What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$2,275 to $50,621 a year, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $89,472 a year. Average need-based aid package: $81,017.Aid and debt
$37,357
average debt at graduation
Not reported by this school: share receiving need-based grants, merit aid.
Getting In
Admit rates
4.9%
admitted overall
14%
admitted Early Decision
4%
admitted Regular Decision
Early Decision
Early Decision applicants were admitted at more than 4x the Regular Decision rate, and Early Decision is binding: you commit to attend if admitted.
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Some of that gap reflects who applies early (recruited athletes, legacy applicants and highly committed students concentrate in that pool), so it isn't proof that applying early would raise any one student's own odds.
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1510–1560 · 50% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 34–35 · 17% of the class submitted
94% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- Class rank
- GPA
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Character
- Important
- Special talent
- Considered
- SAT/ACT scores
- First-gen status
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- In-state residency
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Columbia rates four things you can work on as Very Important: course rigor, your essay, your recommendations, and your activities.
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Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong. The essay is weighted like your GPA. Choose recommenders who can be specific about you, not just confirm your transcript. And depth in a few activities beats a long list.
Columbia doesn't consider demonstrated interest in admissions at all — visits and follow-up emails won't move the needle here.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Columbia just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Columbia essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
58.1% of Columbia classes have fewer than 20 students.
58.1%
under 20 students
27.7%
20 to 49
14.2%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Columbia CDS 2025–26, I-3.
11:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
90%
live on campus
9%
of men in fraternities
14%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White25.7%
- Asian20.2%
- Hispanic14.6%
- Black6.9%
- Multiracial6.1%
- Unknown / other4.8%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Columbia CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
84.4% of Columbia students graduate in 4 years.
84.4%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
95.6%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
98.2%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
94% finish in 6 years, against 95.6% of all students.
Pell Grant students finish at about the same rate as everyone else.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in New York.
Columbia's Morningside Heights campus is the inverse of a downtown NYC school: a gated, six-block Beaux-Arts quad designed by McKim, Mead & White, built around Low and Butler libraries and the path between them known as College Walk.
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Step past the 116th Street gates and the surrounding city — Riverside Park and the Hudson to the west, Harlem to the north, the rest of Manhattan a short subway ride south — is there when you want it, but the campus itself has walls and a clear edge, unlike NYU's Greenwich Village campus a few miles downtown.
The City
Major city
New York, NY
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Alexander Hamilton
First U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and a principal author of the Federalist Papers. He attended King's College (Columbia's original name) from 1774 until instruction was suspended by the Revolutionary War in 1776, then left to join the Continental Army as an artillery officer.
Class of 1776
Franklin D. Roosevelt
32nd President of the United States, elected to four terms and the only president to serve more than two. He attended Columbia Law School from 1904 to 1907, passed the New York bar before finishing his degree, and left without graduating.
Class of 1907
Barack Obama
44th President of the United States. He transferred to Columbia College from Occidental College in 1981 and graduated in 1983 with a B.A. in political science.
Class of 1983
Warren Buffett
Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, one of the most successful investors in history. He earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia Business School in 1951, studying value investing directly under professor Benjamin Graham.
Class of 1951
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
The Core Curriculum
Started in 1919 as a single course, Contemporary Civilization, the country's first general-education requirement of its kind. Literature Humanities was added in 1937, and every Columbia College student still takes both, plus University Writing and Frontiers of Science, regardless of major.
Primal Scream
At midnight on the Sunday before each finals period, students throw open their windows across campus and scream at the top of their lungs to blow off exam stress — a tradition that has run for decades and continues today.
Bacchanal
Columbia's annual spring concert, a day-long outdoor festival mixing student acts with a professional headliner, timed as the campus-wide release valve before the final stretch of the semester.
Weekend escapes from New York
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from New York
Bear Mountain State Park, New York
About 1 hourHudson Valley hiking and lake swimming, reachable by car or by a Metro-North train from the 125th Street station a few blocks from campus.
Fire Island, New York
About 2.5 hoursA car-free barrier island beach reached by LIRR train from Penn Station to Bay Shore or Sayville, then a short ferry.
Boston, Massachusetts
About 4 hoursA common weekend trip to visit friends at other Northeastern schools, by car, bus or Amtrak.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
LaGuardia Airport (LGA)
About 20 minutes from campus
For international flights: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) — about 45 minutes by car, or about 50 minutes by subway and airtrain from 116th street.
Pro sports nearby
- New York Yankees MLBAbout 15 minutes by direct subway from 125th Street away
- New York Knicks NBAAbout 25 minutes by subway away
- New York Rangers NHLAbout 25 minutes by subway away
- New York Giants NFLAbout 50 minutes by NJ Transit train and shuttle away
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Columbia sits at the north end of Manhattan's internship map rather than the middle of it, but the subway erases most of that distance — Midtown, Wall Street and Columbia's own affiliated NewYork-Presbyterian hospital complex are all a direct ride from Morningside Heights.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- JPMorgan Chase
- Goldman Sachs
- NewYork-Presbyterian
- McKinsey & Company
- Condé Nast
Midtown and Wall Street Manhattan, both a direct subway ride from Morningside Heights
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Columbia admits 4.9% of applicants overall and 14.0% through early decision (it offers no early action round). Unlike Cornell and Yale, it has not reinstated a testing requirement — the SAT or ACT is read if submitted but not required. What shapes a Columbia education more than anything else is the Core Curriculum: every Columbia College student, whatever their major, takes the same required Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization sequence, a program that started in 1919 as the first general-education requirement of its kind in the country and still anchors the first two years. The campus itself is the inverse of NYU's a few miles downtown — Columbia's Morningside Heights quad is gated and Beaux-Arts, built around College Walk between Low and Butler libraries, physically set apart from the surrounding city rather than woven into it. 90% of undergraduates live in university housing and Greek life is a modest presence (9% of men, 14% of women). The aid is real — Columbia meets 100% of demonstrated need — but that phrase is easy to over-read: graduates who borrow still leave owing an average of $37,357, because meeting need in full includes loans in the package rather than replacing them all with grants. A family should read their own award letter for the grant-to-loan split rather than assume full need met means graduating debt-free. Classes stay small — 58.1% have fewer than 20 students — and 84.4% of students finish in four years against 95.6% within six.