School of General Studies

The School of General Studies, or GS is a degree-granting college of Columbia University. It confers Bachelor of Art and Bachelor of Science degrees in over forty different majors. In addition to its undergraduate program, GS also offers a joint program with List College of the Jewish Theological Seminary. GS also offers a Postbaccalaureate Premedical Pre-health Program. The median age of GS students is 29.

Admissions

The School of General Studies is notoriously tight-lipped about its admission criteria and the statistics on admitted students. The School tends to admit approximately forty to fifty per cent of applicants. The profile of the applicant pool or the admitted pool is unknown.

Although there is little information to support the claim, the consensus seems to favor the notion that GS is a 'back-door' to Columbia. The general impression is that GS students come to Columbia with lower SAT scores, lower GPA, and fewer 'accomplishments.'

Undergraduate Academics

Undergraduates are require a total of 124 credits to graduate. Part of this includes completing the core requirements and a major.

Core Requirements

The following table lists the core requirements for GS and CC:

	GS	CC
Writing	University Writing	University Writing
Literature	2 Literature Courses OR Literature Humanities	Literature Humanities
Foreign Language	4th Semester of a Language OR exemption by university exam	4th Semester of a Language OR exemption by university exam
Art	Art Humanities, Asian Humanities (Art) or exemption by similar course taken at another institution	Art Humanities
Music	Music Humanities or Asian Humanities (Music) or exemption by similar course taken at another institution	Music Humanities
Humanities/Social Science	2 courses each in Humanities and Social Science	Contemporary Civilization
Quantitative Reasoning	Exemption by exam:600 on Math section of SAT OR any mathematics, statistics, economics, or computer science course, OR Frontiers of Science	Covered under Science requirement
Physical Education	None	Swim test, 2 courses
Science	3 science courses (Frontiers of Science optional)	Frontiers of Science plus two additional science courses
Cultural Diversity	1 course in a non-western culture	2 courses from the Major Cultures Approved Courses List

Major Requirements

Major requirements are determined departmentally. These are generally the same for both GS and CC.

History

The School of General Studies was spun off from the University Extension Program in 1947. It became Columbia's third official undergraduate school. It is sometimes claimed that Barnard College is Columbia's third undergraduate school, and GS is its fourth, however Barnard is officially only affiliated with Columbia University, whereas GS, its deans and students are formally integrated into the university proper, along with Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

It initially served to educate GIs returning from World War II. GS originally maintained its own faculty, classes, and programs. In 1967 the University first decided (over the objection of the Columbia College Faculty) to allow GS to grant the A.B. degree in addition to the B.S. In the 1980s it was separated from the Division of Continuing Education. In 1990, its faculty merged into the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. Since then, the classes available to GS students are generally the same as those available to Columbia College students.

Housing

General Studies students are not eligible for the CC/SEAS Room Selection process. However, many GS students receive housing through University Apartment Housing.

Myths

• GS is night school

GS students subscribe to the same classes as students in other colleges at the university. Columbia offers some classes at night and they are available to all students.

• GS is an extension program

GS is degree-granting college. Students are expected to pursue a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree. GS is very serious about keeping its undergraduates on track to earn a degree. Aimless class takers are put on academic probation. The separate School of Continuing Education offers individual courses on non-degree basis.

• GS is a back door to CC.

• The criteria for admission is different between GS and CC. Unfortunately, GS admission criteria is not divulged by GS, so it is impossible to say for sure.
• Since GS students and CC students have access to and take the same classes, GS is a back door to those classes
• This is logically unsound, since they are entirely different programs, how can one be a back door to the other?

Relationship to Columbia College

The School of General Studies is loosely defined as a school for 'non-traditional students.' Non-traditional in GS terms seems to refer to anybody who has had a gap of one year or more in their undergraduate studies. By inference, Columbia College is for 'traditional students' who matriculate directly from high school and have not had a gap in their undergraduate studies. On this basis, students interested are applying to study at Columbia University are tracked to an 'appropriate' school. These admissions criteria favor tracking older students into the School of General Studies and is de facto if not de jure age discrimination.

Part of the tension between Columbia College and General Studies stems from the University's 1967 decision (over the objection of the Columbia College Faculty) to allow GS to grant the A.B. degree in addition to the B.S., creating a redundancy within the University. While this undermined the College's exclusive right to grant the A.B. degrees, the University most likely viewed it as yet another revenue stream. It should be noted that for a large part of it's history, the University administration has paid scant attention to the College. Then-dean of the College David Truman reportedly broke into tears when he learned of the Trustees' decision.

It should be noted that at the time each of schools had a faculty independent of the other, with professors able to hold joint-appointments between multiple faculties. There was likely a certain sense of the College faculty's privelege to grant the A.B. being breached. The independent faculties of the schools have since been integrated into a single Faculty of Arts and Science.

The financial aspect of the decision to create GS is underscored by the lack of financial aid funding for GS students. Because GS operates separately from the joint administration of CC and SEAS, it was not covered in the plan to eliminate student loans for CC and SEAS students with family incomes below certain levels.

The somewhat arbitrary delineations between the College and GS have grown as a result of attempts to reconcile the overlap and provide each school with a mission. However, the wide range of constituents forming the GS student body, from professionals or drop outs returning to school for a degree, to students who took 2 years off before attending college, to 'traditional' age students enrolled in the Joint Degree Program with List College at JTS, to post-bac pre-med students, makes it hard to say just what identity GS students have and what separates them from their fellow students in the College. This makes 'integrating' GS with the other schools difficult, as different parts of the GS student body have very different needs.

Other differences between GS and CC

• GS students may attend full-time or part-time. CC students are expected to attend full-time (part-time study is accepted under special circumstances.)
• Although everybody must take University Writing, the sections are segregated into GS and CC sections.
• Graduation requirements somewhat different. CC requires the completion of the Core Curriculum. While GS students may opt to use this curriculum to satisfy requirements, they may also satisfy the requirements a wider variety of classes.

External links

• GS website
• GS Housing website
• OwlNet, GS Alumni website
• The Unwashed Brother (article on GS in Time Magazine, circa 1959.)