Yesterday, the Columbia Community received an email from James McShane announcing the release of Public Safety’s Annual Report. Bwog’s Crime Bureau Chief Jon Hill crunched some numbers and compared Columbia with Duke and U. Chicago (our peers in U.S. News rankings) on their levels of per-student (full-time enrollee) crime.

Says Hill: “The University of Chicago comes off looking like Munchkinland. Their crime reports are full of zeroes, with the total number of incidents reported bottoming out at about 20 percent of Columbia and Duke. Considering U. Chicago’s main campus is on the city’s infamous South Side, though, I have a feeling that these numbers do not accurately reflect the level of campus crime.

Duke and Columbia are about on par when it comes to crime. Duke has far more alcohol/drug/weapons-related incidents, but this is not unusual given Duke’s suburban campus (security officers more likely to notice students drinking, fewer off-campus bars, etc.). Schools may also vary in their level of enforcement for these types of incidents. As for non-vice crimes, Columbia has more incidents reported but a lower count per student.

Also, the numbers from James McShane do suggest a “War on Fun” — drug and alcohol incidents are up 325 percent over last year.”

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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.)

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This time last year, Bwog elder statesmen Marc Tracy and Avi Zenilman invited underformers to reconsider their college decisions. The verdict: in retrospect, most other places are just as weird as Columbia, but in different ways. (Except Yale, which is weird in ways all its own.) This year, Dan D’Addario opens the debate once more.




New York University

N.Y.who? NYU has a far greater social scene than Columbia’s manic-depressive party-study cycle; they also have the dubious benefit of being way downtown. The notable alumni indicate that this school actually cares about, like, the arts and stuff (unlike Columbia), but also leaves you largely to your own devices, with no main campus and little student-teacher interaction (much like Columbia, but more

shameless about it).

What they have that we don’t: Haley Joel Osment; Washington Square Park; Tisch School for the Arts; joie de vivre.

What we have that they don’t: Matthew Fox; Manhattanville [?]; GS; ennui.

Hookup factor: Boys like boys. Girls hold out hope. It’s all easier on Ecstasy.

University of Chicago

U.Chicago is to Columbia as Columbia is to Yale. It also indulges some of Columbia’s most admirable and most irritating qualities – the passion for theory that so easily becomes aggressive pretension. If you have ever thought at three A.M. during exam week, “This works,” perhaps you were meant to spend four years pounding your brain with theory on the shores of Lake Michigan.

What they have that we don’t: Oprah; deep dish pizza; pride in their academic work; endearingly widespread enthusiasm for the Core.

What we have that they don’t: Tiffany Patterson; edible pizza; pride in getting on Cobrasnake; relatively widespread sanity.

Hookup factor: Better than you’d think: imagine the Butler stacks if no one ever left (except the weak ones, to cry). Read more…