I attended an ancient British University, but my d...

I attended an ancient British University, but my daughter is a PhD candidate at the Columbia Engineering Fu Foundation SEAS. She attended Harvard SEAS for undergraduate, affording her an opportunity to compare the Cambridge Schools with Columbia. Columbia University admits students as smart as Harvard University. The difference she noted is that Columbia Faculty are more accessible to their undergraduates, and the 9 departments at the Columbia Engineering is like having a Caltech attached to a big Ivy league university. At the graduate level, Columbia does not fund its graduate students well, and you need an external funding source, unlike Harvard. The New York /Broadway effect is huge for both educational and reducing academic stress for Columbians. This combination of academic rigor and life experiences afforded by New York is educational in all the senses of the word !