<p>@vonnegut I initially chose UChicago because of the fact that the Fiske Guide basically suggested that UChicago was one of the top 2 or 3 undergraduate programs in the country along with Harvard and Yale–and because the economics department was the best. (I never considered Columbia or Princeton.)</p>
<p>Then I switched majors–first to English, then to Philosophy.</p>
<p>All I can say is William James and Bertrand Russell would tell you to choose UChicago over Princeton and Columbia. Russell felt UChicago had the finest philosophy department in the world and James had his famous comparison of UChicago vs. Harvard and Yale.</p>
<p>Important thinkers like that respected UChicago’s intellectual character and wouldn’t have cared less what university some dumb, uninformed high school students thought was trendy.</p>
<p>I briefly considered Columbia for graduate school but in the end chose the number one school in my field. I live in Los Angeles now and wasn’t really sure I wanted to live in NYC. (People in Los Angeles and California feel that California long ago passed up New York and the East Coast but that’s another story.) NYC is a great weekend trip for me but that’s about it. Plus, I didn’t really like Columbia’s campus. You feel as though you are living on the street. I suppose both neighborhoods have their safety issues, but Hyde Park feels a bit more residential.</p>