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These are the two colleges I'm choosing between (Also got into Cornell and Binghamton).
My parents are fairly well off, and are leaning toward Columbia.
I'm kind of sure I want to be an engineer, but not definite.

Opinions?
Stats, since I'm sure you all wanna know:
SAT I: 800M/690V
SAT2: 800 IIC
800 Bio-M
750 Chem
Rank: 2/370- This is a school that received two harvard acceptances, three columbia (FOUR waitlist! weird...), MIT, Stanford, two Tufts, few Cornell, Duke, Dartmouth etc. this year (I'm not good at gauging competitiveness, so you decide)
GPA: 101.something (5% weight for honors, 10% for AP)

AP:
5- Bio, 5-Chem, 4- Writing, 4- US History, 4-Euro History, 4 Calc BC (5 AB subscore) (Four more APs this year)

Asian male

EC:
Captain of Math Team
Captain of Science Olympiad
Captain of Academic League
President of Math Honors Society, VP of English
Columbia SHP for three years
Jazz band (not anymore)
Student Advisory Council and Golf (I really suck! lol), although I started this year and put neither on my applications I believe
Volunteer at Nursing home
Volunteer via various church activities

By Rosarosaef (Rosarosaef) on Friday, April 04, 2003 - 09:49 pm: Edit

i take it that you're a new york kid. five years from now, if you walk into some office in kansas city looking for a job with columbia on your resume, they'll be impressed. but you're not going to do that, are you? you're going to look for a job in nyc and everyone here knows that 'columbia fu' can't hold a candle to cooper union. but that's not the problem. the problem, as you know, is that it's a little late to say that "i'm kind of sure i want to be an engineer, but not definite". what else are you going to study at either of those places??? get your ass up to cornell if you need to find yourself. but before you do that, let me tell you something: cooper union is a real hot item for what ever you want to do. get the engineering degree there. you can go straight to wall street and make a pile if that's what you want to do. besides, the campus is beautiful (well... it's downtown, but do you really care?). no, coop's only problem is that its focus is narrow, but so is columbia fu's. and you're not going to wall street and "fu'll" them about columbia.
i speak in generalities but i generally know about what i speak. regardless, you are in a good position. don't worry about relatives in the old country who only know columbia & harvard. let your parents worry about them (with the money they save, they ought to be quite happy). and you should be happy, too. congratulations on all your acceptances. my talk is cheap... go where you want to go. best of luck to you.

By Cornellian07 (Cornellian07) on Friday, April 04, 2003 - 10:09 pm: Edit

I agree with the last poster. If you want to be an engineer, and want name recognition outside of New York City, then go to Cornell, since money doesn't seem to be an issue for you.

By Quidditch424 (Quidditch424) on Monday, April 07, 2003 - 05:02 pm: Edit

Cooper Union. I'm sorry but as far as engineering goes, this is the place definately.

By Jeffl (Jeffl) on Saturday, April 12, 2003 - 10:14 am: Edit

i've visited all these places and applied only to columbia ED, thats because i live in NYC and didn't think my chances at cornell would be too great. I ended up getting rejected anyway. I would pick cornell over columbia and cooper union. my Stats teacher went to cooper (huge turnoff, i know)and said that most people there are very interested in engineering and are definite about pursuing engineering. Cooper doesn't have as many research opportunities as cornell or columbia. and you'll be stuck there if you decide to do anything else besides engineering. There isn't much of a social life, not only b/c its a geeky school, but just because there is no real campus. i don;t think you'll like it if you want a college experience.
Cornell is great at practically everything, and its campus is beautiful, food is heaven, dorms are a bit tiny, but most people can live w/ it. Engineering is as good as it gets in the ivy league and i think us news ranks it number 7 in the nation for engineering. There is definitely a lot of school spirit. Hockey is huge there.
Columbia Fu Foundation school of engineering is probably one of the better engineering schools in the ivy league, but definitely no where near cornell's level. the engineering school is really small, and thats not a desirable thing if you want to go into engineering and do research at the undergrad level.
I applied to columbia for Biomedical engineering, i believe thats their strongest program by far and most competitive, after that it would be electrical engineering. the graduate rankings of their BME program is 13th nationally, and the program is pretty new. The best thing about columbia is that, like cornell its great at everything, but unlike cornell, it would be extremely difficult to transfer to columbia college.
definitely visit these schools if you can, everyone i know who goes there absolutely love cornell! Hope i've helped!

By Localmooer (Localmooer) on Saturday, April 12, 2003 - 09:35 pm: Edit

Thanks with the responses
I'm going with Columbia

Reasons:
I'd rather take a fair amount of humanities courses... tada! a core!

Cooper union's lack of a campus and guaranteed housing after freshman year equals bleh

I heard that Cornell isn't too flexible with taking courses from other schools, can anyone tell me the limit on what you can take? (I have a friend- CS major, who couldn't take this French course he wanted unless he moved from the engineering school to A and S)

By Voldemortii (Voldemortii) on Sunday, July 13, 2003 - 12:27 am: Edit

Too bad you are not going to cooper....no matter what other people say, i still consider cooper the best ><(yay..cooper, i luv u!)...cuz im going there and i love everyhing thing about cooper...especially the people there, they are super nice....plus, who will reject a free education..at least i won't ..nothing is better than going to a great school without spending over $40000 a year..