How to pick between Columbia, Cornell or Princeton?

[Anonymous]

It’s still true. You can choose to study CS In engineering or A&S at Cornell. They say the CS curriculum is the same, but if you do it in A&S you are doing more liberal arts non-major requirements than if you do it in Engineering. That was more appealing to my DC.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I have degrees from both Princeton and Columbia and the undergrad experience at Princeton is better, unless you want to be in (and can afford) a big city and are prepared to be more independent.

Same here. The Princeton undergrads really receive a wealth of resources from the university and are pampered in so many ways. Columbia is good too, but definitely for someone who likes the city life and independence. I wouldn’t pick Cornell. It’s not in the same tier of schools.

You are right. For CS (which is what OPs kid will study) Cornell is the clearly the best of the three.

Not according to objective metrics. If you look at us news and world reports rankings, Princeton is #15 for undergraduate computer science (worldwide), Columbia is #50 and Cornell is tied for #89.

This certainly cannot be correct. Based on this ranking of research papers published by department, Cornell is #7 in the US and have 75 faculty members in CS alone.:
http://csrankings.org/#/index?all

Columbia is 13th with 49 faculty members and Princeton is 20th with 42 faculty members.

Now of course this is not an exact mapping onto undergraduate and I'd still argue Princeton provides the best CS education and has the most post-college opportunities for undergraduates. But there is no way Columbia and Cornell are that far behind Princeton for graduate school.

Looking at research paper rankings is not a good proxy for evaluating undergraduate instruction quality. It’s just a metric of how productive faculty are at publishing.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:DS recently graduated from Princeton. One of his main gripes was that he wanted to get to know other college students besides those at his school and he wished that he would've went to Penn instead. So keep in mind that Cornell and Princeton are kind of in their own island so to speak. He did visit NYC often as it's a train ride away, but it's not the same as knowing kids in a closer area. He liked Cornell also, but it's a bit more rural than he was looking for

I'm not sure why your son thinks he would have met kids from other colleges if he'd gone to Penn instead. Most kids at most colleges stick to themselves and Penn is no different. It's also a bigger school. They're not hanging out with Drexel or Temple students.

Colleges isolated in rural/suburban areas can get extremely monotonous and being stuck around the same crowd and culture for 4 years sucks.

Boston has 8+ colleges in the city and right next door. I can certainly understand the want to be around other colleges and city life.

The Ivies really have a tremendous amount going on at their own campuses and most of the kids are busy enough working that they aren’t regretting not meeting kids from other schools. Even the smallest - Dartmouth - has almost 4500 undergraduates.

Sure, but being around the same crowd and culture for four years sucks. There might be a lot going on on campus but it will be among the same crowd and culture. Starts to feel like boarding school.

What an odd perspective. No one at a school with 4500-8000 undergraduates needs to hang out with the “same crowd” for four years. These aren’t New England boarding schools with a few hundred kids.

Not odd, you simply lack reading comprehension. I specifically stated being around the same crowd and culture for four years sucks. That does not mean they are hanging out with the exact same people for 4 years, although that does happen - small colleges in rural areas tend to have very immobile social groups and there's not much of making friends outside of that set social group.
Perhaps you need to get an understanding of what 'culture' means. And schools of 4,000-6,000 do tend to have a uniform culture among their undergraduates, and even more so for colleges in rural areas.

I am not following this disagreement. Perhaps time to let it die.

The other poster does not understand that private colleges of size 4,500-6,000 tend to have a homogenous student body in terms of wealth and upbringing and therefore can have a similar culture.

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Anonymous wrote:DS recently graduated from Princeton. One of his main gripes was that he wanted to get to know other college students besides those at his school and he wished that he would've went to Penn instead. So keep in mind that Cornell and Princeton are kind of in their own island so to speak. He did visit NYC often as it's a train ride away, but it's not the same as knowing kids in a closer area. He liked Cornell also, but it's a bit more rural than he was looking for

I'm not sure why your son thinks he would have met kids from other colleges if he'd gone to Penn instead. Most kids at most colleges stick to themselves and Penn is no different. It's also a bigger school. They're not hanging out with Drexel or Temple students.

Not sure about Philly but my kid’s in Boston and he had friends from lots of different schools.

That wasn’t really my experience. I had some high school friends at other schools in Boston and would occasionally get together with them and their friends, but otherwise I mostly hung out with folks from my own school. Once in a blue moon there would be someone from elsewhere at a party, but it wasn’t wildly common.

Everyone has different experiences.

I'm sure they do. But as someone who went to two Ivies (undergrad, and a resident adviser while grad student at another) I probably have a pretty good understanding of how common it is for students to hang out with students from other universities in the same vicinity. And that it is not common at all. It does happen but it is not common.

First of all, how exactly would you meet students from other colleges to develop friendships where you saw each other on a regular basis? You might get a friend of a friend who comes to visit you for a day or a weekend. But rarely are you going to parties or activities at other campuses. Why would you when there's enough stuff going on at your own campus. Most Ivies are residential with most students living on campus or very close by, it's a bubble unto itself. And there's the pedigree factor too, insomuch as one would like to pretend it doesn't exist - Penn students did not consider Drexel or Temple students "equivalents." Between the heavy workload, the gravity towards your own campus factor, your own set of friends on campus, and the pedigree aspect, there's little incentive to look further afield.

Those that don't fit into the culture of the campus certainly want to meet students from other schools. And regarding pedigree- not everyone is as close-minded as you think. There are certainly those that will hang out with their own small friend group and look down on those from other universities. But there are many that want novelty, diversity and dynamics in their life, especially during college. College was once just an extension of boarding school, but no one wants that anymore.

This seems awfully convoluted (or, stated differently, the PP who spoke to her experience at two Ivies is far more credible).

I'd encourage my kid to look for a school that is a good fit in the first instance, not hedge his or her bets by picking a school in, say, Boston, just so they might be able to hang out with kids from another school if they decided they didn't want to spend time with students at their school any longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This seems awfully convoluted (or, stated differently, the PP who spoke to her experience at two Ivies is far more credible).

I'd encourage my kid to look for a school that is a good fit in the first instance, not hedge his or her bets by picking a school in, say, Boston, just so they might be able to hang out with kids from another school if they decided they didn't want to spend time with students at their school any longer.

Being stuck in the same rural college town of 4000-6000 students gets very old after 1-2 years, especially for college students. You won't figure out 'fit' within one college visit or looking at the school's website.

Its not hedging, its understanding that city life in general provides better opportunities for more activities, regardless of how many 'activities' the school itself sponsors.

Harvard and MIT students have their own campuses and then have access to the entire city of Boston and students from other colleges.

However if you are a quiet student who doesn't do much, certainly you might want small rural school where students in your proximity are forced to become friends with you due to lack of people so you can monopolize their attention. Other students want more options and opportunities in life.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:
This seems awfully convoluted (or, stated differently, the PP who spoke to her experience at two Ivies is far more credible).

I'd encourage my kid to look for a school that is a good fit in the first instance, not hedge his or her bets by picking a school in, say, Boston, just so they might be able to hang out with kids from another school if they decided they didn't want to spend time with students at their school any longer.

Being stuck in the same rural college town of 4000-6000 students gets very old after 1-2 years, especially for college students. You won't figure out 'fit' within one college visit or looking at the school's website.

Its not hedging, its understanding that city life in general provides better opportunities for more activities, regardless of how many 'activities' the school itself sponsors.

Harvard and MIT students have their own campuses and then have access to the entire city of Boston and students from other colleges.

However if you are a quiet student who doesn't do much, certainly you might want small rural school where students in your proximity are forced to become friends with you due to lack of people so you can monopolize their attention. Other students want more options and opportunities in life.

Are you talking from experience or just rambling?

4,000 is a lot of students, in the first place. That's a thousand students per year. It's pretty hard to see a situation where you won't find like minded peers from the same student body. You might have a point about a small, rural LAC with a highly homogeneous student body but not a 4-6k student school regardless of location.

I'm sure there are some students who, for some reason, shun their own college's student body because they didn't fit in for whatever reason, and sought friends and companionship at nearby colleges but they would be the exception, not the rule. And for the top colleges, the rare exception.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This seems awfully convoluted (or, stated differently, the PP who spoke to her experience at two Ivies is far more credible).

I'd encourage my kid to look for a school that is a good fit in the first instance, not hedge his or her bets by picking a school in, say, Boston, just so they might be able to hang out with kids from another school if they decided they didn't want to spend time with students at their school any longer.

Being stuck in the same rural college town of 4000-6000 students gets very old after 1-2 years, especially for college students. You won't figure out 'fit' within one college visit or looking at the school's website.

Its not hedging, its understanding that city life in general provides better opportunities for more activities, regardless of how many 'activities' the school itself sponsors.

Harvard and MIT students have their own campuses and then have access to the entire city of Boston and students from other colleges.

However if you are a quiet student who doesn't do much, certainly you might want small rural school where students in your proximity are forced to become friends with you due to lack of people so you can monopolize their attention. Other students want more options and opportunities in life.

This is insane. I've always been very social and went went to a college of 2400 kids. That was plenty of people to get to know--I found my tribe several times over. Plus there were another 600 kids coming in every year so in my 4 years there were 4200 potential friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This seems awfully convoluted (or, stated differently, the PP who spoke to her experience at two Ivies is far more credible).

I'd encourage my kid to look for a school that is a good fit in the first instance, not hedge his or her bets by picking a school in, say, Boston, just so they might be able to hang out with kids from another school if they decided they didn't want to spend time with students at their school any longer.

Being stuck in the same rural college town of 4000-6000 students gets very old after 1-2 years, especially for college students. You won't figure out 'fit' within one college visit or looking at the school's website.

Its not hedging, its understanding that city life in general provides better opportunities for more activities, regardless of how many 'activities' the school itself sponsors.

Harvard and MIT students have their own campuses and then have access to the entire city of Boston and students from other colleges.

However if you are a quiet student who doesn't do much, certainly you might want small rural school where students in your proximity are forced to become friends with you due to lack of people so you can monopolize their attention. Other students want more options and opportunities in life.

Are you talking from experience or just rambling?

4,000 is a lot of students, in the first place. That's a thousand students per year. It's pretty hard to see a situation where you won't find like minded peers from the same student body. You might have a point about a small, rural LAC with a highly homogeneous student body but not a 4-6k student school regardless of location.

I'm sure there are some students who, for some reason, shun their own college's student body because they didn't fit in for whatever reason, and sought friends and companionship at nearby colleges but they would be the exception, not the rule. And for the top colleges, the rare exception.

First of all, you seem like you attended a large state school, so I'm struggling to see why you are commenting on student bodies of 4000-6000 students in rural areas.

It's not about peer groups. Its about culture. How is this so hard to understand? Schools, especially top ones, with 4000-6000 student have a homogenous student culture. Students are generally all from the same upper-middle class suburban upbringing. Similar students attend the school as they have similar interests and the school tends to have certain strengths i.e. humanities. Having other universities in the vicinity is therefore very beneficial because those other schools tend to have different student bodies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This seems awfully convoluted (or, stated differently, the PP who spoke to her experience at two Ivies is far more credible).

I'd encourage my kid to look for a school that is a good fit in the first instance, not hedge his or her bets by picking a school in, say, Boston, just so they might be able to hang out with kids from another school if they decided they didn't want to spend time with students at their school any longer.

Being stuck in the same rural college town of 4000-6000 students gets very old after 1-2 years, especially for college students. You won't figure out 'fit' within one college visit or looking at the school's website.

Its not hedging, its understanding that city life in general provides better opportunities for more activities, regardless of how many 'activities' the school itself sponsors.

Harvard and MIT students have their own campuses and then have access to the entire city of Boston and students from other colleges.

However if you are a quiet student who doesn't do much, certainly you might want small rural school where students in your proximity are forced to become friends with you due to lack of people so you can monopolize their attention. Other students want more options and opportunities in life.

This is insane. I've always been very social and went went to a college of 2400 kids. That was plenty of people to get to know--I found my tribe several times over. Plus there were another 600 kids coming in every year so in my 4 years there were 4200 potential friends.

Again, this is not about friend groups. It's about the school culture. Everyone attending school of 4000-6000 students tend to have a similar culture. That culture gets boring quickly for dynamics students that want novelty and excitement. There's only so many frat parties with the same kinds of people - not the same people, the same kinds of people - that you can attend before it gets boring.
You can join a different friend group and they might all be the exact same essentially, because you are still limited by the culture of the school.

[Anonymous]

When you find yourself in a hole, PP, stop digging. Your arguments about the vast superiority of attending school in a city like Boston may appeal to a handful of posters. That's why some urban schools thrive. But they'll largely fall flat on the majority of people, whose own experiences don't square with your characterizations at all. And it won't help your cause if you respond to them by making assumptions about where they attended school or whether they are intellectually curious or not.

In any event, you now seem to have focused your arguments on what you think life is like at rural colleges or universities with 4000-6000 students, which does not describe Columbia, Cornell, or Princeton. Each of these universities has more than 6000 students on campus, taking graduate students into account, and only Cornell could be described as rural, although Ithaca provides some additional small-town amenities beyond those on the Cornell campus.

[Anonymous]

Unlike Princeton, no one will hold your hand at Columbia or Cornell. It is a pretty brutal environment but some kids thrive in it. If you are independent and can handle setbacks just fine, go ahead with Columbia or Cornell. Princeton is amazing but some kids hate the suburban sheltered setting and find the social climate very off putting. A kid who can get into these schools is capable enough to make their choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unlike Princeton, no one will hold your hand at Columbia or Cornell. It is a pretty brutal environment but some kids thrive in it. If you are independent and can handle setbacks just fine, go ahead with Columbia or Cornell. Princeton is amazing but some kids hate the suburban sheltered setting and find the social climate very off putting. A kid who can get into these schools is capable enough to make their choice.

There is not much hand-holding at Princeton. Entry-level classes can be fairly large, it is academically rigorous, and there are more requirements for independent projects, including junior papers and the senior thesis, than at many schools.

The primary differences are in the setting and the sheer amount of resources made available to individual students. If someone has an issue with the social climate at Princeton, they might also have issues with the fraternities and sororities at Cornell or groups like St. Anthony's Hall at Columbia. It's actually easier to know in NYC than at Princeton or Cornell which kids come from rich families and can drop loads of money without blinking an eye.

[Anonymous]

This needs to be repeated.

Turn down Cornell, my DC is on the wait list there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This seems awfully convoluted (or, stated differently, the PP who spoke to her experience at two Ivies is far more credible).

I'd encourage my kid to look for a school that is a good fit in the first instance, not hedge his or her bets by picking a school in, say, Boston, just so they might be able to hang out with kids from another school if they decided they didn't want to spend time with students at their school any longer.

Being stuck in the same rural college town of 4000-6000 students gets very old after 1-2 years, especially for college students. You won't figure out 'fit' within one college visit or looking at the school's website.

Its not hedging, its understanding that city life in general provides better opportunities for more activities, regardless of how many 'activities' the school itself sponsors.

Harvard and MIT students have their own campuses and then have access to the entire city of Boston and students from other colleges.

However if you are a quiet student who doesn't do much, certainly you might want small rural school where students in your proximity are forced to become friends with you due to lack of people so you can monopolize their attention. Other students want more options and opportunities in life.

Are you talking from experience or just rambling?

4,000 is a lot of students, in the first place. That's a thousand students per year. It's pretty hard to see a situation where you won't find like minded peers from the same student body. You might have a point about a small, rural LAC with a highly homogeneous student body but not a 4-6k student school regardless of location.

I'm sure there are some students who, for some reason, shun their own college's student body because they didn't fit in for whatever reason, and sought friends and companionship at nearby colleges but they would be the exception, not the rule. And for the top colleges, the rare exception.

First of all, you seem like you attended a large state school, so I'm struggling to see why you are commenting on student bodies of 4000-6000 students in rural areas.

It's not about peer groups. Its about culture. How is this so hard to understand? Schools, especially top ones, with 4000-6000 student have a homogenous student culture. Students are generally all from the same upper-middle class suburban upbringing. Similar students attend the school as they have similar interests and the school tends to have certain strengths i.e. humanities. Having other universities in the vicinity is therefore very beneficial because those other schools tend to have different student bodies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This seems awfully convoluted (or, stated differently, the PP who spoke to her experience at two Ivies is far more credible).

I'd encourage my kid to look for a school that is a good fit in the first instance, not hedge his or her bets by picking a school in, say, Boston, just so they might be able to hang out with kids from another school if they decided they didn't want to spend time with students at their school any longer.

Being stuck in the same rural college town of 4000-6000 students gets very old after 1-2 years, especially for college students. You won't figure out 'fit' within one college visit or looking at the school's website.

Its not hedging, its understanding that city life in general provides better opportunities for more activities, regardless of how many 'activities' the school itself sponsors.

Harvard and MIT students have their own campuses and then have access to the entire city of Boston and students from other colleges.

However if you are a quiet student who doesn't do much, certainly you might want small rural school where students in your proximity are forced to become friends with you due to lack of people so you can monopolize their attention. Other students want more options and opportunities in life.

This is insane. I've always been very social and went went to a college of 2400 kids. That was plenty of people to get to know--I found my tribe several times over. Plus there were another 600 kids coming in every year so in my 4 years there were 4200 potential friends.

Again, this is not about friend groups. It's about the school culture. Everyone attending school of 4000-6000 students tend to have a similar culture. That culture gets boring quickly for dynamics students that want novelty and excitement. There's only so many frat parties with the same kinds of people - not the same people, the same kinds of people - that you can attend before it gets boring.
You can join a different friend group and they might all be the exact same essentially, because you are still limited by the culture of the school.

Cornell has anything but a homogeneous student population. The 15k undergraduates are incredibly diverse - MANY different cultures, activities, and academic pursuits (“I would an institution where any person can find instruction in any study”).

Cornell students face many challenges - boredom isn’t one of them. 😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you find yourself in a hole, PP, stop digging. Your arguments about the vast superiority of attending school in a city like Boston may appeal to a handful of posters. That's why some urban schools thrive. But they'll largely fall flat on the majority of people, whose own experiences don't square with your characterizations at all. And it won't help your cause if you respond to them by making assumptions about where they attended school or whether they are intellectually curious or not.

In any event, you now seem to have focused your arguments on what you think life is like at rural colleges or universities with 4000-6000 students, which does not describe Columbia, Cornell, or Princeton. Each of these universities has more than 6000 students on campus, taking graduate students into account, and only Cornell could be described as rural, although Ithaca provides some additional small-town amenities beyond those on the Cornell campus.

No, my argument is regarding small colleges in both rural and suburban areas.

No one is taking graduate students into account, and my posts are not entirely about Princeton/Columbia/Cornell solely.
Its about Princeton's suburban, sheltered setting that many students will find boring after 2 years.
Columbia is in the city
Cornell is a large school

I did not say that attending urban schools is 'vastly' superior, at any point - you are again making random assumptions based on your personal sensitivities and perhaps insecurities having attended a suburban/rural school. I specifically argued that many students will want to congregate and meet with students from other universities while they are at college, rather than being sheltered in a boarding school-like environment for 4 years. Perhaps you like that sort of lifestyle, many don't.

And neither are Boston College, MIT, Harvard, etc. hyper "urban" schools like NYU - they have their own campuses within the larger city - it's simply that if the students chooses, they have the option to explore wider. Those in small suburban and rural colleges don't have that option at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you find yourself in a hole, PP, stop digging. Your arguments about the vast superiority of attending school in a city like Boston may appeal to a handful of posters. That's why some urban schools thrive. But they'll largely fall flat on the majority of people, whose own experiences don't square with your characterizations at all. And it won't help your cause if you respond to them by making assumptions about where they attended school or whether they are intellectually curious or not.

In any event, you now seem to have focused your arguments on what you think life is like at rural colleges or universities with 4000-6000 students, which does not describe Columbia, Cornell, or Princeton. Each of these universities has more than 6000 students on campus, taking graduate students into account, and only Cornell could be described as rural, although Ithaca provides some additional small-town amenities beyond those on the Cornell campus.

No, my argument is regarding small colleges in both rural and suburban areas.

No one is taking graduate students into account, and my posts are not entirely about Princeton/Columbia/Cornell solely.
Its about Princeton's suburban, sheltered setting that many students will find boring after 2 years.
Columbia is in the city
Cornell is a large school

I did not say that attending urban schools is 'vastly' superior, at any point - you are again making random assumptions based on your personal sensitivities and perhaps insecurities having attended a suburban/rural school. I specifically argued that many students will want to congregate and meet with students from other universities while they are at college, rather than being sheltered in a boarding school-like environment for 4 years. Perhaps you like that sort of lifestyle, many don't.

And neither are Boston College, MIT, Harvard, etc. hyper "urban" schools like NYU - they have their own campuses within the larger city - it's simply that if the students chooses, they have the option to explore wider. Those in small suburban and rural colleges don't have that option at all.

And some don’t want campuses emptied out by that same phenomenon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unlike Princeton, no one will hold your hand at Columbia or Cornell. It is a pretty brutal environment but some kids thrive in it. If you are independent and can handle setbacks just fine, go ahead with Columbia or Cornell. Princeton is amazing but some kids hate the suburban sheltered setting and find the social climate very off putting. A kid who can get into these schools is capable enough to make their choice.

There is not much hand-holding at Princeton. Entry-level classes can be fairly large, it is academically rigorous, and there are more requirements for independent projects, including junior papers and the senior thesis, than at many schools.

The primary differences are in the setting and the sheer amount of resources made available to individual students. If someone has an issue with the social climate at Princeton, they might also have issues with the fraternities and sororities at Cornell or groups like St. Anthony's Hall at Columbia. It's actually easier to know in NYC than at Princeton or Cornell which kids come from rich families and can drop loads of money without blinking an eye.

Ha. There are no ”other groups” like St A’s at Columbia, and the only people who joined St A’s when I was there were the trust fund babies — the kind who went off to suites at the Carlyle when stress was getting them down.

In short, belonging to St A’s wasn’t really desirable, nor did it give you a social boost outside a very small circle.