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Why don't more people apply here? It seems they interview 1 in 5, but only get about 5200 applicants...and it's ivy and all...
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Why don't more people apply to Colunbia
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I could never get in. 
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i plan on applying there, my top 3....idk what the point of this thread is though
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What are you talking about? Plenty of people apply to Columbia.
1. The applicant group is very self selective. People who have no chance aren't going to apply. The admissions committee is very biased for people who went to ivy undergrad, top 20, elite LAC. If you don't belong to one of those groups, you really don't have much of a chance no matter how good you are. If you want proof, just take a look at their student lists when you interview. You'll be hard pressed to find one person who doesn't fall into one of those categories.
2. As somebody mentioned before, the area is not nice at all. Its all the way up at 168th street and kind of far away from everything interesting in the city. The area and patient population is predominantly spanish speaking dominican which is a plus or minus depending on what you're looking for. If you're looking for the "proper" NYC med school experience, look at Cornell, NYU, or Mt. Sinai
3. Ivy med schools don't mean nearly as much for med school as they did for undergrad (and they don't mean much there either). The only 4 ivies that I would consider supertops are Harvard, UPenn, Columbia and possibly Yale. Plenty of state and private med schools have as good a reputation as the other ivy med schools.
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ummm what?
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This probably isn't the case any more, but no so long ago, Columbia was one of the schools that did not participate in AMCAS. I imagine that several people decided not to apply once they realized they had to fill out a separate primary application.
Aside from that, I agree that it's a competitive school and applicants probably weeded themselves down.
Aside from that, I agree that it's a competitive school and applicants probably weeded themselves down.
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In the MSAR for 2010-2011 the Columbia acceptance stats don't look that High but its still an Ivy League so i would assume the poster before me is right with them wanting to keep it in the family (Ivy League)
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The best reason for attending a top school is research and the possibility of matching into their residency program. Most schools take their own and Ivies are no different(in fact they do it more). So basically your best chance of matching into MGH is going to Harvard.
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yeah dude those damn ferners and ill-e-gals. takin all them US of A jobs.
ps - sage you are a ******.
Its out of the reach for most applicants. With 40,000 med school applicants, half of whom will eventually get in nowhere, realistically not that many applicants have a shot at Columbia.
BTW, MSAR's applicant numbers is greater than Columbia's website, likely due to a percentage of applicants who don't do the secondary.
mmmcdowe
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According to my MSAR, more people apply to Columbia than Harvard. 6000ish applicants seems to be a pretty decent number anywhere. Also, even though they interview 1/5, the only accept 300 or so students, so its not like they are a walk in the park to get into.
1) O Rly? I guess that I better tell Columbia that I can't come and that they must have made a mistake by accepting this lowly public schooler! I'm flattered that I beat the apparently unbeatable odds of getting into Columbia without a fancy degree
2) How is that different than going to a school that has a mostly black, white, asian, poor, rich, urban, rural, etc, etc population? I really don't think that anywhere in Manhattan is going to be a bad place to get a well rounded clinical experience. As far as the neighborhood, I personally am thrilled to be in the area, but then again I'm also thrilled to have hispanic patients! I've never lived in NYC, but I would be shocked to find out that living in WH makes all of the interesting parts of the city too far away to be had.
3) I agree that Ivy status shouldn't be the major reason for applying to a school. What I focused on wasn't rankings, but on residency director opinions. Even that was just a drop in the bucket, I went to the place that I felt was right for me.
1) O Rly? I guess that I better tell Columbia that I can't come and that they must have made a mistake by accepting this lowly public schooler! I'm flattered that I beat the apparently unbeatable odds of getting into Columbia without a fancy degree
2) How is that different than going to a school that has a mostly black, white, asian, poor, rich, urban, rural, etc, etc population? I really don't think that anywhere in Manhattan is going to be a bad place to get a well rounded clinical experience. As far as the neighborhood, I personally am thrilled to be in the area, but then again I'm also thrilled to have hispanic patients! I've never lived in NYC, but I would be shocked to find out that living in WH makes all of the interesting parts of the city too far away to be had.
3) I agree that Ivy status shouldn't be the major reason for applying to a school. What I focused on wasn't rankings, but on residency director opinions. Even that was just a drop in the bucket, I went to the place that I felt was right for me.
yeah dude those damn ferners and ill-e-gals. takin all them US of A jobs.
ps - sage you are a ******.
I was referring to the patient population
mmmcdowe
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I was referring to the patient population
We know. He was suggesting that you are being racist.
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Cause we know we aint got a shot in hell of gettin in. I don't get why so many schools, like Boston, GW, and crappy Chicago trio get so many dam applicants. It's basically a waste of money when you are charged 100+ dollars for a less than 1% chance of matriculation. Fuuuuuuuuck that.
Sorry, sarcasm/jokes never travel quite that well over the internet. Anyways, was also informing Dr Lyss since he seemed confused...http://forums.studentdoctor.net/member.php?u=180210http://forums.studentdoctor.net/member.php?u=180210
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According to my MSAR, more people apply to Columbia than Harvard. 6000ish applicants seems to be a pretty decent number anywhere. Also, even though they interview 1/5, the only accept 300 or so students, so its not like they are a walk in the park to get into.
1) O Rly? I guess that I better tell Columbia that I can't come and that they must have made a mistake by accepting this lowly public schooler! I'm flattered that I beat the apparently unbeatable odds of getting into Columbia without a fancy degree
2) How is that different than going to a school that has a mostly black, white, asian, poor, rich, urban, rural, etc, etc population? I really don't think that anywhere in Manhattan is going to be a bad place to get a well rounded clinical experience. As far as the neighborhood, I personally am thrilled to be in the area, but then again I'm also thrilled to have hispanic patients! I've never lived in NYC, but I would be shocked to find out that living in WH makes all of the interesting parts of the city too far away to be had.
3) I agree that Ivy status shouldn't be the major reason for applying to a school. What I focused on wasn't rankings, but on residency director opinions. Even that was just a drop in the bucket, I went to the place that I felt was right for me.
1) Dude mmmcdowe, congrats! I'd say you have beat the odds. I loved Columbia when i visited, was waitlisted, and I have no personal vendetta against it. I'm just calling it as I see it though. The Columbia student lists arn't publicly available but I got that little blooklet from the interview day and I'm looking at it. Compare that to say the WashU student list here. Big difference. Anyways, this is a well known and established trend that is true for most ivy med schools and is less true for other top schools like hopkins, washu, ucsf. I'm not saying whether its good or bad, its just the way it is and we should be aware of it. Maybe if you end up being a student member of the adcom in the future, you can make a difference in this to make it more fair.
2) Again, just saying that the location of Columbia is not great. I'm at WashU and theres lots of awesomeness around but I'll freely admit the area is not great. In my opinion, there are only two medical schools outside of the west coast that I would say are in truely great locations. The first is Northwestern and the second is Cornell. Everything else ranges from acceptable (washU, NYU, Vandy, Emory, harvard) to a little worse (columbia, einstein, duke, Penn) to cruddy (hopkins, temple,chicago). Being in new york does have the huge advantage of allowing you to live somewhere else that is awesome and easily communting to school though. Preference for location is highly personal as well. California is another story!... i'm dreaming of those white sands...
3) Thats the key, to go to someplace thats right for you.
I talked to a resident at the hospital I work at that went to Columbia. He said it is all about relationships with the school (ie parents are alum, donors, etc.) This was the only school he got in to - I think his parents were very wealthy.
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I didn't apply because I didn't stand a shot and you do have to realize that many people don't want to live in those areas. I could never live in NYC. The northeast is far too cold for me as well. I also rather pay a fifth as much and get the same letters after my name. In addition, I have no interest in research.
I think they tend to apply to Columbia instead
They choose to apply to Albany too instead of Albania
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You will get a diverse ethnic and cultural patient population at any New York school [which I personally think is one of the great positives of going to one of them]. If you end up going to Cornell and rotate in their Queens hospital you'll see a large amount of asians, hispanics, and Russian jews.
Great location... the rich, snobby, WASP, blue blood, plastic boys and girls of the UES... yeah, amazing location.
W 168th St is lot more interesting that E 68th ST, sorry. NYU and Columbia are much better locations, if we're talking abut a "proper" NYC experience. Actually, a "real" NYC experience would be Downstate. That is of course unless you want to be living out your doe eyed sex in the city fantasy of what new york is.
(this coming from a native New Yorker).
mmmcdowe
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Nice, I loved washu. If I could have combined the best of two schools, WashU would have been there with Columbia. I probably met/drank with you when I visited
https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/admissions/undergraduate-schools-represented
Vanderbilt is pretty top heavy too.
Specifically for Columbia, I would have to disagree. Having worked at the Med Center, I can't say there is much diversity there.
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