Columbia University In The City Of New York

Location and Contact Information

The campus is in a large city.

Overview

Columbia University in the City of New York, also known as Columbia University, or simply Columbia, is a private university in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. Originally established as King's College by the Church of England in 1754, Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in New York State and the fifth oldest in the United States.

Columbia began life in a schoolhouse in Lower Manhattan. It has now grown to encompass two principal campuses: the historic, neoclassical campus in the Morningside Heights neighborhood and the modern Medical Center further uptown, in Washington Heights. The main campus covers an area of 32 acres.

In 1928, Columbia/Presbyterian Medical Center, the first such center to combine teaching, research, and patient care, was officially opened as a joint project between the medical school and The Presbyterian Hospital.

Franz Boas founded the modern science of anthropology at Columbia in the early decades of the twentieth century. Since 1901, when the awards were first given, 79 people associated with Columbia including alumni, faculty, adjunct faculty, researchers and administrators have won a Nobel Prize at some point in their careers in every field in which the award is given. The university's current faculty includes nine Nobel laureates.

Columbia University hosts more than 10,000 international students, interns, scholars, and accompanying international family members from over 153 countries or places of origin.

The university offers a wide variety of degrees and programs through the following academic divisions:

• Columbia College
• The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science
• The School of General Studies
• Columbia Law School
• Columbia Business School
• Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
• School of Nursing
• Mailman School of Public Health
• Graduate School of Journalism
• School of International and Public Affairs
• The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
• Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
• The School of the Arts
• Columbia University School of Social Work

Additionally, Columbia offers undergraduate and graduate programs through affiliated institutions, including:

• Barnard College
• Jewish Theological Seminary
• Teachers College
• Columbia Law School

Columbia College tied for eighth place (with the University of Chicago) in the 2010 rankings of national universities compiled by U.S. News & World Report, matching its ranking on the 2009 list.

Columbia University's major publications include the Columbia Daily Spectator, the Current, the Columbian, the Columbia Observer, and the Columbia Science Review, to name a few. The university is home to many fraternities, sororities, and coeducational Greek organizations. Ten to 15 percent of undergraduate students are involved in Greek life.

Columbia offers students many extracurricular programs well as the cultural offerings of the Big Apple.

Among famous Columbia alumni are President Barack Obama; New York Governor David Paterson; former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Mikhail Saakashvili, President of the country of Georgia; Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, II, creators of Broadway musicals; Stephen Jay Gould, scientist; poet-professor Mark Van Doren; Pete Slosberg, founder of Pete's Brewing Company; Art Garfunkel, musician, former member, Simon & Garfunkel; poets Langston Huges and Allen Ginsberg; writers J. D. Salinger, Upton Sinclair, Eudora Welty and Herman Wouk; playwright Tony Kushner; social critic Kate Millett; and actors Maggie Gyllenhaal, Julia Stiles, and Brian Dennehy. Actors James Cagney, Ed Harris, Jake Gyllenhaal attended but did not graduate.

Highlights (vs. Other Schools)

• Many students concentrating in mathematics, drama and performing arts, law, medicine, religion and philosophy, architecture and planning, engineering, and family and social work.
• Large number of programs of study offered.
• High faculty salary.
• Selective admissions.
• High SAT scores (combined Verbal and Math).
• Large number of students.
• High percentage of students are from out-of-state.
• Good faculty-to-student ratio.
• High yield: the portion of accepted students who enroll.
• Racially diverse student body.
• High male/female ratio.

School characteristics:

• The school is private, not-for-profit.
• Academic calender: Semester.
• Carnegie classification: Doctoral/Research Universities, Extensive.

Features of note:

• The school offers a faculty tenure system.
• There are one or more libraries on-campus.
• Campus housing is available.
• Students may study abroad.
• Distance learning is available.
• Part-time classes are available.
• ROTC.

Similar Schools

Based on proprietary BrainTrack computer comparisons against all other US colleges, these schools appear to be most similar to Columbia:

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Degrees Awarded (in 2009-2010)

Faculty

Tenure (2009-2010):

Students

Student enrollment was 23,196 in 2009-2010 (20,591 full-time equivalent).

About 52% of the freshmen class in 2009-2010 was male and women were 48% of the class.

Undergrads are 31% of enrolled students, graduate students are 60%, and those seeking first-professional graduate degrees represent 9%.

Students under 25 years old represent 46% of the student body. About 4% of the school is at least 40 years of age.

Among freshmen students, 97% are full-time and 3% are part-time.

Admissions Summary (2009-2010)

SAT Test Scores:

Room and Board

Columbia provides on-campus housing for 5,200 of its 20,591 (full-time) students (as of 2009-2010). The school requires freshmen to live on campus.

Athletics

School sports include football, basketball, baseball, and track. The school is in the Ivy Group for major sports.

Graduate School Focus

Columbia offers graduate (post-Bachelor) studies. The highest degree offered is the Doctorate (Research/Scholarship & Professional Practice).

Graduate offerings include continuing professional education and medical degrees.The school's Graduate School Carnegie Classification is Comprehensive Doctoral With Medical/Veterinary.

Programs of Study

(Number of degrees in 2009-2010 in parentheses)

ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING (412 awarded)

• Architecture (BArch, BA/BS, MArch, MA/MS, PhD)
• Architecture and Related Services
• City/Urban, Community and Regional Planning
• Landscape Architecture (BS, BSLA, BLA, MSLA, MLA, PhD)

BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT (1,189 awarded)

• Actuarial Science
• Business Administration and Management
• Information Resources Management/CIO Training
• Non-Profit/Public/Organizational Management

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (239 awarded)

• Computer Engineering
• Computer Science
• Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services
• Information Technology

CONSERVATION AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (31 awarded)

• Environmental Science

DRAMA AND PERFORMING ARTS (122 awarded)

• Dance
• Drama and Dramatics/Theatre Arts
• Visual and Performing Arts

EDUCATION AND TEACHING (50 awarded)

• Education
• Education/Teaching Individuals - Orthopedic/Oth Phys Impairments
• Education/Teaching of Individuals with Emotional Disturbances
• Education/Teaching of Individuals with Mental Retardation
• Educational Leadership and Administration
• Mathematics Teacher Education
• Science Teacher Education/General Science Teacher Education
• Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education

ENGINEERING (881 awarded)

• Biomedical/Medical Engineering
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Engineering Mechanics
• Engineering Physics
• Engineering
• Environmental/Environmental Health Engineering
• Industrial Engineering
• Materials Science
• Mechanical Engineering
• Metallurgical Engineering
• Mining and Mineral Engineering
• Nuclear Engineering
• Operations Research

FAMILY AND SOCIAL WORK (724 awarded)

• Public Administration
• Social Work

FINE ARTS (117 awarded)

• Art History, Criticism and Conservation
• Fine Arts and Art Studies

LAW (686 awarded)

• Advanced Legal Research/Studies, Gen (LLM, MCL, MLI, MSL, JSD/SJD)
• Law (LLB, JD)
• Legal Professions and Studies

LIBERAL ARTS (2,035 awarded)

• African Studies
• African-American/Black Studies
• American/United States Studies/Civilization
• Ancient/Classical Greek Language and Literature
• Anthropology
• Area, Ethnic, Cultural, and Gender Studies
• Central/Middle and Eastern European Studies
• Classics/Classical Languages, Lit & Linguistics
• Comparative Literature
• Creative Writing
• Development Economics and International Development
• East Asian Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
• East Asian Studies
• Economics
• English Language and Literature
• English Literature (British and Commonwealth)
• Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
• French Language and Literature
• German Language and Literature
• History
• Humanities/Humanistic Studies
• International Relations and Affairs
• Italian Language and Literature
• Latin American Studies
• Latin Language and Literature
• Liberal Arts and Sciences/Liberal Studies
• Library Science/Librarianship
• Middle/Near Eastern/Semitic Languages, Lit & Linguistics
• Near and Middle Eastern Studies
• Political Science and Government
• Portuguese Language and Literature
• Russian Language and Literature
• Russian Studies
• Slavic Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
• Social Sciences
• Sociology
• South Asian Studies
• Spanish Language and Literature
• Urban Studies/Affairs
• Western European Studies

MATHEMATICS (325 awarded)

• Applied Mathematics
• Mathematical Statistics and Probability
• Mathematics and Computer Science
• Mathematics and Statistics
• Mathematics
• Statistics

MEDIA (340 awarded)

• Communication Studies/Speech Communication and Rhetoric
• Journalism

MEDICAL ADMINISTRATION (28 awarded)

• Environmental Health
• Hospital and Health Care Facilities Administration/Management
• Medical Illustration/Medical Illustrator
• Medical Informatics

MEDICAL SUPPORT AND TECHNOLOGY (0 awarded)

• Audiology/Audiologist and Speech-Language Pathology/Pathologist

MEDICINE (662 awarded)

• Advanced General Dentistry (Cert, MS, PhD)
• Dental Clinical Sciences, General (MS, PhD)
• Dentistry (DDS, DMD)
• Endodontics/Endodontology (Cert, MS, PhD)
• Health Professions and Related Clinical Sciences
• Medical Scientist (MS, PhD)
• Medicine (MD)
• Neuroscience
• Orthodontics/Orthodontology (Cert, MS, PhD)
• Periodontics/Periodontology (Cert, MS, PhD)
• Prosthodontics/Prosthodontology (Cert, MS, PhD)
• Public Health, General (MPH, DPH)

MUSIC (41 awarded)

• Jazz/Jazz Studies
• Music Theory and Composition
• Music

NURSING AND EMERGENCY MEDICINE (346 awarded)

• Nursing Science (MS, PhD)
• Nursing
• Nursing/Registered Nurse (RN, ASN, BSN, MSN)

NUTRITION AND EXERCISE THERAPY (117 awarded)

• Kinesiology and Exercise Science
• Nutrition Sciences
• Occupational Therapy/Therapist
• Sport and Fitness Administration/Management

PHOTOGRAPHY AND COMMERCIAL ART (83 awarded)

• Cinematography and Film/Video Production
• Film/Cinema Studies

REAL ESTATE AND CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT (15 awarded)

• Construction Management

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY (96 awarded)

• Islamic Studies
• Philosophy
• Philosophy and Religious Studies
• Religion/Religious Studies

SCIENCE (590 awarded)

• Anatomy
• Animal Genetics
• Astronomy
• Astrophysics
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics
• Biological and Biomedical Sciences
• Biology/Biological Sciences
• Biometry/Biometrics
• Biophysics
• Biostatistics
• Biotechnology
• Cell/Cellular and Molecular Biology
• Chemistry
• Ecology
• Epidemiology
• Genetics
• Geology/Earth Science
• Medical Microbiology and Bacteriology
• Microbiology
• Pathology/Experimental Pathology
• Pharmacology
• Physical Sciences
• Physics
• Physiology
• Toxicology

THERAPY AND COUNSELING (207 awarded)

• Behavioral Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Counseling Psychology
• Developmental and Child Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Industrial and Organizational Psychology
• Physical Therapy/Therapist
• Psychology
• Social Psychology