Columbia (GS) or Reed College? Help me choose!

@Publisher
I crossed Swarthmore off my list for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that they don’t seem to send many people to top 10 analytic graduate programs, at least according to a recent report by Eric Schwitzgebel. I did consider NYU, which has (arguably) the best philosophy program in the world, and which sends undergraduates to very good philosophy programs, but I ultimately decided that I didn’t really like the intellectual atmosphere of NYU for undergraduates. So I didn’t even send out an application there.

As for who has the “best” program in philosophy, that’s a tricky and controversial question. The most well-known rankings are Brian Leiter’s “Philosophical Gourmet Report”, which does tend to be a pretty decent register of which programs are strongest in the core areas of analytic philosophy - metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory. The top four schools in Leiter’s rankings are generally NYU, Rutgers, Princeton, and Oxford. Michigan, Pittsburgh, MIT, Yale, and Berkeley also consistently make very strong showings there. However, there are also hardline “continental” programs out there which barely show up on Leiter’s reports, and which are considered very prestigious in certain circles. DePaul, Penn State, Emory, Vanderbilt, Stony Brook and Warwick all fall under this category. And it’s worth remembering that which universities do the best in rankings aren’t necessarily the best for placement into tenure-track jobs. There’s been a lot of research on this recently, and I’d be more than happy to share it if you PM me. Regardless, hope this helps.

A reputational/survey based ranking can be found here:
https://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/overall-rankings/

An academic job placement based ranking can be found here:
https://www.philosophynews.com/post/2013/10/23/Graduate-School-Philosophy-Placement-Records-In-the-USCA-Prestige-Placement-Rankings.aspx

Some have found that academic philosophy has a strong prestige bias, though many areas of academia have a strong prestige bias (typically within the subject area, as opposed to overall school prestige):
https://philpapers.org/archive/DECPBA