I’m a Columbia College graduate (1961)and can offer this info:
Columbia College is the primo undergraduate college of Columbia University which has many different schools, mostly grad schools. However, there is a School of General Studies which offers an undergraduate degree that is not from Columbia College.
The University school accepts transfers and all sorts of foreign students very freely. Columbia College does not normally accept transfers because:
a)this would be a way around the very high selection standards of this Ivy League school, and,
b) because the first two years of required courses of all Columbia College students make transferring very difficult as most transferees would have to virtually start over their education process and that would trip them up against item a)above.
While things may have changed somewhat, I doubt that Columbia College would have made a place for what appears to be a middling student from Occidental in the third year of education.
Professor Graff was my College advisor and if he says something, you can take it to the bank as collateral
I appreciate your clarifications, which make perfect sense. My original purpose was twofold:
1) to encourage those looking for Obama’s name on graduation rosters to check ALL lists for the various schools at Columbia University — not just the College; and,
2) to examine the claims in an article on a webpage clearly labelled as belonging to Columbia College, that proclaims Obama is an alumnus of Columbia College. It makes no reference to Columbia University. This appears to be an official Columbia College website. Is it? (Please see link in Post 52 above).
If someone graduated, or even just attended, a different school within the Columbia University system, but not Columbia College itself, would Columbia College consider that person as a Columbia College graduate or alumnus? Your remarks lead me to believe the answer is NO. (It seems plausible for Columbia College graduates to be considered alumni of the umbrella University, but not the other way around.) We might believe Obama did not graduate from Columbia College. Yet the article says what it says. How can this be?