score

We’re ashamed that we logged on at midnight to check this, but we did. USNews & World Report still ranks Columbia at #4 for the second year in a row behind HYP.

PS It’s real this time.

US News and World Report just released their annual college rankings, and Columbia holds strong at number 4 behind HYP.”>

jessica marinaccio & co.

You’re ashamed to admit you care, but it’s okay, we kind of do too. US News and World Report just released their annual college rankings, and Columbia holds strong at number 4 behind HYP.

Overheard reaction from RAs: “One, two, three, DIDN’T DROP!!!!”

Uhhh okay this is really embarrassing. Those were, as many commenters have pointed out, last year’s rankings. We’re a little giddy from all the freshpeople joy and made a innocent mistake. The 2012 rankings are due out soon. Stay tuned.

via Wikimedia

Jenny Slate, a CC alum, is apparently not being asked back to the SNL Cast. Analysts speculate the move may be related to her decision to drop the F-bomb in her debut performance. (NYT/HuffPo)

Irrigation may help to mitigate the effects of climate change, according to an Earth Institute study. (Sify)

The B-School takes 3rd in a ranking of the Best Business Schools for Hispanics. In other news, people salivate over college lists. (Poder 360)

Another study says it’s okay to put something called BPA in dental fillings for children, but that name (aka bisphenol A) still sounds hella ominous. (MSNBC)

The Times wants your back-to-school photos (and yes they obviously mean YOU), so we say send ‘em. (CityRoom)

The 2011 edition of the US News & World Report‘s “Best National Colleges” rankings just came out (like, a femtosecond ago), and our humble little university In The City of New York has jumped to 4th place from 8th place last year, putting us right behind Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. The USNWR rankings are arguably the most widely quoted college rankings out there, and we’re guessing there’s nothing but pure Cristal flowing through Hamilton right now.

Cheers! Now crack open a bottle! Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

However, we should note that other rankings have been slowly been released these past few weeks, and Alma Mater did not fare so well in their eyes. Forbes ranked Columbia 13th, the Academic Ranking of World Universities puts us at 8th internationally, and the hodgepodge of rankings over at The Princeton Review puts Columbia in the top 10 lists only for best library (5th) and best college town (1st).

I guess you can’t win them all. But we’ll have a hearty swig of that Cristal now, please.

Update: So some of the crazies over at College Confidential believe that USNews miscalculated Stanford’s ratings and that it should actually be at #4, leaving us at #5. We don’t speak this language but you can investigate for yourself on this nutso thread.

According to The Daily Beast’s recent list of 50 Most Stressful Colleges in America, Columbia comes in second in the nation, behind only Stanford. They compiled their list based on five school qualities (weight; Columbia’s stats): cost (35%; $51k), competitiveness (35%; 8th), acceptance rate (10%; 10%), engineering (10%; 18th), and crime (10%; 12th).

While we admit that college is indeed a stressful environment, we also think that “Vibrancy of Step Scene” and “Proximity to the Most Exhilarating City in the World” should have been criteria when judging college stress. But kidding and self-gloating aside, without considering other positive criteria such as “Satisfaction with Social Life” or “Environment,” it would seem that all colleges out there are just a playpen of stress.

We can only hope that with pictorial evidence as the following, we are a far second behind our brethren to the West, who undoubtedly have their own reasons for disputing their rank (damn you, California weather!).

Bwog’s Dane Cook (yep, it’s the same name, let’s just move on) reports from last night’s meeting.

The unceasing plea for student support at Columbia sporting events found voice yet again at the outset of Monday’s SGA meeting. Assistant director of sports marketing, Dan Spiegel, attended to encourage council members to attend Saturday’s homecoming football game against the University of Pennsylvania Quakers. Spiegel pointed out that the athletic department represents an especially unique element of the Columbia-Barnard relationship, and also noted the important contributions Barnard athletes bring to their teams under Columbia’s name. Citing lack luster attendance at last year’s event, he appealed to the council, “This is not just Columbia’s homecoming: this is your homecoming as well.” With the provision of free shuttle service and free admittance, Columbia athletics hopes more Barnard students will be at Baker this weekend to unleash the roar. 

Sharmin Ahmed, VP of Finance, took the floor to present recommendations following last Sunday’s co-sponsorship meeting. Seven groups pitched requests for co-sponsorship from SGA for specific club events, and after reviewing the appraisals the council allocated funds accordingly. Engineers Without Borders, the Chinese Students Club, Kappa Phi Lambda, the Muslim Students Association, and Club Dimensions can all expect their piece of the pie along with this year’s CU Dance Marathon. Sadly, however, the Table Tennis Club may have to go elsewhere for the $1,400 they sought to fund training from world class table tennis extraordinaire Wang Chen. Read more…

Benjamin Franklin once famously said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes (a rather fatalistic saying for someone who got so much tail). In the world of college rankings, one might add, “And Harvard will always be first, and Penn will always be inexplicably overrated.” Yes, it’s this year’s edition of the US News and World Report college rankings, and Columbia’s held onto its #8 ranking, while ditching Duke to #10. Other movement from last year was minimal, with Princeton moving from 2nd to 1st, Penn moving into a tie for fourth with Stanford (huh?), and Cornell falling below Hopkins. Brown remains bottom among Ivy League schools. The top 20:

1. Harvard/Princeton

3. Yale

4. Caltech/MIT/Stanford/UPenn

8. Columbia/UChicago

10. Duke

11. Dartmouth

12. Northwestern/WashU

14. Johns Hopkins

15. Cornell

16. Brown

17. Emory/Rice/Vanderbilt

20. Notre Dame

Columbia administrators are probably rubbing their hands in anticipation of next year: because these rankings are based on 2008 data, the past year’s financial trouble for many top schools (which, comparatively, Columbia escaped) will only be taken into account next year. Then again, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to find a financially incompetent school on top again – US News has its ways.

The Princeton Review’s venerated “College Hopes and Worries” survey has hit the e-news stands, and apparently Columbia is every student’s “dream school.”

That makes you feel a little better about your life and your lottery number, now doesn’t it? Bwog is proud – can we get a little ROAR?

Only Harvard and Stanford were voted higher on the students’ “Dream College List” (oh yeah, and Harvard was not #1). The survey also generated a list of parent’s dream schools, which starts with Harvard and Stanford in H-centric order, and Princeton in bronze.

Guess who’s not on the parent’s “Dream College” list? YOU. You, Columbia, are nowhere to be found in the top ten. Yes, parents would much rather send their kids to UCLA, USC, NYU (yeah, really), and the University of Notre Dame than send them here.

Perhaps the elders fear that their children will be irrevocably damaged by our pigeon punting antics, sarcastic tone, and 50 person protests. 

Bwog received an email early this morning from “ted” at CampusGrotto.com. We had never heard of CampusGrotto.com because honestly, have you? Still! They have heard of your Columbia, which they rank 39th in their list of the one hundred most expensive colleges.

CG estimates your tuition to be $37,470, which is about five grand less than the list-topping Bates ($43,950) and only a couple hundred less than the most expensive Ivy, University of Pennsylvania, whose $37,526 in tuition has earned it the #37 spot. Barnard’s $35,973 comes in at #75.

Things switch up a bit when room and board comes into the picture: Columbia ($47,450) ranks 56th and Barnard ($47,898) ranks 39th, but both are less expensive than #30 UPenn, #31 Cornell, and #3 NYU.

Many of you no doubt perked up in late August when the U.S. News & World Report college rankings were released. Others pretended they were too cool for those rankings, and then snuck in a peek anyways. 

Well, now, the Times of London has released its own rankings, and, unlike the America-only U.S. News rankings, this version includes universities from all over the world. The Times ranks Columbia 10th overall, and 6th among American universities (behind Harvard, Yale, Caltech, MIT and UChicago).

Overall, Harvard remained in first for the fifth consecutive year, followed by Yale. The rest of the Ivy League is ranked as follows: Penn 11th, Princeton 12th, Cornell 15th, Brown 27th, and Dartmouth bringing up the rear at 54th.

Tomorrow, US News & World Report will release the most important list of our time or any other: its annual ranking of the best colleges and universities.

Bwog received an exciting advance press release, the only information on which was that this year Columbia, Duke, and the University of Chicago share the 8th place spot for top universities. (UChicago and Columbia were tied for the #9 spot last year, while Duke ranked 8th.)

We look forward to seeing the rest of the list in all its schadenfreude-y glory tomorrow, and will update with the rest of the rankings as soon as we receive them.

UPDATE 11:51 AM: Full list — well, full list of the portion you’re interested in — after the jump. (Or check comment #1, because this comment foretold the future quite accurately.)

Read more…

Tipster John Hill forwarded Bwog a most interesting link: Trojan is kind enough to release a ranked list (warning: PDF) of American universities on the basis of their standards of sexual health. Breathe easy; Columbia took 12th place of 139 (third among the Ivies, after Harvard and Penn, and 51 places above those filthy Cornell types). Notably, Brigham Young took the coveted 121 seat. Bottoms up!

Bwog’s inbox just got word that the Columbia College valedictorian has been named: Maxim Pinkovskiy, majoring in economics-mathematics, a Soros Fellow, and bound for a Ph. D. at MIT. Maxim, from St. Petersburg by way of Brooklyn, has won several prestigious essay contests and took an internship at the Federal Reserve. But did he give to the Senior Fund?

Or so says 95-year-old philanthropist John Templeton, who, among his billionaire chums, must endow the most mystical foundation. The John Templeton Foundation has power-given millions of dollars to scientists researching questions of God, ethics, and spirituality. One of their projects, buried within their labyrinthine website, is a ranking of the colleges most committed to building character. Does Columbia, with its lessons in Western philosophical history, place? Of course not – but Columbia Colleges of South Carolina and Illinois do! Could it be our friendliness with Ahmadinejad and our enmity with the Minutemen that caused us to miss making the list? A link on the front page to an application for the 2002 edition of the ranking suggests otherwise. Still, it’s a small comfort to remember that accusations of spineless liberal-fascist asshole elitism have been flung at Columbia for ages. If John Templeton doesn’t recognize us as inheritors of the noble tradition of ethical reasoning, there’s always that noble tradition to fall back on, right?

But there’s something to be said for promulgating embargoed press releases, even if “Princeton, Harvard, and Yale Lead U.S.News & World Report’s Annual Ranking of Best National Universities” could almost be an Onion headline.