Columbia College today is among the most selective colleges in the country, attracting top applicants from all 50 states and from around the world. We admit the highest caliber students who are best able to profit from and contribute to the Columbia College experience, regardless of their families’ financial situations.

Our student body is one of the most diverse in the country by every definition of diversity—ethnicity, race, religion, nationality, geography, sexual orientation, family circumstances, and socio-economic background, as well as academic and extracurricular interests. This creates a vibrant and dynamic campus community that is characterized by a wealth of opinions and views of the world, and which provides a transformative experience for our students, enriching them as they enrich their peers and the community as a whole.

The Core Curriculum, the defining experience for the College, gives students the opportunity to understand the connection between ideas and theories, to tackle the most difficult questions about the human experience, and to contend with issues fundamental to society. At the same time, it offers a learning environment where students can engage others who hold different opinions, hear a variety of perspectives, and adapt and respond to unpredictable challenges. This exchange of ideas helps students develop a profound level of self-awareness and empathy, and deepens their understanding of humanity. The Core also provides a set of intellectual tools that students can use to solve multidimensional problems in a critical and analytical way. Moreover, it is a commonality—the connective tissue that binds current and former students together.

Columbia College offers more than 100 majors and concentrations, many of them interdisciplinary, all of which give students the opportunity to achieve mastery in a subject and to complete a significant individual academic endeavor, be it a thesis or a research project. With small class sizes and a faculty regularly teaching undergraduates, students benefit from frequent and meaningful interactions with preeminent faculty, both inside and outside the classroom. Students can also take advantage of joint programs and opportunities at our graduate and professional schools, as well as hundreds of undergraduate research opportunities through more than 200 affiliated centers and institutes.

At the College, students have access to integrated academic, pre-professional, career and residential advising, and more than 20,000 job and internship opportunities around the world, including dozens of opportunities to work abroad in eight cities though the Columbia Experience Overseas program. The College offers more than 150 study abroad programs on six continents, including more than 20 Columbia-run programs, in cities including Amman, Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin, Havana, Istanbul, Kyoto, Kenya, Paris, Rio, Rome, Seoul, Shanghai, Tunis, and Venice, as well as a fellowship for rising sophomores to study on a Columbia summer global program.

Columbia College is part of a great University, one renewed by a decade of growth in faculty and facilities provided through funding from the recently-completed Columbia Campaign—enhanced by a network of eight Global Centers and a new 17-acre campus in Manhattanville. New York City is also our students’ classroom—the resources and diversity of the city supplement the academic experience, providing educational, cultural, and professional opportunities at world-class institutions and major corporations.