33 Comments
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.
Loading …
33 Comments
@Interesting. I don’t think people have ever been so candid about their experiences here before, even in the anonymity of the web.
@Well Trying to buck the Normal Person + Total Anonymity = Asshole equation.
I totally agreed with a post above that the morale at Columbia is a vicious cycle.
@A Problem With Columbia kids is the massive chip on many of our shoulders. In far too many classes students are out to seem brilliant (when 95% of what is said in an undergrad discussion group is silly) and are willing to belittle fellow classmates. I admit I used to be that way freshman year and I think it comes from the fact that many of us performed well in high school to get here and still come with a high school mentality (go and netflix the movie Frontrunners if you want to get an idea of what I’m talking about).
Sadly, many Columbians don’t seem to grow out of this phase and turn into elitist snobs by the end of their college experience. I admit I had an epiphany moment though; it came when I was in CC class and the teacher asked us to have a debate on the death penalty using source material (I was given the pro-death penalty stance). I have a fairly strong Southern accent and after making my case the girl I was debating A) Tried to correct my pronunciation of ‘impious’ (I pronounce it Im-pie-us) and B) said “Well, with an accent like that you must have had an easy time defending that stance.” At that point I realized Columbia was nothing but high school all over again.
Now my theory: schools with a reason to band together tend to have a happier student body. Schools like Duke, Michigan, UNC, Stanford, etc. rally behind sporting events and have rivalries that help direct ire outward, whereas Columbia students have no such ire and simply direct it at each other. School spirit is a powerful force and can make life a bit more pleasant.
@An Engineer SEAS students know that we are all idiots.
@Hear ye, hear ye. Damn straight about the lack of school spirit/ire situation.
@I get that no one is going to hold your hand at Columbia, and how everything you want is there and you just need to be proactive. But sometimes…when you really need help, you’re not in any condition to ask/look for it yourself. That’s *why* it’s called help. And this school does not realise that.
Sometimes I feel like Columbia would be better off as British uni, given its educational tendencies…
@Roar Lion Roar I love Columbia despite you naysayers. And I believe I am not the only one.
I went to summercamp when I was 12 and had my fill of carefree nurturing there, thanks. Gotta start learning to deal with unsympathetic bureaucracies someday. Might as well start at a place that is also providing me one of the best educations available in the world and that occasionally still comes through on the awesome — Arts Initiative anyone? Plus, a lot of the people who are jaded are just whiny because they are hipsters and because classes are actually quite difficult here (unlike at Camp Yale or Stanford) and thus contribute to a lot of stress ontop of the angst.
@Roar again To be fair, Stanford and Yale are certainly not drastically or uniformly less difficult than Columbia . . . just made a lot easier by all the hand-holding.
So people are stressed here not necessarily because their work-load is more impossible than it might be elsewhere, but because no one in the administration is rushing to their sides or holding catered study breaks to tell them it’s all going to be ok. A defect on our part only for students who feel a need for that kind of support to succeed as a college student. . . And those people should not come here. Many of the rest of us, however, are fighting the good fight and becoming stronger, more independent adults because of it. Granted this independence is not super conducive to a particularly warm social scene, but unfortunately neither is the real world.
That said, I do wish more people at Columbia would make the effort to resist being hardened as well as being independent. We’ll never be Pepperdine, but a bit more compassion in the student body here would be lovely if anyone ever figures out how to make that happen. It is possible, dear fellow hipsters of Columbia, to be independent AND pleasant/compassionate (even towards people a bit less cool than thou). It might be ok once in a while for people to remember that they are living the dream.
@ugh The whole anti-Columbia sentiment in this school really bothers me. Okay, so the administration has its flaws: housing sucks, war on fun sucks, etc. Do you really think other schools don’t have similar problems? Nothing is perfect, and many people realize that, but for some it seems like negativity is the “cool” thing to do. It’s a terrible cycle that makes everyone else unhappy. But seriously, if you spend more time taking advantage of opportunities Columbia has and less time bitching, maybe you would be happy. I honestly think I’m getting a good education and while a Columbia college experience is certainly different from one at say, a large state school or small liberal arts college, that was clear to me coming in. No, Columbia won’t hold your hand or guide you but you can find everything you want if you just look. I accept her flaws but still enjoy my time here and am proud of my school.
@ehhh Yes, other schools have similar problems, I don’t disagree. But you have said it yourself: lot’s of people complain here about the school. We can interpret that phenomena, then, in one of two ways. That is, there is either (1) something wrong with this school, or (2) something wrong with the way that its students view their school. Now, the latter is entirely possible, but the fact of it is, there is a lot less complaining that goes on at many other schools that share similar rankings as us. That’s just my 2 cents. Take it as you will.
@actually “Do you really think other schools don’t have similar problems?”
Yes. I do. From talking to students at these “other schools” you speak of. This is a terrible line of argument, I’m sorry.
Also, talk to grad students who went somewhere else for undergrad. They’re routinely flabbergasted by some of the shit thats routine here. Talk to newly-minted administrators who haven’t been assimilated into the rabbit-hole-ish absurdity of this school yet. They’ll tell you that compared to their past experience, Columbia is like going through the looking-glass.
That being said, you are right that there is a culture of complaining about *everything* perpetuated by jaded upperclassmen who infect freshmen. As a result no one is willing to give new initiatives a chance, or give credit for the rare (and usually long over-due) positive policy change. Sometimes students have incredibly unrealistic expectations.
But that doesn’t mean that Columbia’s administration isn’t unacceptably mind blowingly bass-ackwards in more ways than I can count.
@seas '09 i’m so glad i came to columbia. some of my best memories have been made on this campus. i’ve made what i hope to be lifelong friends here. but i’m also so glad to leave. a few years is enough. in many ways i prefer it this way.
@insomniac Is this one of those dreams where I have an eyepatch, my friends all have green hair, and everyone’s speaking what i assume portuguese sounds like?
just kidding. i’m actually pretty pleased about this.
@Old joke Columbia is like unprotected sex. You’re glad you got it, but not so glad you came.
@... my mother preferred me going to UCLA than Columbia… Princeton though was her dream school for me…
@Wow !!! reads bwog?
@I love !!!
They’re fun times.
@!!! The best experience most Columbia students have with the school is being accepted. After that, its largely downhill.
@a student ok, the serious serious flaws in this school should be seen by *students*, not parents! have they gotten stupider over the years? NYU over Columbia? loneliness, expensiveness, 0 community, yeah! that’s where i want my kids to go!
@proud lion RAWWWR!
@I get that God I get that.
I’m not gonna BS like most and pretend to be jaded and uncaring about this; the day I got my acceptance letter I literally squealed (and yeah I’m a dude). It was a high in my life.
Now? It’s college. I’m very grateful to be here but its got its flaws (a +2950 lottery number being one of them) it’s not a state of ecstasy every day either.
@uhh wow, so columbia has a flaw because YOU got a bad lottery number? newsflash, idiot: the world doesn’t revolve around you, and SOME people are gonna end up getting housing they didn’t want because there just isn’t enough of the best-housing-on-campus for everyone. and one of those people was you. it happens at every school. now stop pretending like the school is flawed because you had a stroke of bad luck.
@Maybe. . . Maybe a flaw at Columbia is we all snap at each other. Why can’t we have some respect? Do you really need to call someone an idiot? Does that make you feel better about yourself?
@right! Next time anyone wants to call anyone else something mean, replace the derogatory word with ‘poopiehead’. It clearly slights the nature of your head, whilst still making you feel warm inside.
@No shit, #8 Hey mommy-issues,
that was a joke- hence the non sequitur aspect of the parentheses.
Would “even housing facilities” sooth the ache of my post?
Would you get the stick out of your butt and stop taking your life frustrations out on the web?
Daaaamn.
@Yay Go Columbia!
@ohmy what a stupid dream
@usc usc is a great school to end up. generally speaking, it’s an exceptionally easy school yet your degree is golden all throughout california.
@Californian more like golden shower.
@Alum USC’s admissions standards have improved a lot over the past 15 years, and it has added some nice new facilities. But its faculty has not kept pace. Few if any of its arts & sciences departments appear with any frequency in the top 20 in any of the various rankings out there. (Though many of its professional schools, including engineering, are quite strong.)
Of course, faculty turnover takes longer than student turnover; USC may get a lot stronger in the future. But it ain’t there yet.
@Seriously, Harvard is *so* overrated. The only person I know there is a legacy.
@... Notre Dame? USC? Really?
I think we need a statistical analysis to pull out the local effect (California has the largest population) and the redneck effect (Notre Dame – enough said).
@yeah... my feelings exactly. notre dame and usc aren’t even safeties, they’re jokes.
but i think it says a lot that we’re highly ranked amongst applicants, and not among their parents. depressing city school? in the middle of harlem? hell yeeeeah!
wouldn’t have it any other way though