I greatly respect your credentials, experience, and knowledge, but I would like to point out a few things. Having never flunked a shelf exam or a step exam isn't unusual in med school - it's the norm. If you get in, you are likely to be able to handle it. That has nothing to do with what school you're coming from. Heck, at my school, I have plenty of state school colleagues who are kicking my Ivy League twerp ass back and forth. They got in, I got in, we're all prepared to handle medical school here.
One distinction I would like to make here is that Ivy League =/= random no-name private out of state school. I agree that in that this situation, I would have chosen the state school. However, we are explicitly talking about Columbia, which is widely acknowledged as one of the best schools in the world. It's the school our president graduated from (regardless of what you think of his presidency - not the point here).
Additionally, "public Ivy" is a nebulous term. I assume you mean a school like UVA/UCLA/Berkeley/Michigan etc. Again, I agree that in many cases, the public school is the right choice when up against a random private school.
I'm glad she ended up getting in. Let me give you an anecdote counter to yours. I have a very close friend in college whose GPA was about a 3.4 and his sGPA was lower (he had a few Cs in core science classes). He didn't have any big fancy ECs - some research, some shadowing, a bit of volunteering, that's it. His essays weren't at all bad, but they weren't blow your pants away amazing. No connections anywhere. He got a balanced 36 on his MCAT which is good, but not stellar. So all in all, his stat profile (3.4/3.3/36) was not great. It was below average for our school and nationally with a slightly higher than average MCAT (for our school - a good deal higher for the nation). He ended up getting several interviews and got into his top choice, a solid mid-tier school in California, by December and started turning down other interviews.
Here's another example:
I have a friend who graduate from a public Ivy. Very smart guy, but got off to a rocky start in college and graduated with ~3.5. However he killed his MCAT and got a 40+. He also had all the regular ECs that you would need. Unfortunately, he ended up only with one interview, a low tier state school, which ended in a waitlist, and finally, in early summer, an acceptance. Had he come from my school, I have no doubt that he would have been more successful as an applicant.
That being said, I have another friend at the same school as the above person. Ended up with a slightly lower (but still very high) MCAT but a much better GPA (3.9). He had multiple top interviews and is now at a top 10 school.
Another example:
Friend from college had a 3.6-3.7 GPA. Mid-high 30s MCAT, all the regular ECs. Also at a top 10 school.
I can provide you with example after example but that won't prove anything.
I can, however, identify a trend. If you go to any school and have a high GPA and MCAT, you're going to do very well. If you go to a state school and have a middling GPA but a great MCAT, you might be okay, but you might not. If that MCAT is mediocre, you're in trouble. At the Ivy, you can have a middling (3.5-3.6) GPA and still be okay as long as you have an okay (not even great) MCAT. Neither the Ivy or the state school will save you from a poor GPA, MCAT, or both.
State schools, as per
@efle's chart, don't really factor in prestige of undergrad while private schools do. That's why schools like Hofstra are filled with low GPA Ivy League grads while these students might not have been able to get into their state schools.
Also schools do know how to normalize transcripts to an extent. Not all do it, but the schools that do are familiar with the notoriously grade deflated schools (usually Princeton and MIT and maybe a couple others). However, this is never something you can or should count on as an applicant. Fortunately, Columbia doesn't have this issue.
This is generally true, yes, but "fixating" on them isn't necessarily a good idea. If you're a marginal applicant, then yeah, your best shot is absolutely at your state school. If you're a decent to strong applicant, you will still have a good shot at your state school, but you also have the opportunity to look elsewhere. A lot of applicants, for whatever reason, really want to go to very prestigious or research intensive medical schools, and it's easier to do that coming from a prestigious undergrad (though the prestigious undergrad is not necessary - just excellence).
Yes, some schools give laughably easy exams. One of my state schools gives multiple choice organic chemistry exams. My organic chemistry exams were brutal. But medical school exams are brutal too. If you asked my to list my top 10 hardest exams, it would be a laundry list of my medical school exams with maybe a couple organic chemistry or biology exams cracking the list from undergrad. I feel like I was more prepared for the intensity of medical school because I took exams in undergrad that were "an endless stream of knuckle balls". Is it necessary to do this? No, but it can be helpful.
This isn't true. One of the selling points that Ivy Leagues like to use to attract applicants is their high rate of admissions to medical school. The statistic is on the website for almost all of them (I compiled them sometime last year if you want to look through my post history) and they all (with the possible exception of Cornell who has "only" a 67% success rate) have very impressive metrics. Not offering a yearlong sequence of algebra based physics doesn't mean that they don't care about whether or not you get into medical school. In fact, the premed advising at Ivy Leagues is generally strong, whereas they're generally weaker at state schools.
Brown is notorious for grade inflation policies (see above posts), so I don't really know how much water this holds. You could find a similar story at any school. This doesn't say anything about whether or not a particular person or even most people can handle or not handle the courseload at Brown.
Additionally, if you want to read into this vignette a little more, it implies that the "rest" of the science students at Brown were doing fine and the problem was limited to this particular person. This person also has no basis to say that she would have still been in science had she gone to Maryland. So I don't think that's particularly helpful.
Perhaps. I don't have time currently to read into the study in depth and I don't really trust the reporting itself, so I won't comment on it further and will assume it is true.
Sorry that this was so long and convoluted. I feel strongly that turning down Columbia would be a mistake here unless you are a) 150% sure you want to be a doctor and b) are totally fine attending your state school for medical school. However, I was both when I was going into undergrad, and I still chose my school over my flagship state school.
I think this discussion would be more pertinent if you were paying full sticker price for Columbia, but since Columbia is cheaper, I think it is the better option.
OP, you've been given multiple different perspectives on the issue that have brought up good points on both sides. You have a lot of information and are certainly capable of making an informed decision at this point. The last thing I will say is that you can become a phenomenal doctor coming from either school.
I will also give you the same advice I was given when choosing a college. It might not be good advice, but it was what I was given and helped me make my decision. This may very well be your only chance to get an Ivy League education. If that is something that is important to you, it is something to take into account.
I echo the good luck given by my colleagues here, and I'm sure any of us would be willing to offer our perspectives on any specific questions you might have.
