, really.
there are lots of potential criticisms of this stuff, but that one is bunk.
@state schooler My state school with 30,000 students was run better.
However, my state school had NO senior events unless you count graduation.
What in the hell is senior week? Sounds like high school.
@Atleast you guys HAVE a senior week…even if you want to complain about it, be happy you actually have one to complain about!
@i agree get your facts right, #26
@shut up. First, $90 really isn’t that much for a gala ticket. The venue is a pretty big deal, there’s a fully catered dinner, plus all the drinks. I don’t know what sheltered world you live in where something with all of those features would be under a hundred, but for NYC, the $90 ticket isn’t out of hand. For those people who sincerely are shocked… I mean, have you been living under a rock for four years? This is New York City. Things are expensive. Shut up.
Second: Um, the senior week committe wasn’t “voted into” anything. They had to apply and be accepted by CAO and SDA. It was a lot of damn hard work, and they deserve respect. Maybe you’re thinking about the class council… but senior week was an application and interview process.
@ummm “They had to apply and be accepted by CAO and SDA… senior week was an application and interview process.”
Haven’t we already established that SDA is ridiculously incompetent? We’re gonna trust them to pick the right people to run this event?
The prices are fine.
But I didn’t get my link until later thanks to a technical glitch, and the events I wanted to attend were all sold out. Thanks Columbia!
@iampoor i would like to defend my right to whine. tickets running out in two days is an indication of poor planning: why didn’t you just get a bigger boat for the cruise? if you had no idea so many people would show up, again that’s bad planning.
the senior ball costs 90$. i know we only graduate once, but 90$ is still a lot of money, no matter how much alcohol you’re going to give me. the ball is the one event that even the least school spirited senior will want to attend, so more of the the (apparently huge) Columbia subsidies could have gone into making that event more affordable.
also, pulling the “why don’t you do it yourself if you like to complain that much?” card is a stupid way to defend the committee. they were voted into this position, put it in their resume, and i have every right to expect that they do a good job with it.
@okay, alright, the other years included class day and graduation in “senior week.” Fine. I still want a whole week.
@a whole week My problem with this year’s senior week is that it’s FIVE days long! The other years got seven days… Replace the 2007 in the URL with 2006, 2005, 2004, or 2003 to see what other years have done. The James Bond theme is a hell of a lot cooler than “Let the Good Times Roll.”
@ok ok it might not be free, but its heavily subsidized by columbia.
@yeah senior week would be free if it was from columbia with love
@Every senior class has complained about senior week. it’s like a tradition.
just a note: other school’s do not require you to pay anything for any senior event…
@thank you see, there IS another option.
that’s the only thing that bothers me MORE than the incessant whining (which is ridiculous sometimes)- the people who insist that this is the way it has to be, and the way it is everywhere else. WRONG.
@frankly people at this school love to complain.
or maybe it’s just the one downside of bwog–that it turns casual internet annoyance syndrome into chronic consensus whininess.
@well its what you get from the current over hyped college admissions process. everyone who gets into a top school comes with a sense of entitlement and a “one of the chosen” complex. and when they find out that Columbia is just another bloated bureaucratic behemoth, they whine.
or it’s that Columbia is genuinely a shithole. I’ve had grad students who went to state schools tell me their massive public schools were run far better.
I think that says it all.
@eric I do have to say thank you to the people who helped plan this, but it really could have been designed much better. And who cares about the logo, let’s get the tickets, and information right!
@quit your bitching honestly now–did any of the complainers on this site apply to be part of the committee or answer any calls for help from the committee?
“Its too much money” Check out the cost of having a 1000 person event sometime, and to be fair, a lot of the costs have been subsidized by Columbia. And for the person complaining that they don’t want to pay more to this school: You’re an idiot. The money is going to pay for the events, not to Columbia.
Some people at this school are ridiculous. If there was an event where the only thing you had to do was show up early in the morning to get $100 in cash, there would be people on this site complaining about having to set their alarms.
Don’t like the events/think its too much? Don’t show up. There’s clearly a few people out there who are willing to pay for whats being offered.
@amen people at this school love to complain about events, but for the most part won’t lift a finger to plan any of them.
thank you to the committee for working so hard.
@I refuse to take part in the planning of these events because the administration is such a bitch to work with.
granted, this means I’ve forfeited my right to bitch.
just a reminder: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/12/Fedlogo.jpg
@0.02 the senior week committee and the 07 CC class council this year have been huge letdowns.
@i think a lot of screw ups must be ccit’s fault, not the actual committee’s. is it true it’s top shelf open bar and all you can eat buffet all night at senior ball? if so, i’m so there.
@not a senior, but Who designed that awful image? The silhouette of the woman is so confusing.
@caesy The senior week website was bunk for a completely separate reason: you could only enter the purchasing area ONCE. I had to wait to find out if I needed to buy one or two Senior Ball tickets. Because of that, I couldn’t buy tickets for ANY of the events, since they sold out really quickly.
What’s the point of having the website open for a week if you can only go to it once?
Come on guys! This is 2007. I think you can write a better website.
@also i think that’s a gun that james bond has.
but the chick is definitely feeling herself up.
@Censirship I’ll bet it began life as a gun and then, post V-tech, became a cigarette.
@yeah seniors have been getting screwed
@my dog could’ve planned senior week better than this gang of idiots. we have to buy a sticker just to get into some event with stale desserts or a lerner pub with watery beer? if anything, seniors should be treated like f**** royalty. continuing to nickel-and-dime us WHEN WE ARE ABOUT TO GRADUATE AND SUPPOSED TO BE CELEBRATING is just idiotic. no wonder alumni don’t support CU.
@well this “gang of idiots” are all seniors…
just wanted to make sure that was clear.
@smoke Is that really a cigarette? Why would anyone, particularly James Bond, be smoking on his knees?
@hmm Her boobs look weird.
@yeah The prices bother me…I’m not paying any more to this school, especially with the Senior Fund still hassling me for money. NO I WILL NOT GIVE YOU ANY MORE CASH I DON’T HAVE BECAUSE COLUMBIA COSTS SO MUCH TO ATTEND. SO STOP SENDING ME E-MAILS.
Thank you.
@hmm What the hell do people want from the world? $20-$30 tickets to broadway shows will sell quickly…….
alas….