How to pick between Columbia, Cornell or Princeton?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

I agree. Students will have different preferences.

But there was a poster who was saying that wanting other universities in the area to have bigger social circles was unheard of. My argument has been that many students want other universities in an area to have a more dynamic and novel social opportunities. Different strokes.

Yeah. It's called hypothetical in my mind fantasy rather than reality.

Kids don't go to BU or BC or Northeastern on the off chance they can hang out with Harvard students. They may say Boston is a cool place with lots of college kids but what it means is more bars for them to go to, not meeting students from other colleges. And they really don't go out of the campus safety zone for the allure of "grown up" bars till junior, or more realistically, senior year. The one exception would be political years with students volunteering on various presidential campaigns because outside that there really aren't venues for students from various colleges to come together and meet each other, if they were so inclined.

If you're the same poster talking about 4-6k student body being too small and homogeneous, that's a sizable enough student body to have all the cliques from the jocks to the druggies.

Agree with this. There are a handful of situations where students may pick a school with the goal of studying and/or socializing with students from other schools. The best examples are the U. Mass consortium (U. Mass, Hampshire, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith) or the Claremont Colleges in CA (Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, and Scripps). But BU kids picking Boston so they can meet Harvard kids, or Harvard kids looking to hang out with Babson students? Nope.

Wait, so you agree entirely with my argument that college kids want to have the option to hang out with students from other nearby colleges? That going to a college consortium like the Claremont Colleges in better than going to an isolated SLAC in a rural/suburban area?

You don't think Harvard kids would hang out with MIT kids? Or that Northeastern, Boston University and Boston College kids would hang out together?
You realize that Harvard kids can take courses at MIT and vice versa? And that being next to multiple excellent colleges is better than being next to none?

You yourself argued that college kids would prefer to live next to other universities rather than middle-aged families and barns.
If you were a college kid, would you rather

For someone who has challenged other posters' reading comprehension and intellect, you seem to be lacking in both, if that's the inference you are drawing from the prior post.

And why are going on about Harvard? OP's kid didn't even apply there.

No, I have questioned your reading comprehension and intellect in particular as you don't seem to understand a very simple argument. And of course, you don't actually respond to the argument as you have none.

Boston has been used throughout this thread as an example on the benefits of having multiple universities in close proximity. Harvard is one of the multiple colleges in Boston. Are you having trouble following this rather simple discussion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You're the only person talking about a suburban versus urban context and arguing that everyone else is stuck in a suburban mindset

We are more realistic than you. It doesn't matter whether the school is urban or suburban or rural. For the nation's top colleges (consider all the top 50 universities and LACs) the vast, vast, vast majority of students will be very much focused on their own college and their campus and will develop friendships with students from their own college. This is true of Bowdoin or Dartmouth or Hamilton or Cornell or Harvard or Brown or Penn or Princeton or Hopkins or Georgetown or UVA. These are intense four year academic experiences. These students aren't going to have much opportunity or even interest in reaching out to students from other colleges. Take Penn. Philadelphia has more college students than Boston. Penn has Drexel right next door. Do Penn students hang out with Drexel students? No. They do not. Sometimes friends of friends from high school who's at Drexel might come to an off campus party, but that's about it. And Drexel students don't hang out with Temple students.

I'm sure you can find the exceptions. I can think a few. Very religious groups can have overlapping friendships through quasi-off campus religious facilities. The super rich kids all know each other and shuttle between Philadelphia and NYC for their parties but to be strictly fair the colleges aren't their purpose in life or source for networking. But for your typical college kids, his or her social life and academic experience will be very much focused on their campus.

Do you think MIT students hang out with Harvard students? Do you think the proximity of the two colleges is an advantage to the student population of those two colleges?
What about the Claremont Consortium, do you think the proximity of those colleges is an advantage to the student population of those colleges, over isolated rural/suburban SLACs?

Having multiple colleges in near proximity is an absolute advantage. Many students will take advantage of the opportunity, some won't. That doesn't change the fact that objectively, having multiple colleges in close proximity is better than having no colleges nearby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You're the only person talking about a suburban versus urban context and arguing that everyone else is stuck in a suburban mindset

We are more realistic than you. It doesn't matter whether the school is urban or suburban or rural. For the nation's top colleges (consider all the top 50 universities and LACs) the vast, vast, vast majority of students will be very much focused on their own college and their campus and will develop friendships with students from their own college. This is true of Bowdoin or Dartmouth or Hamilton or Cornell or Harvard or Brown or Penn or Princeton or Hopkins or Georgetown or UVA. These are intense four year academic experiences. These students aren't going to have much opportunity or even interest in reaching out to students from other colleges. Take Penn. Philadelphia has more college students than Boston. Penn has Drexel right next door. Do Penn students hang out with Drexel students? No. They do not. Sometimes friends of friends from high school who's at Drexel might come to an off campus party, but that's about it. And Drexel students don't hang out with Temple students.

I'm sure you can find the exceptions. I can think a few. Very religious groups can have overlapping friendships through quasi-off campus religious facilities. The super rich kids all know each other and shuttle between Philadelphia and NYC for their parties but to be strictly fair the colleges aren't their purpose in life or source for networking. But for your typical college kids, his or her social life and academic experience will be very much focused on their campus.

Do you think MIT students hang out with Harvard students? Do you think the proximity of the two colleges is an advantage to the student population of those two colleges?
What about the Claremont Consortium, do you think the proximity of those colleges is an advantage to the student population of those colleges, over isolated rural/suburban SLACs?

Having multiple colleges in near proximity is an absolute advantage. Many students will take advantage of the opportunity, some won't. That doesn't change the fact that objectively, having multiple colleges in close proximity is better than having no colleges nearby.

Are you really contending that kids should be turning down Princeton or Yale because they could go to Amherst and possibly take a class at U. Mass or meet someone from Smith? About 80% of kids with a choice will pick Princeton over Amherst, and that percentage goes up to 84% for Yale. Swap Harvey Mudd for Amherst, and the strong preference for Princeton and Yale would remain.

Note that, if they were so inclined, Princeton students could hang out with students from the College of New Jersey, and Yale students could hang out with students with the University of New Haven or Southern Connecticut. It does not happen with any frequency, nor is the undergraduate experience at Princeton and Yale diminished as a result. There is plenty to do at both schools and the kids have active, busy lives.

I think you're left suggesting that a consortium of SLACs that includes a school like Amherst or Harvey Mudd might be more appealing to many students than, say, Kenyon. But even that has more to do with the perceived prestige of the SLAC than its location, as students with a choice prefer Williams - the epitome of a SLAC in a rural location - over either Amherst or Harvey Mudd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

I agree. Students will have different preferences.

But there was a poster who was saying that wanting other universities in the area to have bigger social circles was unheard of. My argument has been that many students want other universities in an area to have a more dynamic and novel social opportunities. Different strokes.

Yeah. It's called hypothetical in my mind fantasy rather than reality.

Kids don't go to BU or BC or Northeastern on the off chance they can hang out with Harvard students. They may say Boston is a cool place with lots of college kids but what it means is more bars for them to go to, not meeting students from other colleges. And they really don't go out of the campus safety zone for the allure of "grown up" bars till junior, or more realistically, senior year. The one exception would be political years with students volunteering on various presidential campaigns because outside that there really aren't venues for students from various colleges to come together and meet each other, if they were so inclined.

If you're the same poster talking about 4-6k student body being too small and homogeneous, that's a sizable enough student body to have all the cliques from the jocks to the druggies.

You flat out contradict your own point within the 2nd line of your post. It means more bars, clubs, organizations outside of campus, networking, etc. etc.
If you can't fathom the idea that Boston is an attractive place to attend school because it has 8+ universities, rather than a small college in Podunk, you are a moron with a very limited view of the world. It's why schools in urban, dynamic environments are getting more popular than cities in rural and suburban environments.

If you want to start calling people names, by all means go ahead and do so with the knowledge that it's not going to win people to your cause.

Bolded above - you really think this happens? Going to BU so that you can network with MIT or Babson students in the bars? What clubs or organizations outside campus do you reasonably think attracts meaningful numbers of kids from a variety of colleges that allows them to develop meaningful friendships?

I do agree kids can be attracted to the notion of a buzz provided by a city with a large number of college kids but that does not translate into developing a broad social network of friends from other colleges that you prefer over a social life that revolves around your own college. The vast majority of students at the schools we're talking about on this thread will very much be focused on their own campuses. Any applicant thinking of going to a Boston school over a different school in the hopes of developing friendships with students from different colleges really has no idea what he or she is getting into.

+1

[Anonymous]

No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

[Anonymous]

This is certainly true among graduate students and professors where MIT/Harvard/Boston University/Tufts are on more equal footing and can collaborate in research. To a lesser extent, it's true in the Research Triangle with Duke, UNC, and NC State.
For undergraduates, its definitely true between Harvard and MIT considering they are right next to each other and take classes at each other's institutions.

And its very obviously true for undergraduates among the Claremont Colleges

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You're the only person talking about a suburban versus urban context and arguing that everyone else is stuck in a suburban mindset

We are more realistic than you. It doesn't matter whether the school is urban or suburban or rural. For the nation's top colleges (consider all the top 50 universities and LACs) the vast, vast, vast majority of students will be very much focused on their own college and their campus and will develop friendships with students from their own college. This is true of Bowdoin or Dartmouth or Hamilton or Cornell or Harvard or Brown or Penn or Princeton or Hopkins or Georgetown or UVA. These are intense four year academic experiences. These students aren't going to have much opportunity or even interest in reaching out to students from other colleges. Take Penn. Philadelphia has more college students than Boston. Penn has Drexel right next door. Do Penn students hang out with Drexel students? No. They do not. Sometimes friends of friends from high school who's at Drexel might come to an off campus party, but that's about it. And Drexel students don't hang out with Temple students.

I'm sure you can find the exceptions. I can think a few. Very religious groups can have overlapping friendships through quasi-off campus religious facilities. The super rich kids all know each other and shuttle between Philadelphia and NYC for their parties but to be strictly fair the colleges aren't their purpose in life or source for networking. But for your typical college kids, his or her social life and academic experience will be very much focused on their campus.

Do you think MIT students hang out with Harvard students? Do you think the proximity of the two colleges is an advantage to the student population of those two colleges?
What about the Claremont Consortium, do you think the proximity of those colleges is an advantage to the student population of those colleges, over isolated rural/suburban SLACs?

Having multiple colleges in near proximity is an absolute advantage. Many students will take advantage of the opportunity, some won't. That doesn't change the fact that objectively, having multiple colleges in close proximity is better than having no colleges nearby.

I get the impression you have a Hollywood vision of a bright and eager kid going off to Boston and falling into a crowd of bright and eager kids from a bunch of colleges and all hanging out at their favorite dive bar all the time. It's practically a sitcom (any scriptwriters reading this, please send my royalties to [e-mail]).

What I have done, and others too, is to patently try to explain why this vision rarely becomes reality. I'm sure you can find a kid who went to X college and became good friends with students from a range of schools. But it's not something a high school kid should reasonably expect to happen or base his college decisions on. Most college kids are focused on their college and their college experience. Not other colleges. The whys are quite simple. Even Harvard students don't hang out regularly with MIT students. Two very different schools with quite different student bodies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

Let's help you out again; per the OP "Did not apply to Harvard, Yale, Brown or Dartmouth. Waitlisted at UPenn."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is certainly true among graduate students and professors where MIT/Harvard/Boston University/Tufts are on more equal footing and can collaborate in research. To a lesser extent, it's true in the Research Triangle with Duke, UNC, and NC State.
For undergraduates, its definitely true between Harvard and MIT considering they are right next to each other and take classes at each other's institutions.

And its very obviously true for undergraduates among the Claremont Colleges

How about Princeton/Rutgers? Cornell/Ithaca College? Columbia/NYU?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is certainly true among graduate students and professors where MIT/Harvard/Boston University/Tufts are on more equal footing and can collaborate in research. To a lesser extent, it's true in the Research Triangle with Duke, UNC, and NC State.
For undergraduates, its definitely true between Harvard and MIT considering they are right next to each other and take classes at each other's institutions.

And its very obviously true for undergraduates among the Claremont Colleges

How about Princeton/Rutgers? Cornell/Ithaca College? Columbia/NYU?

Columbia and NYU kids rarely hang out together or attend the same events unless friends already knew each other

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

Let's help you out again; per the OP "Did not apply to Harvard, Yale, Brown or Dartmouth. Waitlisted at UPenn."

Let's help you out again: The argument is regarding isolated suburban colleges and non-isolated urban colleges. Do I need to connect the dots for you or are you a big enough girl to get it now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is certainly true among graduate students and professors where MIT/Harvard/Boston University/Tufts are on more equal footing and can collaborate in research. To a lesser extent, it's true in the Research Triangle with Duke, UNC, and NC State.
For undergraduates, its definitely true between Harvard and MIT considering they are right next to each other and take classes at each other's institutions.

And its very obviously true for undergraduates among the Claremont Colleges

How about Princeton/Rutgers? Cornell/Ithaca College? Columbia/NYU?

Rutgers is not close to Princeton.
Columbia and NYU definitely for both undergrads, grads and professors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

Let's help you out again; per the OP "Did not apply to Harvard, Yale, Brown or Dartmouth. Waitlisted at UPenn."

Let's help you out again: The argument is regarding isolated suburban colleges and non-isolated urban colleges. Do I need to connect the dots for you or are you a big enough girl to get it now?

Such a shame you can't articulate your argument either clearly or consistently. You aren't helping yourself, much less the OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You're the only person talking about a suburban versus urban context and arguing that everyone else is stuck in a suburban mindset

We are more realistic than you. It doesn't matter whether the school is urban or suburban or rural. For the nation's top colleges (consider all the top 50 universities and LACs) the vast, vast, vast majority of students will be very much focused on their own college and their campus and will develop friendships with students from their own college. This is true of Bowdoin or Dartmouth or Hamilton or Cornell or Harvard or Brown or Penn or Princeton or Hopkins or Georgetown or UVA. These are intense four year academic experiences. These students aren't going to have much opportunity or even interest in reaching out to students from other colleges. Take Penn. Philadelphia has more college students than Boston. Penn has Drexel right next door. Do Penn students hang out with Drexel students? No. They do not. Sometimes friends of friends from high school who's at Drexel might come to an off campus party, but that's about it. And Drexel students don't hang out with Temple students.

I'm sure you can find the exceptions. I can think a few. Very religious groups can have overlapping friendships through quasi-off campus religious facilities. The super rich kids all know each other and shuttle between Philadelphia and NYC for their parties but to be strictly fair the colleges aren't their purpose in life or source for networking. But for your typical college kids, his or her social life and academic experience will be very much focused on their campus.

Do you think MIT students hang out with Harvard students? Do you think the proximity of the two colleges is an advantage to the student population of those two colleges?
What about the Claremont Consortium, do you think the proximity of those colleges is an advantage to the student population of those colleges, over isolated rural/suburban SLACs?

Having multiple colleges in near proximity is an absolute advantage. Many students will take advantage of the opportunity, some won't. That doesn't change the fact that objectively, having multiple colleges in close proximity is better than having no colleges nearby.

I get the impression you have a Hollywood vision of a bright and eager kid going off to Boston and falling into a crowd of bright and eager kids from a bunch of colleges and all hanging out at their favorite dive bar all the time. It's practically a sitcom (any scriptwriters reading this, please send my royalties to [e-mail]).

What I have done, and others too, is to patently try to explain why this vision rarely becomes reality. I'm sure you can find a kid who went to X college and became good friends with students from a range of schools. But it's not something a high school kid should reasonably expect to happen or base his college decisions on. Most college kids are focused on their college and their college experience. Not other colleges. The whys are quite simple. Even Harvard students don't hang out regularly with MIT students. Two very different schools with quite different student bodies.

Do MIT and Harvard kids take the same courses and take part in the same organizations or not? Perhaps after you answer that question, you will finally figure out what the conversation on this thread has been about.

Answer: Yes, they do. Harvard has a weaker engineering program and the proximity and collaboration programs allows Harvard SEAS students to take part in both MIT courses, undergrad research projects and engineering organizations/clubs.

Even Harvard students don't hang out regularly with MIT students. Two very different schools with quite different student bodies.

This is such a sheltered soccer mom assessment, it's pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

There is location preference. But although Princeton has largely been at the top of USNWR rankings for the past decade, most just aren't going to turn down Harvard (or Stanford and probably Yale) for Princeton.