Columbia: admission rate of ED is definitely higher than other rounds; but more finance focus, little interested in; New york, big city, convenient to live, easy to find jobs
MIT: engineering / high tech focus, interested industry. but might have too many engineer classmates; Boston, the favorate US city, but too cold; the early application, the higher admission rate; higher ranking than Columbia overall
1. Studying in MIT is no harder than other b-schools. Dun worry on this part.
2. For MIT, about 25% of the whole student body is engineering background in class 2008. So you dun have to worry this part either. In my sense MIT is still very well-diversified.
3. This year, it was not very cold in Boston overall.