Ditto 57-61 about the large numbers of Jewish students. There were probably two reasons: 1.Some Ivies were still showing their anti-Semetic bias in admissions. 2. Columbia tried to recruit 1/3 of each class from NYC and environs, 1/3 from upstate and the east, and 1/3 from the rest of the country if they could get 'em. A lot of the NYC guys were Jewish.
Then one year (Class of '64?) they threw out the diversity model and simply took the top 3000 SAT scores that applied. What a monster class that was :-) More geniuses than could get along with each other. And it was heavily from NYC and Jewish.
I've been amazed that the Jewish vote has stayed with the Dems-- despite their long history as liberals. Over the years, the left has increasingly gone for the Arab position and condemned Israel.
Must make many of my old classmates uncomfortable to be in the DEM party. And they must really be wondering about their old school. I wonder how the recent publicity has hurt recruiting and donations from alumnai?
I think that more than 50% of the brighter lights among the jews have shifted over to vote republican and among the columbia grads of the 50's 60's & 70's the percentage may be higher--and that would account for the 15% of jews who voted for bush in 04. its still a cerebral or canny exercise for jews to vote republican.
Say you must have been around when columbia began the longest football losing streak in college football about 1961. When I was there in the 70's the losing streak still had another 10 years to run. My brothers went to UVa and Penn State. When the talk turned to football--I had to leave the room. I learned then that there's a significant correlation of meanings between morale and morals. I think that was a lesson learned by many guys from the 70's.