For Those Who Want To Work Hard

Introduction
Anyone who doesn't want to work should stay away. Also, make a conscious effort to get out in to the city, as it's easy for the workload to entice you into staying in the Columbia bubble. It's in New York but it's very safe on campus, as the neighborhood is ridiculously gentrified and police officers focus most of their local resources on Columbia. Off campus at night, there's always a chance someone will come down for one of the more crime-ridden areas to take advantage of naive Columbia students, but this is usually limited to swindles and confidence scams rather than robbery.

Campus Life and Social Life
All partying is at bars, as the frats are loathed and lame and there is very little off campus housing to host. There's quite a bit of coke flying around because there's a lot of moneyed kids in the less strenuous majors. Just to put it out there, you're going to need a fake ID coming in as a freshman. I know it's illegal, but it's a fact of life on campus - 98% of underage kids have one; the bars generally know the difference between a fake and legitimate ID but they usually choose not to see the difference unless they're already full. Academics
If you don't want to work go somewhere else, as this is probably the second most strenuous ivy in terms of workload after Cornell. Even though it's not as ridiculous as, say, MIT it's still fairly brutal if you actually plan on doing all of it; a lot of the classes without problem sets don't require you to do all the work directly, but you're going to have a hard time come finals unless you put in the countless library hours keeping up on your reading.

Student Body
Barnard is across the road, so a man won't have any problems finding someone decently attractive - the higher proportion of hideous library gnomes who only come out at night to feed is more than compensated for by the sheer number of options available. Most everyone is a radical leftist of some sort: although only a small portion are overt socialists, they are one of the most active organizations on campus, and the most fun to mock. Sports are generally ignored, and there's a few big clubs (SPECTATOR, namely) that eat most of the recruits while the countless others survive on the scraps.

In Closing...
Get the least meals possible. The dorms are palaces, but the dining halls are atrocious. The other food options are fairly decent. Also, plan on spending a ton of money off campus for food.