Some of the ‘top’ journalism schools like Syracuse, Missouri, Ohio, etc. aren’t in major cities but still have highly ranked programs, for whatever that’s worth. But, compare this to schools in major cities that would seem to have great connections, internships, job opportunities like, for example, American and George Washington in DC, which would ultimately be better in terms of jobs and internships?
While some of the top j-schools you listed aren’t in big cities (though Columbia, MO isn’t as small as Athens, OH or some other really small places), because of their reputation, they have excellent connections for internships and jobs. True, schools such as American are nice because they already are in the big city, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to get an internship or job in a city by going to a school in a smaller city/town. Missouri has internship opportunities in both DC and New York, as well as foreign study abroad options. You don’t have to go to school in the place you want to work in; media corporations all know what the top j-schools are so it’s not as if they wouldn’t have heard of Mizzou or Syracuse.
It depends on whether you want to be able to do internships/part time jobs during the actual school semesters, but it’s not a deal breaker. Personally, I ended up at BU and was able to work part time for The Boston Herald; other students were able to intern at Boston Magazine, Boston Phoenix etc… but it’s not the norm & it wasn’t a magical key to a job (recession = sucks). I wouldn’t have that be a major deciding factor unless you really want to go to school in a big city. I wanted a city school in general; it wasn’t even about the internship opportunities for me.