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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What is school of general studies columbia?

The School of General Studies is Columbia’s college for nontraditional students who want to earn a degree while attending full- or part-time. Nontraditional students have had a break of one year or more in their educational...

They aren’t considered transfer students by Columbia, but take classes alongside students from the other colleges at Columbia.

In other words, transfer students.  Just another way Columbia plays the USNWR game into an elevated, and overrated ranking.  Columbia is not HYPSM and no amount of manipulation is going to change that fact.

[/quote]

"Because the average age of GS students is 26, they usually have 8 to 10 more years of experience in life than traditional college students. That means that diversity at Columbia is not only measured by ethnicity and gender, but also by experience and maturity—a maturity we find leads to great academic success. At GS, you'll join a community of students who after graduation go on to pursue advanced degrees and lead stimulating professional lives."

While a portion of Columbia GS students are transfer students, the criteria of nontraditional students extend beyond that to student veterans and others who had interruptions in their educational careers. The presence of GS students (integrated in classes unlike Harvard Extension) makes the experience for Columbia College and Engineering students a very unique one. If a potential CC/SEAS applicant believes that a college environment with classmates that have vastly different life experiences is ideal, that is great. If not, that is fine too; there are many other great options out there. What is not right is to assume that these non-traditional students are inferior to CC/SEAS students; their acceptance rate is higher, but that is mostly due to self-selection, as not many 26 year olds would think about going to college. In fact, their GPA averages are higher than CC students.

It may be argued that Columbia is manipulating their data when they don't put in GS admissions statistics along with the CC/SEAS data. However, the higher acceptance rate and lower SAT score average that would result from this would be misleading because those who are eligible to apply to CC/SEAS are usually ineligible to apply to GS. Moreover, USNWR recently stopped using acceptance rates in their methodology.

If anything, integrating GS students and giving many a second chance to receive a world-class liberal arts education should be perceived as being an inclusive program to those who may not have had the privilege in their childhood to worry about taking 15 AP classes and making a non-profit and whatnot. [/quote]

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