<p>Anecdotal evidence: A friend of mine graduated from Wharton and then decided he wanted to become a doctor instead, so he came to Columbia for post-bacc pre-med program. His experience here is that in general, Columbia’s students are more glued to and obsessed about their academics (and also more anti-social than UPenn), and the exams are far more rigorous and challenging. Also, Columbia faculty/post-docs/graduates have the highest number of Nobel prizes in the world. [List</a> of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation]List”>List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Columbia is ranked 1 with 97 Nobel prize winners (above Cambridge), while Penn is ranked 21 in that regard, with only 27 Nobel prize winners (below ETH Zurich).</p>