203 CommentsThe 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.
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203 Comments
@anon so THAT’s how Obama got elected — oh wait.
@DICCIONARIODELURBO Urbandictionary: to swipe is to run one’s penis down the ass crack of another person
@Anonymous Yale and Columbia are quite comparable for the sciences. CU is a lot better in engineering. Is Yale that much better in the humanities to be ranked 98 to Columbia’s 93?
For professional schools, CU and Yale are about the same for med, Yale > CU in Law, CU > Yale in business and CU >> Yale in engineering.
In the undergrad rankings, Yale benefits from about a 20-30 pt higher avg. SAT and of course, a $15B+ endowment advantage to MIT/Penn/Columbia/Chicago/Northwestern.
@True but Yale >> CU for political connections, and Yale >> CU for alumni donations.
@WOOOOOWWWWWWWW This is the FIRST BWOG ARTICLE IN HISTORY where in the comments section, the most talked-about school other than Columbia itself isn’t “BARNARD” (for better or for worse. usually for the better because everytime Barnard is the most widely used word in Bwog, it’s always shit talking).
Good job, people talking about Cornell.
@CC (that was in reply to “CC12guy”)
@CC I’m not sure about the engineering school rankings you referenced in the last sentence, but since prospective Harvard engineering majors have to apply to Harvard College, I would assume that– notwithstanding the possibly inferior quality of the division when compared to other schools– the admissions process is the traditional one. I don’t believe that declaring an interest in engineering confers any advantage. On the other hand, the Harvard SEAS website leaves some room for interpretation: \All prospective [engineering] undergraduate apply and ARE ADMITTED to Harvard College.\
@You think Barnard vs Columbia is bad? I believe Cornell has 7 DIFFERENT undergraduate admissions departments. My brother’s applying there this Fall and he did tons of research. Cornell’s School of Human Ecology, for example, has median SATs of 1330. Cornell’s Arts and Sciences, on the other hand, has medians ranging from 1360 – 1460, and their Engineering class has SATs 1440-1500. My bro visited their campus and there DEFINITELY is an ARROGANT campus-wide sentiment that Cornell Engineers think they’re above all the other 7 schools; Cornell Arts & Sciences guys think they’re above Cornell’s Hotel School, much like how Columbians think they’re above Barnard (THIS IS JUST AN OBSERVATION, NOT AN INVITATION FOR ARGUMENT.)
I find that fucking hysterical. Barnard, don’t feel too bad. There are kids on a cow-farm campus that get picked on by anywhere from 1-6 departments everyday on campus. suicide, anyone? LOL
@haha yet these cornell guys actually get to say they go to an IVY league school with the same name…last time I checked you don’t actually spell Columbia and Barnard in the same way
@You know... now that I think about it, I’d much rather have a small liberal arts school full of girls who love columbia guys than a hotel school. Thanks, you just got me to truly appreciate Barnard :)
@wow... i thought “Cornell Hotel School” was a joke at first, but it really does exist…
@gordon Pls ck the journal of legal ed, may 2010, daniel thies article on rethinking legal ed in hard times. He provides a detailed analysis of how the magazine does not public all the relevant data, does not describe all the measures it takes to ensure the accuracy of the data, and does not describe its methodology in enough detail to enable anyone to actually check the results or to isolate and identify the influence of individual factors. On the rankings. Deans speak out, letter endorsed by over one hundred deans criticizing the us news rankings as “inherently flawed” http://www.lsac.org/Choosing/deans-speak-out-rankings.asp
@anon whoa whoa WHOA — i just fell asleep right there.
@BAHAHAHHA Cornell has a worse ranking (#70) than BARNARD college and DePauw University on Forbes! HAHAH wtf is DePauw University?
@CORNELL TRANSFERS anyone else notice that there seems to be tons of cornell engineering transfers around here? i mean, just last semester in my class of 47, there were 4 sitting in the row above me. not saying it’s a bad or good thing, im just making a note haha. my friend from HS is also transferring here this fall – he went to cornell his second year. ?
also, the number of thumb ups/downs on the cornell posts on this page just serves to validate my observation.
whats up with that? when did cornell become a feeder school for columbia SEAS transfers?????
@CC 2012 Guy Why is that surprising? As much as I hate all the other Ivies and love love love Columbia, I remember applying to Cornell Engineering back in high school and at the time the SATs and credentials needed to get into their engineering school was comparable to MIT and Stanford. It’s their other shit like Arts & Sciences and the School of Agriculture crap that is pathetic. Although I got into Columbia CC with 800/740/750 SATs, which are higher than Cornell’s Arts & Sciences, I was actually rejected by Cornell Engineering (no joke). But I would’ve been a SHOO-IN for all their other departments. I wouldn’t be surprised if SEAS would be happy to pick them up. Come on guys, lets get real here. Columbia CC is elite as fuck; Columbia SEAS, while is elite, isn’t really all that high-horse up in the engineering realm. Just like how Harvard is elite but their engineering school is worse than Virginia Tech’s.
@it's kinda ridiculous to say cc is more elite than seas, especially on the undergrad level. People take alot of similar classes. CC doesnt have its departments. Its students take classes from every one of Columbia’s many departments, as does seas. CC doesn’t even have its own ranking. What makes you think it’s more elite exactly? A major in urban studies or russian instead of mechanical engineering? Of course you are a CC guy, I understand why you would say what you said. I know plenty of people denied by SEAS but accepted to Cornell, Princeton engineering, and MIT. I’m not saying that any school is necessarily harder; it really depends on the type of applicants. Each school has its own standards. And with your reference to Harvard, Harvard engineering kids are harvard college kids (there is no school separation) So are u saying that Harvard College kids can be more elite than themselves??
@to be serious whatever happened to your admission doesn’t mean its general truth for everybody. Many people would pick Columbia, Princeton, or Harvard engineering over Cornell Engineering any time of the day. And the strength of first year applicant pools shows that.
@yeah I think he was implying that we shouldn’t be “surprised” to see that Cornell transfers are over-represented in the Columbia transfer pool, because their engineering school is pretty respected in the Ivies and thus it wouldn’t be hard for SEAS (or even CC) to admit a transfer applicant from Cornell Engineering….but if all these transfers are from Cornell Arts or Cornell’s Hotel School, THEN we should be surprised.
i think that’s what he was getting at. i doubt ANY columbian would suggest cornell > columbia….i certaintly wouldn’t! but i do agree that cornell engineering is no joke and the quality of their guys is at least similar to the quality of the guys that Columbia accepts…but i wouldn’t say the same for the rest of Cornell’s departments.
@um last time I checked Harvard engineering ranks above Virginia tech’s, and so does columbia’s
@haha cornell i know a number of columbia SEAS kids who applied and got accepted to cornell but didn’t go, myself included; let’s just face it Morningside >>>Ithaca.
@haha cornell oh i meant cornell engineering
@Anonymous http://www.ivygateblog.com/2010/08/college-ranking-part-deux/
@russki seriously dull commentary compared to bwog or even college confidential.
@hahahaha i love how this is the only time we have school spirit.
@Anonymous relax Columbia. you’re still no Harvard
@zzzz Harvard is so…. boring.
@So... are we all just done with our jobs/internships and just waiting for school to start?
@Well, It’s not the size of your endowment but how you use it.
@double-entendre That’s what she said!
@IDIOT that’s the point.
@I am singlehandedly responsible for columbia vaulting to 4th!
@Anonymous i am enjoying the abundance of GS ppl asking for reaffirmation that they belong to this school from the CC/SEAS type.
@PSU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE ARE….PENN STATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Photogirl Men lie. Women lie. Numbers don’t lie. Columbia is climbing to number one baby! We have alumni in the oval office and now we are putting out the next great artist.
@cc who is the artist?
@CC '10 Hooray for Columbia!!! I miss you already.
@WHY THE FUCK WOULDN'T YOU BE?!?!?? HEY ALL YOU GS PEOPLE. WTF?!
yo, despite the lack of financial aid, I’m also in General Studies and I’m glad to have contributed to the news ranking as well as get the returns. I’m 20 years old and my SATs were 800, 780, 800 and I was high school salutatorian. The only reason I’m in GS instead of CC is because I took 2 years off school for some other important things (CC doesn’t let someone in my situation even apply). I remember speaking to General Studies admissions people asking if I’d be a “shoo-in” given my scores and the perceived ease of entry and the lady said “no way. i’d say you have competitive scores, but it would still be hard to say if you have a good chance or not”. So for those of us under the age of 25 who got into GS, we got in with some pretty good scores.
YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE PROUD OF THESE RANKINGS! WE DEF. CONTRIBUTED.
@Anonymous I can’t wait until next year, when Columbia drops to #6.
@lion next year Princeton and Yale should look out.
@NOT IN OUR LEAGUE THE FINAL FOUR BITCHES. ALL IVIES.
THE REST OF Y’ALL….are. not. in. our. LEAGUE.
@anon damn right.
we are one of the original ivies, of which there were four (get it, IV?): “Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Columbia met on November 23, 1876 at the so-called Massasoit Convention to decide on uniform rules for the emerging game of football” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League#Origin_of_the_name
@I GOT THE RIGHT TO BE COCKY COME ON COLUMBIA!!! SING THIS SHIT OUT LOUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got the right to be cocky
Get so much cut disc jockeys jock me…
You Niggas mad cause you not me
I remain a GIANT while your Jeremy Shockey
And if You ain’t Heard Me Properly
If You Speak Garbage, then we no Capice
DC Chillin, PG Chillin, Floor To the Ceilin
Stuntin in my Billion-Air, Gear On My
Millionaire Frames, that’s money on my mind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@WTF?! WHY SO MANY THUMBS-DOWNS? WHATS THE MATTER WITH YOU BOOK-WORM FREAKS? WHERE ARE YOUR GUTS?! FLAUNT THAT DEGREE, FLAUNT THAT CASH, FUCK SHIT UP! NYC IS OURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@whew! Definitely the Obama/Vampire Weekend/Gossip Girl effect FINALLY taking hold.
@'11 There is a hint of, dare I say it, narcisism present in this entire thread. In my opinion these rankings merit a “oh cool, thats great” and nothing more. Putting this list up on your fridge? Give me a break. Columbia is not ‘You’, and ‘You’ are not Columbia. The “ah come on it’s school pride” argument is TOTALLY bogus. Where are all these prideful lions on homecoming? Thats what I thought.
Yea it is a good feeling to know that your accomplishments got you into an elite university, but I fear rankings like these only further the self-righteousness that all too often pervades the IVY’s.
@Tyler Durden Great post.
@columbia... is not you my friend, I very much feel a part of my university and will continue to cheer our mediocre teams and our mindless rankings ad-infinitum, why do you shun a little school pride that is seldom expressed outwardly. We should be proud when our university does well, if you’re positive about your university you’ll probably get the most out of it, flaws and all.
@I mean... It kind of makes sense. You cheer for the thing that’s going well. Unless you’re a diehard football fan, if your city’s football team is at the bottom of the league and has been for the past several years, but your basketball team is in line for a championship, then, I dunno, you’re probably more excited about the basketball team. Similarly, what is Columbia good at? I dunno, maybe all the things that get measured on a US News and World Report College Ranking. So that’s what we get excited and cheer for. You know, the part that’s winning. If we had Duke’s basketball team, we’d have Duke’s level of enthusiasm for sports. (You could also argue that if we had Duke’s level of sports enthusiasm/alumni support, we’d have Duke’s level of basketball team, but that’s another story). So it’s really no more narcissistic than referring to your city’s football team with first-person plural pronouns, and no less school spirit-y than homecoming… just less typical, more nerdy. Kinda like Columbia.
@anon I love how Brown is scraping along at the bottom of the ivies.
@Anonymous It’s a better school than cornell
@anon not if you want to be a large animal veterinarian. oh *SNAP*
@lawl to be fair cornell engineering is highest out of all the ivies. brown is absolutely worthless…kick out brown, put in MIT and Stanford. i’d suggest kicking out cornell as well if it wasn’t for their engineering school
@eh word on wall street and anyone else interning around here would know that brown has HORRIBLE representation in our intern classes…i see more UVA and Northwestern and even Berkeley kids at my internships than brown’ies. cornell sucks but the number of assholes they send to wall street each year is impressive. now, whether those kids perform well and stay for more than 2 years is a whole nother story. but at least they get their feet in the door more than brown people. i interned at goldman last summer and there was 5x more cornell dicks than brown kids.
PETITION TO KICK BROWN & CORNELL OUT OF THE IVY LEAGUE:
1. Karl Marx
2.
3.
.
.
.
…
1078.
1079.
sign your names!
@Anonymous Fuck you and your money obsessed Wall Street culture. On an unrelated note, FUCK YEAH COLUMBIA SUCK IT PENN AND SUCK IT STANFORD
@FUCK NEWSWEEK. THE REAL RANKINGS LETS GAUGE IT BY FUTURE EARNING POTENTIAL, SHALL WE? LAST YEAR, THESE WERE THE INTERN AND ANALYST CLASS REPRESENTATIONS AT LEADING FINANCIAL FIRMS:
At jp morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley last year, the schools that sent the most interns:
1. Wharton (does NOT include upenn arts & sciences)
2. Harvard, Princeton (tied)
3. Yale, Columbia (near tie)
4. Cornell (surprising, ain’t it?)
5. NYU Stern (does NOT include NYU Arts & Sciences)
6. UPenn (does not include Wharton), tied with MIT
7. Stanford
8. TIED FOR #8: UVA Business School (does NOT include arts & sciences), U-Michigan, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon
9. Brown (LOL!!)
10. Random guys with 4.0’s from top state schools
Remember this is for INVESTMENT BANKING only. All other crappy positions like operations and other shit are not counted in here.
@FUCK NEWSWEEK. THE REAL RANKINGS sorry i forgot to add:
Tied for 7: Duke University, University of Chicago, Stanford
accidentally left them out.
@It kind of sucks that some people think the only worthwhile aspirations to have are to work at any of these so called top firms and financially drain the rest of the world dry.
You guys are still in the minority so there is no point in ranking the schools based on a minority of its students.
@Anon Nobody is talking about Barnard in that particular thread.
@cc did anyone else notice that according to this listing our tuition is higher than EVERY OTHER school? And significantly higher than our peer Ivies.
@Anonymous thank you for that, debbie downer.
@if you are on financial aid or your parents are paying it doesn’t matter! sorry your parents are rich and miserly.
@cc I’m personally taking out loans to cover ~$30k a year. The ease with which people are blowing off the extraordinary price is very surprising to me.
@... tuition sticker price is an utterly meaningless figure in modern higher education. unless, well… nevermind.
@Tuition is meaningless USN&WR should compare the total costs of attendance. Columbia might be the most expensive school to attend as well, which would mean something. But just looking at tuition is ridiculous; maybe Yale’s room and board are through the roof!
@Cause someone had to http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5323/fuckyeao.png
@US News closes the debate... I printed out the rankings and posted them on my home fridge. It’s not getting obsessed over a stupid arbitrary list, it’s appreciating the fact that your college is finally getting the recognition it deserves.
And anyone who feels like this is a good time to be a downer can just suck it and post somewhere else bitchessssss
ROAR LIONS ROAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Roaree Sorry to be a downer, but there’s only one lion in “Roar lion roar.”
@Anonymous Don’t forget, the international rankings list places us above Oxford. Always nice.
@anon poor Oxbridge — a thousand years to build an endowment and they forgot to do it.
@it has to do with the way they're funded oxbridge are funded by the crown, and generally eu nations pay for/subsidize the cost of attendance for their citizens studying at oxbridge, because of this, oxbridge doesn’t need to have huge endowments to say fund financial aid programs. though many of them do have small endowments to fund capital expansion/other projects.
@ummm, i know : ) wouldn’t 800+ years of compound interest and dividends gotten them a little further?
@Salsabol! Support Columbia alums on their quest to make the perfect salsa bowl: http://salsabol.com/ Just because you’re bitter and unemployed doesn’t mean that everyone is!
@Hey! some other company makes a knock-off salsabol and my mom tried to buy it, but I prevented her from doing so and encourage her to buy the salsabol instead :P
@Hey! *encouraged
@michael As one of the co-founders of Salsabol wondering where all the site traffic was coming from today, thanks! for the shoutout
@Hmmm... You, Bwog, Interview, Now. Why where we not aware of this epicness coming from a mind trained with CU’s method. This, NEEEDS to go viral.
@Eliza Actually look out for one in the next week or two, it’s already been done!
@Holy shit I seriously can’t believe this many people from Columbia care so deeply about arbitrary college rankings… now I know what kind of school I go to, I guess… :-(
@holy shit go fuck yourself if you can’t stand a little school pride, also where’s yours you cynical fuck.
@'11 Agree. See post below.
@Former GSer Considering that you go to Columbia University, I’d say yes.
@ANGRY GSer As a GSer am I allowed to be proud?
@Anonymous sure, why not? you guys are officially part of an undergraduate school of Columbia, unlike that school closeby
@Anonymous No, no you’re not. Just shut up and be grateful that you’re allowed to sit in a room with CC and SEAS students.
@Stop... Shitting on the joy of this post.
@cc GS is absolutely counted as a part of these rankings. So are graduate schools. This ranking is odd because it largely markets itself as a ranking of undergraduate schools, but takes into account graduate schools. See it is a ranking of universities.
@... you’re allowed to feel however you want. but as a gs student myself, i’ll tell you that i don’t derive any pride from it, or anything related to columbia university to be honest.
i see it this way. it’s like i dropped my future life savings to be smuggled into the us as an illegal immigrant. do i derive some benefit from it? sure. but the idea of having any sort of civic pride is really quite laughable.
honestly, when you know that the people sitting next to you in class are charged significantly less, and you know that at the end you’ll receive a “special” diploma and will be on a “special” alumni list… it’s really quite hard to feel any sense of connection to the place.
in fact, it turns into a cynical and bitter exercise. the whole thing is really depressing. had i the opportunity to do it all over, i would have shredded the admissions packet in a heartbeat. maybe i would have had to pay an extra $30 a year for printing dollars, and maybe the class sizes would have been larger, and it certainly wouldn’t have been ranked top 10 by some silly organization that uses a bunch of arbitrarily chosen metrics that include silly things like endowment size (does endowment size matter when most of it is attached to the medical school anyway?) … but most importantly, i think this whole endeavor would have worked out a hell of a lot better at a place where i would have been just a student, rather than a member of an underclass that is defined not by any individuals, but by the policies and procedures of the institution itself.
@Ahhhhmmmm... I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that, perhaps, your experience/perception of GS may be unique. In fact, it probably doesn’t warrant a handful of gloomy paragraphs in an otherwise upbeat comment section. Plenty of GS students get great scholarships and, believe it or not, full rides.
Like, for example, moi.
@... unlikely. i’ve spoken to many people about this.
there are a handful of PALS people who get free rides. maybe a kid or two on jack kent cooke (outside scholarship). the vets don’t get much from the university, but that’s because the VA makes up for it and then some (as it should be).
the remaining hundreds receive no more than $18k/yr and gs students regularly graduate with debt that is well north of $100,000.00.
when you go to the USNWR webpage for columbia, the very last sentence in the description reads “We believe cost should not be a barrier to pursuing your educational dreams.”
so either that page is not for the school i attend, or it’s complete bullshit. which is it?
@cc if you don’t like it, then leave.
@'10 well actually most of our endowment is in real estate. if we were less conservative in our accounting principles like harvard or yale, we would probably have as much endowment $$$$$ as they do.
we probs have about $15BN sacked away in real estate, not to mention the value of manhattanville. if times get tough, we’ll be just fine. you know, columbia used to own rockefeller center, till the 80’s when she needed some cash to fund more stuff around campus (sold to a japanese conglomerate for a mere 1/3 or 1/4 of its value)…
the disadvantage of having money tied up in real estate is that you can’t use endowment spending off of it–the traditional 5% take per year.
@Hmm... I don’t mean to rain on your parade or spoil the sentiment here, and I should say that I’m overjoyed about the rankings. We all benefit when our alma mater is acknowledged. That said, I feel compelled to call your attention to a slight matter of grammatical usage that you’d be wise to be aware of, hopefully without being too much of a jerk or shattering the communal pride on display. **We** don’t have 15 billion dollars. Perhaps *they* have 15 billion dollars, or perhaps (and more likely) they one day will. If times are tough, *they* will be fine indeed… and will gladly call you for a donation.
@Anonymous ” if we were less conservative in our accounting principles like harvard or yale, we would probably have as much endowment $$$$$ as they do.”
I don’t know about Yale, but Harvard got pretty reamed during the whole economic meltdown thing: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/harvard200908
@Financial corrective 1) Our endowment only is $7 billion.
2) When we sold Rockefeller Center in 1985, we got $400 million. That’s equivalent to $800 million in today’s dollars. (And your 1/4 discount factor still leaves your estimate $12 billionish short.) And Manhattanville is certainty not Rockefeller Center.
(Disclaimer: not an expert, don’t know what exactly Columbia owns in terms of real estate, blah blah blah)
@'10 what i meant:
our endowment is $5.8BN, but a substantial amount of non-recorded money is tied up in real estate, about $15BN. $15 BN + $5.8 BN is about $20.8 BN, which is similar to the realization of endowment that HYP put on the balance sheet…
I was not stating future money terms (no where in that statement did i ask you to pull out financial econ v 3025)… $400 million in 80’s was 1/3 of the $1.2 BN – $1.6BN it was worth back then, that much has since changed, and indeed the value of real estate in NYC has grown significantly in the last 20 or 30 years.
@Alum Aside from the campus and other facilities, Columbia’s books carry most of its real estate holdings at market value. The only exceptions are the apartment buildings where Columbia houses faculty, staff and grad students. Those buildings function more as facilities than as endowment, so it makes sense not to carry them at their market rate. In fact, it would probably make sense to stop counting them as endowment at all.
Those buildings are not as valuable as you might think. On top of that, they account for several hundred million dollars of the endowment’s current total. The difference between the actual value of those buildings and their cash value is probably not much more than $1 billion.
Columbia does not include the value of its campus in its endowment, but neither do any other major universities. This is for good reason, since facilities are not endowment and vice versa. Facilities are things a university uses while endowments are sources of revenue. There is a huge difference between, say, Hamilton Hall and Columbia’s stake in Microsoft. It would make no sense to treat them alike.
Also, some of our peers have far more space than we do, and the value they are not counting is sometimes more than the value we’re not counting. It’s not clear that we would move up on any list if everyone started including the value of facilities in their endowments.
@not an econ i just play one on tv How much of the $15 billion consists of real state that Columbia would *actually* sell? Sure, we could probably get rid of one or two random buildings in midtown, but you’ve gotta be an a dire situation to sell, or use as collateral, any part of campus.
@Hmmm... How much would Lerner Hall get us and can we sell it first in an emergency? On an unrelated note, I would like to put in an emergency request for enough money to build a student centre, it’s a shame we don’t have one.
@Anonymous Wait, you’re telling me they haven’t already sold Lerner?
@CC Of course; you’re Columbians like us!
@WHY THE FUCK WOULDN'T YOU BE?!?!?? yo, despite the lack of financial aid, I’m also in General Studies and I’m glad to have contributed to the news ranking as well as get the returns. I’m 20 years old and my SATs were 800, 780, 800 and I was high school salutatorian. The only reason I’m in GS instead of CC is because I took 2 years off school for some other important things (CC doesn’t let someone in my situation even apply). I remember speaking to General Studies admissions people asking if I’d be a “shoo-in” given my scores and the perceived ease of entry and the lady said “no way. i’d say you have competitive scores, but it would still be hard to say if you have a good chance or not”. So for those of us under the age of 25 who got into GS, we got in with some pretty good scores.
YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE PROUD OF THESE RANKINGS! WE DEF. CONTRIBUTED.
@Alumnumnum I am deeply torn between two reactions:
1) The qualitative differences between universities at this level are so slight and discipline-dependent that U.S. News rankings are a complete vanity exercise.
2) FUCK YEAH MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!
@Anonymous MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY
@Harmony Hunter Mk II How can I find Harmony in the list?
@SHITYEAH this report is killer. now on to channelin our newfound pride to homecoming and set another record finally! C’Mon son!
@what does my wallet say? …it says Bad Ass Motha F**ka
@Anonymous haha… this is good. Now, my rankings-obsessed chinese grandparents will actually bother learning the name of my college.
@'10 but columbia already has huge cache among chinese ppl..
@Chinese Grandparents only know one word in English:
Harvard
@Anonymous haha, that’s what you think, and we wished
@really? is that why so many asian tourists come to campus all the time?
@Anonymous I bet that Harvard gets as many Asian tourists as we do, which says A LOT considering they’re not even a city, per se.
@ah ha! Now I know how the Russian guy in the Verizon commercial feels after kissing the tiny giraffe!
@Yes. Just, yes.
@just curious i’m not signing up for a dining plan, but what are these “floating” meals you get on the highest plan? also, like giving us 6 faculty house meals makes up for 9 months of john jay food.
@And the Lord Said unto Moses Oh baby, I’m a cock star.
@cc Oh SHIT
I just realized that next year we are allowing the common app. That means that our admission rate is sure to drop significantly!
@Fuuuuck tell me they have some sort of supplement? All of the questions concerning our favorite books, hobbies, interests etc at least made sure each student they accepted had some sort of personality.
With only the common app, any joe schmuck with decent stats and a bullshit essay has a chance of getting in. I would hate to see Columbia become bland like most of the other top schools
@exactly i could not agree more
@Anonymous they do (my sister’s applying this year)! nobody’s getting in without answering the “why columbia”
@Anonymous The Columbia supplement to the common app asks students to list the books they have read, required readings they have most enjoyed, print publications they read, etc.
@CC'XIV YES.
@Columbian Amen, onward and upward evermore.
@whatevs Columbia’s already in the top three ranked by number of billionaire alums, according to infallible source privilegedclub.com
http://www.privilegedclub.com/38882-harvard-leads-nation-with-most-number-of-billionaire-graduates/
@roar lions roar nicely done Columbia.
@Argh, swiping is annoying Don’t do it
1) there is no way you can get work done
2) do you know how awkward it is to return the IDs of your friend’s \visitors\
3) The faculty who live there you do not have to swipe, in fact, you have to memorise their faces for the one time you’ll see them
4)Staff have gotten use to people not swiping them, stop them and double check and they get pissed (I understand the uniformed ones, but plain cloths staff I have no idea if you work here)
5) The person after you is always late and, if by chance they skip work(which happens often), you are stuck there until they find a replacement, no exceptions.
6) 15 mins for lunch
7) The chair sucks, my back still hurts
8)If there is an office behind your station, you have to call the various offices to make sure they have an appointment
9)In general, you’ll get to see all the holes in our security, which doesn’t help with sleeping at night
But, I have to say to people who run the program are trying very hard. They are just overwhelmed by a ton of people trying to take advantage of the program. Tons of people fail at this job and get fired. But, all in all, work in a lab, it looks better on your resume.
@Dora says... Swiper, no swiping!!
@Forbes …is playing 52 pick-up with index cards with university names on them. Disregard.
So, in the spring I left the school that was tied for 8th place and am now coming back to the 4th place university? I feel like I’ve transferred up without the paperwork.
Lastly, our lions ate your quakers and pooped out Stanford.
@... clearly the editors of USNWR have discovered the magic of a perfectly engineered ramp that guides salsa directly onto their tortilla chips.
@Anonymous a jump like this usually follows either a methodology change on USNews’ part, or a reporting change on the Schools’ part. Chicago’s jump from the mid-teens to a top-10 tie was credited to a change in their method of calculating alumni donation rate to be more in line with peer schools. This year USNWR put a heavier emphasis on graduation rates, and slashed the weight of the “Peer opinion” score, and introduced a HS counselor opinion category.
In short, our rise has been fueled in part by either our apparently traditionally strong graduation rates, or our unexpected popularity with High School college counselors, or a combination of both.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2010/08/16/methodology-changes-for-best-colleges-rankings.html
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/08/17/usnews
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38733522
@Sigh Downvoting the explanation for the rating jump? Sigh.
@Dear Stanford Suck my balls.
@Anonymous ROAR LION ROAR
AND WAKE THE ECHOES OF THE HUDSON VALLEY
FIGHT ON TO VICTORY EVERMORE
WHILE THE SONS OF KNICKERBOCKER RALLY ROUND
COLUMBIA! (who?) COLUMBIA!!! (ohhh!)
SHOUTING HER NAME FOREVER
ROAR LION RION ROAR
FOR ALMA MATER ON THE HUDSON SHORE!
@Dude You know all the lyrics to our ridiculous fight song??
@Anonymous i think it could use greater exposure. and its a nice way to tell penn to suck it.
(correction: please disregard “RION” in the penultimate line)
@russki fool, what columbian doesn’t know the words to “roar, lion, roar”??
@Anonymous Raw, eat it raw, And s*CENSORED*
@Ben Franklin's ggggggggrandson W '14 I weep for dear Penn this year.
I think Blair Waldorf transferring really helped CU this year. It shall not last in 2012.
@How was our fall ’09 acceptance rate 10%? I’m pretty sure it was in the nine percent range in ’08 so i doubt it went up from there. What did they include GS or something??
@no they do not and did not include GS. 2009 had higher acceptance rate because the college added 50 more spots for admission
@cc no it’s because they add SEAS to the percentage. the college was something like 8% i think. 4th in the nation after the big three. SEAS has been in the low-to-mid teens for a few years.
@read the question he’s talking about why 2009 admissions rate rose from 2008. The college admit rate did RISE, if you ever check the statistics, from 2008 and 2009, which brought the overall admit rate higher. The SEAS admit rate consistently dropped those two years.
@Anonymous fortunately, SEAS boosts our SAT scores which in turn boosts our rankings!
@What up... …bitches!!!
Love this!
Roar lion roar!!!
@happy but.... Err U.S. News messed up stanford’s scoring… it should have gotten 2-5 more points than it did… I feel that once outraged stanford kids report this to news agencies and crap newsweek wil lbe forced to change the rankings… so Columbia will sit at 5th… below Stanford…
@wat not one word in this comment made sense
@it did make sense? It makes sense….? US News ranks colleges according to points… Columbia has 93 and stanford has 92… so if stanford had gotten more points it wouuld have been ahead of columbia…..
@OK... and if Penn State had gotten a lot more points, it would be ahead of Harvard. But it didn’t, so it’s not. End of story.
@What up... …bitches!!
Love this!!!!!
Roar lion roar!!!
@Anonymous on a side note:
how does one become a swiper?
@Like a residence hall swiper? 1) Prove you have work study
2) Fill out the times you can (read: want to) work after your schedule is finalized when you apply. The application is in Public Safety’s office in Low Library. I actually suggest you do it even if everything isn’t set in stone b/c you’ll end up with a Sat/Sun 7:30 shift in EC. Never fun. Make sure you have at least 2 time slots open.
3) Work
IMHO, I absolutely hated working as a swiper. I got sick all the time (constantly open doors). Obnoxious people will just walk by (you can get fired on the spot for that). Some officers who come by are rather nasty for no reason. But at least you get paid to sit on your ass and catch up on reading for 3hrs a shift.
@Now We know who you probably are.
@Boots Swiper, no swiping!
@Anonymous For all the Californians…
FUCK STANFORD!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Nor Cal! As a Californian, I AGREE.
Screw Stanford!
@Sons of Knickerbocker This is not enough. We will not rest until we take #1.
@fianlly the end to the debate barnard at no. 30 lol almost missed it it was so far down
@Oh shit I see what you did there. Very clever.
recaptcha: topshelf league
@US News closes the debate... if you click on the Columbia link: “Columbia is comprised of three undergraduate schools—Columbia College, The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and the School of General Studies… Columbia is affiliated with Barnard College for women, the Union Theological Seminary, and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.” THANK YOU.
@re: US news closes the debate if thats the case, aka barnard being such a part of CU, why is it ranked seperately?
answer that of ms. im so smart cuz i know 9 ways to know stuff
@CC I think he’s agreeing with you. Columbia is only comprised of CC, SEAS, and GS.
@Alum Barnard suffers in the rankings because they are designed to measure schools that don’t have partnerships like the one between Barnard and Columbia. US News looked only at Barnard’s faculty, resources and course offerings without factoring in what’s available at Columbia.
Barnard does poorly on some of these measures precisely *because* of the partnership; for example, it has a small library because it has never needed to build a major collection and has no place to put one. Each year the money it might have spent on a major library of its own is paid over to Columbia instead to pay Barnard’s share of its budget.
@self conscious much? to be posting this as an alum, I guess you’re not too satisfied with your alma mater
@Alum I’m an alum of the College, not Barnard. Is it that hard to believe someone from Columbia would write positive comments about Barnard on this site?
@Alum I guess it is, since my original post got so many thumbs down.
@Anonymous Does this work vice-versa, as in Barnard brings Columbia down? Lol well I guess we still managed.
@Anonymous great! bwog, when was the last time CU was ranked this highly?
@this highly.. never before, #8 was our highest rank on USNews over 20 years. I said fuck usnews, until today.
@Anonymous FUCK YEAH!!!!!
FUCK STANFORD!!!!!!!!!
@I don't need... …your pussy bitch, I’m on my own dick. I ain’t gotta power trip, who you going home with?
@Fuck UPenn and Duke I love you. Can we get married and quote Kanye West lyrics at hilariously inappropriate times?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bfeld/kanyenewyorkertweets
Also, I never understood the whole UPenn, Duke thing. Duke is eh, in my opinion and UPenn would be complete shit without Wharton. Does Wharton carry them that far? Apparently not far enough! Suck it!
@If y'all fresh... to death, then I’m deceased
@cc i don’t care if this ranking has no real meaning.
It boosts my inner ego, so FUCK PENN AND DUKE! HELL YEA
@John fuck upenn and uchicago… finally. this is great.
@Bad Analogy Guy College rankings are like invisible kangaroos. They go up and down and have no basis in reality.
@where... the fuck is my cigar! about time ole alma, about time.
@WASSUP MOTHERFUCKAS
@FUCK YEAH. PENN CAN SMD.
@Anonymous SMD BITCHES!!! bottles and models!!!
@Anonymous This is certainly an appropriate response to news of scholarly excellence.
Also recaptcha countich stanford?…
@where's the dow out? still bigger than your bonus… if you had one.
good luck paying off them loans in your futile attempt to become the next plato.
@Anonymous more like the next futile attempt to become the next baller billionaire PhD
now I realize where the 1% default on loans for columbia grads comes from, “scholarly excellence”…
@the crunkest SIP AND GRIP!
@college confidential is gonna have a field day
@Roar, lion, roar Columbia finally gets the ranking she deserves, right behind the Big 3! Fuck Stanford, MIT, Caltech, and especially Penn!
@Anonymous Fuck “the Big 3”! Roar Lion Roar!
@sweet jesus yes i have been waiting for this all my life. so long uchicago. suck it stanford, caltech and mit! bitches!!! u got pwnzED!!!!!
@err... you have been waiting for this all your life?
@yes yes i have.
that will be all.
@Anonymous are you fuckin’ kidding me!?!?!?!? I mean, the rankings have always been BS, but this just completely affirms that.
@really forbes? Williams College is #1 and Harvard 8? What the hell is Williams College?
@'10 and princeton at 2? suspicious, since there is a residential college with FORBES on its capstone.. alum favoritism
@russki one order of bottles & models 4 MMA’s ofc., pls.
@Yo I bet you everyone in this thread most probably applied to Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Penn, Caltech etc. while they were in high school and did not get into the aforementioned schools and now they have no better reason to brag about a fucking list that doesn’t prove anything. What gets me the most are the freshmen, who have made zero contribution to the school’s performance. You basically have no voice, so stay out, flag this post all you want and go jack off to some snowboarding videos or something.
@Anonymous i got into every school i applied to. columbia was and still is my first choice over all of those schools.
@Well Congratufuckinglations, would you like a doggy biscuit?
@Barnard deserves better rankings based on the number of participants in such a useless and meaningless thread, and the amount of posts that actually make sense but are flagged nonetheless.
Dear you guys,
Words cannot express how much I hate you guys. As we fight our way northward into the great unknown, only that one thing remains certain: that I hate you guys with every tired muscle in my Confederate body. I will not stop until we have won it all, and you guys are my slaves. Because, I hate you guys. I hate you guys so very very much.
@'11 Barnard sucks, but I love this post
@russki first, I was columbia ED, so screw you.
second, since admissions statistics and SAT scores are part of the US news rankings, this year’s freshmen have made very valuable contributions to this jump, perhaps decisive ones.
@That's a Fall 2009 acceptance rate, so that would be the Class of 2013/sophomores.
@russkaya NALIVAYYYYY
:)
@unrelated http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSvPWfhb63k
Check that out.