My husband transferred into Columbia (through GS, but the Core requirements are similar). He only took 12 points a semester and it took him 4 years to graduate, but even if he had taken 15 points a semester, I still think it would’ve taken him longer than 2 years because of all the Core requirements. And even then, GS has a lot more flexibility in satisfying Core requirements with outside classes - he didn’t have to take Literature Humanities, Frontiers of Science or Contemporary Civilization, for example, because he had transfer classes that counted. But I think Columbia College students are 100% required to take those classes and can’t substitute transfer coursework.
That combined with the fact that Stanford is better for CS would make me lean Stanford. You’d have more wiggle room to take electives as well as some wiggle room in case something goes wrong. And they’ve given you better aid!
It’s not because Stanford is more prestigious (comparing the prestige of the two is splitting the tiniest of hairs) but because Stanford’s connections in the tech industry are unparalleled.
I didn’t attend undergrad at Columbia - I went to graduate school there - but I supervised and taught undergrads there, and can attest to its “busy” feel. It’s one of those places where it feels like your classmates are always doing something, leading something, interning somewhere, etc. I used to overhear students compete-bragging about how many hours they spent in the library (“Bro, I was in Butler until 1 am yesterday” “Oh dude, you left at 1? I didn’t leave until 3” “Well, yeah, I just had to leave because I was hungry, but I went back to my room to study until 5…”*), and it seemed like the students I supervised were always exhausted because they were president of 3 clubs and interning and taking 6 classes a semester. I remember several times trying to convince some of my students to drop a class or two - I remember advising an RA of mine that she absolutely could not take 8 classes and that she needed to drop at least 2 or I would have to let her go; advising a different RA who was struggling that she should drop one of her 6 classes and getting a response that indicated she’d never even considered the idea; and suggesting to a resident in one of my buildings that maybe she should drop one of her 6 classes and her responding that she couldn’t possibly because all of her friends were also taking 6-7 classes and she’d feel like a slacker. (The graduate programs are somewhat like that, too; it used to drive me crazy and I had to make a lot of non-grad student friends, because I felt like all we did was talk about academics/work even when we were at happy hour or eating dinner together or something.)
BUT don’t get me wrong - those students were some of the most amazing young people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing; they grind hard but they are talented and smart and it’s an excited, energetic kind of grinding. It’s the kind of place where if the students don’t like something they DO something about it, and if they do like something they do something to establish it/make it better/make it permanent. They’re always doing something. And they have the greatest skills! My RAs had to put together a video for an activity we were doing and they put together this beautifully scripted, filmed, and edited video because there was someone who had a little bit of experience in each. I’ve seen them protest the departure of administrators they liked and move for the institution of administrators and teachers they needed. There’s a reason why so many Columbia students (and elite school students in general, I suspect) go onto demanding leadership positions in their careers - they get good training and the kind of peer pressure cooker that germinates that work ethic at Columbia. And they learn this lack of fear in petitioning authority figures for whatever it is they think they want. (And that bled over into the graduate ethic, too - when a benefit of mine at work was delayed, I mentioned to a coworker that if it didn’t get fixed I’d find whoever was responsible for it in HR and sit in their office until they made it happen. He laughed, and then he realized I was serious, because I’ve done it before!)
So that’s both sides of the coin for the “busy” aspect, although of course from an adjacent perspective. I suggest you visit the Columbia forum if you want a more first-hand perspective from current undergrads!
*No lie, I involuntarily rolled my eyes really hard when I wrote this sentence, just like I used to when I heard the undergrads having the argument, lol!