Columbia University

Columbia University is one of the best universities in the world, counting 99 Nobel prize laureates and 53 living billionaires amongst its graduates. The University saw the dawn of the American Republic and it taught seven of the new nation’s founding fathers. Located in upper Manhattan the campus is an island of calm in the sea of bustling New York, sandwiched in between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. The main campus is just a few metro stops away from the heart of Manhattan and the immense wealth, opportunities and possibilities open there.

The University administers the Pulitzer prize and is the first one of the US universities to open up a department dedicated to addressing climate change, called the Climate School. In fact, the university has been noted for amazing programs, ranking incredibly highly in engineering, medical and biological sciences. Indeed, Columbia is a place where any program or degree is valuable and highly sought after in the competitive US or global market.

Of particular interest within Columbia, you can find the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, which was established by Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was the president of Columbia in 1951. The department offers opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students in both an academic and extracurricular format. It offers mentoring and writing experiences for students who go through a rigorous application process. However, most departments within Columbia University offer an incredibly diverse array of events and meetings with current and former statesmen, ministers, diplomats and thought leaders.

The University also offers opportunities to study abroad in a semester abroad format or in a dual degree program with a partner university, which after completion award the student with two degrees. The dual BA program as it is known allows the student to attend a university in France, China, Israel and Ireland for two years. After those two years, the student will study for two years at Columbia. The benefit of the program is that it allows students to have two completely different majors, experiences and networks.

Columbia differs from other Ivy League universities in that it seeks to attain the most non-traditional talent possible through the aforementioned dual degree programs, post-bac premed programs and encouraging students with significant work or military experience to
apply. Columbia University has more students from a military background than all the rest of the Ivy League schools combined.

More than any other school, Columbia offers opportunities to students from various backgrounds with non-traditional, unique stories.