w York University, Columbia Gain Applicants on City's Allure

April 16 (Bloomberg) -- Columbia University, New York University and Barnard College, three of Manhattan's most competitive private colleges, are drawing record applications, and the reason goes beyond demographics. New York is increasingly a magnet for students who want corporate internships and a chance to tap the city's deep well of entertainment offerings, students and educators say. Fear of urban crime and terrorism, once barriers for some applicants, has diminished. Major crime in New York is down 66 percent in the past 10 years, according to the city's police department. In March, the Princeton Review Inc., a test-preparation and admissions service, asked 3,036 U.S. college applicants and 303 parents to name their ``dream school.'' New York University, which has about 48,000 graduate and undergraduate students, ranked first, and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was second, said Robert Franek, 32, editorial director for the New York-based company. ``The stereotype of places like New York being unsafe and offering a poor quality of life is no longer there,'' said Tony Pals, spokesman for the 1,000-member National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. ``Students see major urban areas as places offering a wide diversity of social, cultural and professional opportunities.'' Applications to NYU have more than doubled from 10 years ago, when the university admitted just over half of its applicant pool. This year, 9,472 applicants, or less than a third of those who sought admission, were accepted, according to the university. ``It is absolutely the best-qualified class we have offered admission,'' said Barbara Hall, associate provost for admissions and financial aid at the school, located in Greenwich Village.

This year's freshman class includes the 17-year-old child actor twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, whose career started in the television series ``Full House,'' she said. The 2000 graduating class included the classical violin prodigy Midori, 32, who has a recording contract with Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment Inc. New York's concert halls provide a cultural anchor for Midori. Other students thrive on coffeehouses, music clubs including the Village Vanguard and the Blue Note, museums such as the Guggenheim and Broadway and off-Broadway theaters. ``There is so much to do, it's almost scary,'' said Rudy Telles, a 19-year-old freshman at NYU from Las Cruces, New Mexico, who is studying economics and psychology. Franek said 1.2 million students use Princeton Review's Web site and the most-searched-for school is New York University. NYU had 33,863 applicants this year, up from its previous record of 33,204 last year, said Hall. Columbia received 15,006 applications, up from 14,665 last year, and Barnard, a women's college affiliated with Columbia, had 4,380 this year, up from 4,034 last year, according to figures provided by the schools.

At all three schools, the percentage of students accepted declined. Columbia, an Ivy League school celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, admitted 1,590 students for an admit rate of 10.5 percent this year, said Elizabeth Golden, a spokeswoman. The admit rate was about 11 percent last year. The interest in New York colleges coincides with a nationwide increase in college applications, due partly to the record number of high-school graduates, said Cheryl Blanco, director of policy analysis and research for the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education in Boulder, Colorado. The U.S. government's National Center for Education Statistics projects that the number of students in four-year colleges will increase by 1.3 percent through the rest of the decade. In 2005, 7.7 million students are expected to be in U.S. four-year colleges, with that number rising to 8.4 million by 2010.

A prime lure of New York are the internships that can translate into jobs after graduation. New York is home to Citigroup Inc., the world's biggest financial-services company; Merrill Lynch & Co., the world's biggest securities firm; and American International Group, the world's largest insurer. ``How many of us had the opportunity to try out our careers while we were still in our college years?'' NYU's Hall said. ``I would say the biggest things are the fact that they are getting a life education while they are getting a college education.'' Recent internships by Barnard women include positions at Avon Products Inc., the world's largest direct seller of cosmetics; ABC News, a division of Walt Disney Co.; the New York Yankees baseball team; and the Metropolitan Opera, said Jennifer Fondiller, dean of admission at Barnard, which enrolls 500 to 550 students a year. ``I am a finance and international business major, and I go to school a half-mile from Wall Street,'' said Fabiano Ribiero, a 21-year-old junior at NYU. ``Everything you could want and everything you could not want is in New York.''

Ribiero, who was born in Brazil and moved with his family to New Jersey when he was 13, said he is scheduled to intern this year with New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the third- largest securities firm. For him, the work experience ``is a lot more valuable than what I learn in the books.'' A student who comes to New York City to look at a school will most likely stay in New York City, according to annual surveys by GDA Integrated Services in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, which queries about 40,000 college-bound students per year for colleges and universities. While internships and business opportunities might be big draws, students answering surveys put entertainment possibilities highest on the list of reasons they want to come to the city, said George Dehne, the firm's president.

``These kids are the generation of kids that are absolutely attuned to entertainment,'' Dehne said in an interview. ``The average attention span for this gang is about 11 minutes, which is the time between commercials.'' City officials say the decline in the crime rate has been a key to New York's economic vitality and has bolstered the entertainment sector. The drop in major crime has included neighborhoods surrounding colleges. In the 26th Precinct, which covers Barnard and Columbia, murders fell to 4 in 2002 from 14 in 1993, rapes fell to 12 from 26, robberies fell to 217 from 772, and burglaries fell to 121 from 624, according to New York Police Department figures. In the Sixth Precinct, which covers NYU, murders fell to 0 from 1, rapes fell to 9 from 12, robberies fell to 242 from 861, and burglaries fell to 288 from 810, the police statistics show. ``Cities were the last place students wanted to be for college'' in the 1960s and 1970s, Pals said. ``New York will always have a special appeal that other cities won't be able to match.''

Franek agreed, saying: ``Over the last five to seven years, cities, and certainly New York, have had a renaissance.'' The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which destroyed lower Manhattan's World Trade Center towers, have not had a lasting impact on students' enthusiasm for New York. ``Two years ago, the Class of 2002, they were the most affected by 9-11,'' said Staci Williams Seeley, 35, college adviser at the Groton School, a college preparatory school in Groton, Massachusetts. ``International families were saying 'not New York, not Boston, not Washington, period.''' Since then, she said, there hasn't been as much concern. Bill Mason, director of college counseling at St. Mark's School, a prep school in Southborough, Massachusetts, said that immediately after Sept. 11, he and many of his peers theorized that urban schools, and New York in particular, would be hurt. ``But it became the antithesis,'' Mason said. Blanco, of the Western states education group, says more and more high school students are choosing to go to college partly because schools have done a better job marketing themselves.

NYU's Web site, for example, tells prospective students that ``NYU and New York City are inseparable. There is a palpable exchange of energy and ideas that flows seamlessly from one to the other.'' Telles, the NYU freshman, said he chose the university because of the range of opportunities and internships, and said it was his top choice, next to Columbia. ``I thought living here would be tough and overwhelming, but it really does feel like a village, and the choices are amazing,'' he said.

This is mainly thanks to Rudy Giuliani, who is the one person most responsible for NYC's renaissance and for the perception that it is no longer a crime center and a dangerous place to visit.

Ironically, the administration and faculty at NYU and Columbia hate Giuliani.

Also ironically, the education provided by these colleges, at least in the core humanities, has deteriorated under the influence of political correctness. But maybe that doesn't matter since the chief draw, as this article suggests, seems to be high-paying careers after graduation.

I had heard that NYU was #1, and Harvard #2. Interesting.

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