I will say that a friend of my son’s chose to go to Georgetown just based on it’s prestige. He is looking to transfer, already. This isn’t to say that it’s not an excellent school , just that you shouldn’t get too caught up in going to a school because of someone’s idea of “prestige”.
S1 is going to Desautels. He is enjoying the friends he has made, and Montreal is general. The grading is brutal, though. Part of that is because he started in 2nd year(U1). You don’t want to be taking more than 4 core courses per term. Mix in a basket weaving course, though I bet mcGill would find a way to make that hard. Montreal would be the most European city that you will find in North America.
Northwestern is a really good school, in a nice part(a suburb, really, but a nice one) of an interesting city. A Big10 school without the annoying parts.
I don’t know about Barnard, but if it’s anything like Columbia it’s a great school. Rigor will also be very real there. There’s nothing like NYC…very exciting, but potentially tiring, place. I loved NYC when I lived there, though I expected to hate it. It’s certainly not a place you can be neutral on.
USC is very well regarded for just about anything, though I am ignorant about their business program. A local kid turned down Cornell and Dartmouth to go there, though it’s unknown how much of that decision had to do with the weather.
I don’t understand the comment above about McGill having having less of a community, unless your idea of community has to do with going to football and basketball games. I would say that McGill has more in common with Columbia than Columbia does with USC or Georgetown.