<p>I chose between Barnard (which is an all-girls college within Columbia) and Georgetown. I chose Gtown for the following reasons:
- much better Italian program - actual classes in Italian, as opposed to Italian Lit in Eng.
- Much more structured and more expansive study abroad program (Int’l health sounds like a study abroad major). Columbia has only about four or five SA programs; three of which are in London (School of Economics), France, and Tokyo. The rest of the programs require you to go through other universities and are a bit of a hassle. However, a little googling finds they have a premed SA page (<a href=“http://www.ogp.columbia.edu/pages/columbia_students/columbia_college/programs/premeds/index.html)%5B/url%5D”>http://www.ogp.columbia.edu/pages/columbia_students/columbia_college/programs/premeds/index.html)</a>.
- The classes I sat in on at Barnard and Columbia (one each, anthro and Italian) seemed boring and a lot of the lower level classes are taught by TAs or largely guided by them.</p>
<p>Other than that, NYC is so much better it’s true (but I will come back. New Yorkers always do.) The clubs, the museums, the history, all are amazing. The thing with DC that I don’t like is that everybody sleeps. You go looking around late at night and places close pretty early- nearly everything in NYC stays open and the city mentality is much more pervasive. DC is much more of a pretend-to-be city, a sprawled out suburb, but of great historical import.</p>
<p>If you care more about the social atmosphere, I’d say Columbia, but if you care more about academics then Gtown - NHS is really underrated and you get lots of special attention (supposedly it’s easier to get internships and stuff less competition with it) and whoever said that Gtown just does international better is right.</p>