It's like this thread was invented for me to respond to.
Hi. I'm an M1 at Columbia and I was choosing between Columbia and UVA.
Lifestyle: I am not a big city person either. I probably would not have gone to medical school in NYC if it was any school other than Columbia. One of the nice things about Columbia is that it's tucked away in Washington Heights which is far away from the rest of the crazy parts of Manhattan. Washington Heights feels more like a smaller city compared to the rest of Manhattan (it's more like downtown Richmond or parts of DC). However, you're only one express subway ride away from the rest of Manhattan if you need to get downtown. Owning a car here is generally a bad idea because it's NYC, so if that's really important to you, NYC in general is not a great idea. However, in terms of outdoors things, there's surprisingly a lot of those types of things to do in the area. Before orientation, second years lead a week long trip to somewhere in the Catskills that involves hiking/camping/etc and as a second year, you have the opportunity to lead this for the incoming first years. There's also Rockaway Beach in Queens that people frequent during the warmer months. Additionally, I have friends who go outdoor rock climbing somewhere outside the city every couple weekends, and people routinely will head up to the Catskills or other places for a day of hiking on weekends in the fall. There are plenty of accessible outdoor activities, so don't let that be a limiting factor. There's also a wilderness medicine club if that's your thing.
Schooling: Columbia's curriculum is deceptive at first glance. On the surface it looks like "straight lectures" for the first 1.5 years, but that's not correct. For the first semester, your classes are divided into 5 blocks of basic sciences (collectively termed "molecular mechanisms" or "MM") and then you have anatomy which is divided into 3 blocks (musculoskeletal, head and neck, and viscera - more or less). Your MM courses are mostly lecture with about 2-3 small groups per block that talk about papers or cases and you have an exam at the end of each block. Anatomy is lab once/week + lecture 2x/week but you also have surgeons and radiologists come in and talk about procedures and cases based on what you're currently learning. However, the professors in charge of MM and Anatomy are two of the best professors I've ever had in my life, and they do a great job.
That all changes when you hit your second semester, which, along with your third semester, changes everything. You still have lectures, but you also have small groups nearly every day (3-4x/week on average) which are team based learning cases that you'll do with a preceptor in small groups. They force you to stay up to speed with everything and allow you to apply your knowledge to clinical scenarios. If you really don't like lectures, you can do what probably 1/3 of our class does and not go to them and just watch them later at 1.5x speed. We have had some pretty outstanding lecturers and our small group preceptors very enthusiastic MDs. So whatever it is, it's most definitely not "straight up lecture". The best part though is that the course directors really care about our feedback. In fact, word on the street is they're making a fairly major change next year because our class thought there was a part of the curriculum that didn't work very well.
Research can be a big part of your experience here and its very easy to do if you want to do it, but you can definitely pursue other things instead. Public health is a huge thing here as are global health, narrative medicine, free clinics, etc. Everyone has to do a scholarly project, but it doesn't have to be research. Someone wrote a symphony for their scholarly project a couple years ago. There are a ton of options, and you're not pressured into doing research at all (I personally have not at all felt pressured to do so). My experience is that the school really cares about letting you do what you want to do.
People always joke that we're the College of Surgeons and Surgeons, but we're not
just strong in surgery, nor do we only match well into surgery. Our IM match last year was mostly comprised of Vanderbilt, UTSW, Cornell, MGH, Columbia, Penn, UCSF, UCLA, Yale, and NYU. Yes, about 1/3 of our students match to Columbia, but that's pretty self-selective. A lot of people want to go elsewhere for residency and do. Most people here don't match surgery. A lot do, but the majority don't.
Columbia does have a lot of surgical specialty exposure on rotations, but they're generally only a week each and I think it's only ophtho, neurosurgery, and ortho, so it's really not that much time. Additionally, people past their clinical years tell me these are pass/fail rotations, so if you're not into it, you don't have to try super hard. The majority of your clinical year is non-surgical.
In terms of not wanting to be in NYC long term, as I said earlier, 2/3 of people will not match back to Columbia, but will instead go to any number of amazing places throughout the country. I think like 40% total stay in NYC. Additionally, there are Columbia alumns everywhere, and there are a lot of big names in many fields at CUMC, so if you need someone to write you a letter when you're trying to match, you'll probably be in good shape. In terms of prestige, I disagree with
@avgn that it's not all that cracked up - we are pretty well known nationwide.
Now, all of this being said, you should go where you think you'll be happiest and where you think you're the best fit. If you think that's UVA or Rochester, go there and don't look back. All I'm doing is giving you my perspective as someone who was making a similar decision and wouldn't trade their medical school experience for the world. If you're going to Columbia solely for the name, yeah, maybe rethink your decision, but the experience lives up to the hype (so far at least!). You need to do what is best for you and if you still think Columbia is a worse fit than UVA or Rochester, then you should go to UVA or Rochester. None of these schools will close doors. Columbia may make it easier to open some, but you won't get shut out at any of them.
I think the best thing you can do right now is go to the second look weekends for these three schools and then make a decision (wait for financial aid packages as well - Columbia wound up being my cheapest option post FA, but was most expensive pre-).
Best of luck in your decision, and please do not hesitate to PM me if you have questions about Columbia (or UVA, but I'm not as knowledgeable about UVA as I am about Columbia).
Also moving to SSD
