Is Columbia hardo-land

by nature of being located in a city, columbia will be more pre-professional and have a good amount of hardos compared rural colleges like dartmouth or duke, but because of its location, you will have way too many firms to count doing OCR.

if you're concerned about hardo-land, then that's more like nyu stern, michigan ross, and wharton with their large undergrad business school student populations, as well as cornell because it is a large school, (way too many hardos gunning for limited positions, most of which go to DEI and nepo). columbia is much more laid back than the aforementioned 4. 

columbia also has pre-professional clubs that are hard to get into and are extremely cliquey, as greek life will not be that predominant, but you don't have to be in one of those clubs to get a good role.

as long as you get good grades, can explain why you want to work in your chosen career field coming from your major, and network with alumni well, you should land a decent role, especially in light of the improving economy. 

classes, with the core curriculum requirements and fast-filling registrations for the best profs, can be a headache, and this school is definitely nowhere near as chill as brown with their open curriculum and grade inflation, but also nowhere near as intense as uchicago with their notorious grade deflation. i usually went to bed at 9-11 PM and got a good 7-9 hours of sleep daily, while working a part time job on campus.

you can also network with alumni of columbia business school and columbia law school, and the alumni network is extremely extensive. however, as with most target schools, expect to deal with several unresponsive and abrasive alumni here and there, and do not get discouraged by that at all.

student life and the location in NYC is unbeatable, and you will have a blast there!

go lions!