Alma Has an LDAP Entry Too

Many of us are aware of the Columbia Directory, which gives that strange grad student you met at 1020 last night the ability to look up which undergraduate dorm room you live in or allows potential employers to find out that you’re not actually an anthroposophy major. What you might not realize is that this Columbia Directory, combined with another public LDAP directory, also maintained by Columbia, allows for a lot of information investigation.

If you log in and query Columbia’s LDAP directory, you can view a striking amount of information about yourself—for example, departmental affiliations, electronic permissions, all the classes you’ve ever taken, possibly the ID number encoded into your student card, and more. We’ve built a tool for you to check this out yourself:

Look Yourself Up

(this link and most of the rest in this post open in a fancy lightbox container)

But even without being logged in, there’s an awful lot of public information available. (Ever wonder how the ListServ hoodlums spammed the whole university?) We’ve decided to similarly look at everybody’s directory entry, but instead use it for your curiosity and compile a few goofy statistics. We’d also like to take this time to remind you now that it’s never too late to remove yourself from the directory.

Most Popular CC Majors (and most common names in that major)

  1. 1279 None
    (most common name is Andrew)
  2. 539 Economics
    (most common name is Michael)
  3. 331 Biological Sciences
    (most common name is Sarah)
  4. 305 Political Science
    (most common name is Alexander)
  5. 263 History
    (most common name is Michael)
  6. 213 English & Comparative Literature
    (most common name is Rebecca)
  7. 171 Psychology
    (most common name is Megan)
  8. 117 Anthropology
    (most common name is Sarah)
  9. 99 Philosophy
    (most common name is Adam)
  10. 99 Mathematics
    (most common name is Alexander)

See more majors and names…

Most Popular First Names

  1. 886 Michael
  2. 783 David
  3. 616 John
  4. 542 Elizabeth
  5. 536 Daniel
  6. 528 Robert
  7. 527 Jennifer
  8. 455 Sarah
  9. 431 James
  10. 420 Matthew

See more…

Most Popular Positions

  1. 37613 Student
  2. 7540 Professor
  3. 2643 Assistant
  4. 2075 Fellow
  5. 1888 Scientist
  6. 1419 Coordinator
  7. 1387 Lecturer
  8. 1068 Director
  9. 955 Clinical
  10. 946 Retiree

See more…

Most Popular Schools

  1. 4338 Columbia College
  2. 4147 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
  3. 3064 School of Continuing Education
  4. 2656 Graduate School of Business
  5. 2047 School of General Studies
  6. 1859 School of Law
  7. 1618 Fu Foundatn Schl of Engineering & Applied Science:Grad
  8. 1414 Fu Foundatn Schl of Engineering & Applied Science:Ugrad
  9. 1405 School of International and Public Affairs
  10. 1195 College of Physicians and Surgeons: Medicine

See more…

Most Popular Email Domains

  1. 60203 columbia.edu
  2. 2539 barnard.edu
  3. 2432 gsb.columbia.edu
  4. 249 nyp.org
  5. 174 ldeo.columbia.edu
  6. 89 law.columbia.edu
  7. 82 london.columbia.edu
  8. 72 berkeley.columbia.edu
  9. 41 embagasia.com
  10. 36 mail.cumc.columbia.edu

See more…

Most Popular UNI Suffixes

  1. 1
  2. 2102
  3. 2103
  4. 2104
  5. 2101
  6. 2105
  7. 2106
  8. 2107
  9. 2108
  10. 2109

See more…

Other stats include most popular SEAS majors, precise position rank (as opposed to fuzzy, which simply collapses titles that match a Walt Whitman list), and bizarre UNIs. Columbia also publishes its own statistics. If you’re a data nerd and want to play with the stats and raw data yourself, here are some technical instructions. Let us know what you find in the comments.