Well… your username clearly identifies you as someone wanting to attend one of those two Ivies that you were wait-listed at. Of your admissions, Columbia GS is the closest to those experiences… but it is also not the same as Columbia University. GS is for returning or non-traditional students. Plus… Columbia is far from the traditional U.S. college experience as I would define it. Between UC Berkeley and USC, I would clearly favor USC… and for a number of reasons. But then again… you have posted on the USC thread, so what else would you expect? I sent two daughters to USC in large part because it is a hybrid. It is an elite private university, but in many ways, it also mimics the overall traditional college experience that you would more often get at a large public university… especially in terms of activities, school spirit, greek life / social, the wealth of classes, majors and minors offered, etc. I was also very impressed with the global strength of their alumni network. UC Berkeley is a great university, but it is also a public university with fundamentally different aspects due to that factor alone.
In terms of entrepreneur leaning programs… yes - USC has many. So does UC Berkeley. Regarding Columbia GS - is it the same as Columbia? No… not really. And if you are looking for a fun, traditional college experience… Columbia GS is not such as I understand it. Both UC Berkeley and USC would offer that to a far greater degree. From my perspective… both would also do so to a far greater degree than any of the Ivies would, including Harvard and Penn. I take it that you have not visited these campuses. Columbia is very small and surrounded by NYC. It is very urban. So is Penn, although its campus is larger and you can sort of forget about the urban setting that surrounds it while in the middle of campus. Harvard’s campus and setting is superior to both in my opinion. There is of course also a big difference in attending any college or university in the U.S. northeast vs California.
I suggest looking through this listing of majors and minors just to gain a sense of the variety of programs… not to mention underlying courses… at USC… http://catalogue.usc.edu/content.php?catoid=8&navoid=2401
I also suggest reading some of the articles and webpages available through this link…
https://search.usc.edu/s/search.html?collection=usc-search&query=entrepreneur
And finally, you may want to look at the Niche college rankings and survey results. It compiles rankings, etc. based on survey results from students, faculty and alumni and goes into a great deal of detail… focusing on many things that other college rankings skip or gloss over… like quality of student life, dorms, food, safety, social life, etc.
Good luck with your decision…