I am currently a freshman at a private day school in Colorado. However, for next school year, I will be transferring to Phillips Exeter Academy. Unfortunately, I ended this school year with two A-'s and I am now freaking out that my chances of attending my dream school, Columbia University, have diminished to near to none. I received one A- in my English Honors class last semester, although in my defense I did receive the highest mark. This semester, I ended the year with an A- in my theology class, solely due to the fact that my teacher would seemingly attempt to find anything to take points off of my grade since she found out I was transferring. I do not want to sound delusional but my theology A- was certainly not due to merit but rather a personal grudge in which I could not do much about other than smile and remain amicable.
A brief background on me, I play varsity football, track, and am intending to try out crew next year. I am an extremely passionate FX and commodities trader and am intending of starting my own fund, with a few a few friends and some college students by the next three years, if everyone goes well and am able to use all of Exeter’s resources to their fullest. Furthermore, I love mathematics and am almost certain I will be placed into Exeter’s 421 math class next year (a fast-tracked sequence which will get me done with BC calc by the first trimester of the following year), although, nothing too special about a sophomore taking calc at Exeter, lol.
I was wondering if you guys could give me some ‘candid’ advice regarding if you ‘sincerely’ believe I still hold a conceivable chance of attending Columbia for an economics and international business major. In addition, I was wondering if you guys could offer me any useful advice on how to better my chances in the college process and even simply how to make the most of my high school experience.
In advance, thank you very much for all your help!
You chance is “near none” even if you have all As or A+s all four years of HS. Literally. This year Columbia accepted 5.5% of applicants. Remove legacies, recruited athletes, and under-represented minorities, and the rate is even lower.
Advice: Do the best you can in HS. Do not sweat an A- or even a B. And don’t have a dream school. Work on recognizing that you can and will thrive at a wide variety of colleges.
You still have much to learn about what Columbia or any other tippy top wants. Fortunately, at a top prep, your GC will be well able to evaluate and guide you. Including that an A is an A.
Rounding out what the others have advised, see if you can also find a list of schools that have what interest you. Since you seem sporty, you may want to also consider Amherst. Though that school doesn’t by itself have finance, it’s within the Five College consortium and you could pick up business courses that way. Also consider UPenn / Swarthmore/ Haverford. They are all part of a consortium and have a strong business bent. Dartmouth is in no way a safety school, but it also has strong ties to finance in NYC. Also look at Colgate.
Exeter will have excellent advice for you for other schools that may even suit you better, once you look at what else they offer. You never know!
You’re the one choosing the school. It’s never the other way around. College is a major purchase. Shop around and don’t commit to anything until you know it’s the right school you can afford.
It is way too early to think about specific colleges (especially the hyper-competitive ones). You don’t even have one full year’s GPA and you have no standardized testing. You also need to recognize that HS should be an experience in and of itself – a time of learning and growth and not just a 4 year college application prep experience.
It is good to take school seriously and know that college will be on your horizon, but it is too early to start planning for specific colleges. I would highly recommend that you get off of CC until your junior year.
For now you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Continue your involvement in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.
When the time comes (junior year) honestly asses your academic stats (including GPA, standardized tests, course rigor) as well as your financial needs and apply to a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (you will have to run a net price calculator for each school you consider) and that you would be happy to attend. You need to expand your horizons and recognize that there are many wonderful schools out there where you can have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.
(Also going forward please do not post the same question in multiple places)
You should have as strong a chance as anybody. You’ll be applying from the best HS in the US. If you’re in the top 20% or so of your class and have decent SAT/ACT and some APs, that’s really all you need accomplish gradewise. (You’re worrying too much about a couple of A-'s freshman year.)
By all means reach out for challenging courses, but from what I’ve heard, Exeter offers little else and it’s impossible to skate through.
Your best card is being an athlete. Columbia is always desperate for football recruits. Best of all in their view are strong players from St. Grotlesex – don’t need to worry about them bombing academically.
Crew is great for recruiting too, in fact that’s how I got in. Indeed, if you’re more or less a benchwarmer on the football team, you should consider dropping that and doing just crew. If you have the physique for HW crew (6’+ tall, long legs, ~ 190 lbs.) you may be a shoo-in as a crew recruit. You’ll have to work really hard to come up to a decent competitive level, though, being new to the sport. Be warned crew workouts are much tougher than football, so say people who’ve done both.
You should apply to all the Ivies, but Columbia should be easiest to get in as a crew or football prospect.
The rest of the posters on this thread are giving generic advice that’s irrelevant to your situation.
Agree that being a strong athlete and being strong academically will raise your chances considerably - but I am sure that as a strong math student (taking calc as a HS sophomore) you understand that even if your chances as an athlete are 10x those of a non-athlete, it only raises them to a coin-flip at best overall.
Getting a couple of A-'s freshman year, from a private school, when you are transferring schools, won’t matter a whit. What will matter is the type of person you are, and that you can convey a true love of learning
Please understand that you have been given tremendous advantages already. Don’t squander them.
With a 5% admissions rate, it doesn’t matter how smart you are or how polished your application is. You have a 95% chance of getting rejected. Even if you applied to every ivy league school at once, your chances would be the same. The best thing you can do is not to concern yourself with Columbia. One of the fundamentals of business is the ability to confidently shop around. You’re the one choosing them. A BMW costs almost twice as much as a subcompact, but that doesn’t make it “better” than the subcompact. It only makes it different so it can appeal to a particular demographic market segment. Some rich people prefer to drive a subcompact anyway because of it’s practicality and reliability.
Columbia doesn’t rank students by gpa and then pick the top 5.5% so your hyper focus on two A-‘s is very misguided. Sure, you need to graduate in the top quartile or quintile of your class (because it is Exeter otherwise I would say top 3- 5% of a typical public HS). Once you have a decently high gpa and test scores, what you do outside of academics becomes of paramount importance. For most top colleges, they want to accept those whom they believe will one day go out into the world and have some sort of non-trivial impact. They believe the best predictor of whether or not an applicant will go on to have an impact is their past track record of doing so in HS so keep that in mind as you progress through HS. You should be able to receive stellar advice from the GCs at Exeter (hence the $$$ you are paying) but always look for ways that you can go above and beyond what they suggest or what your classmates are doing. It’s a double-edged sword attending a top prep school. Good luck!
Theyre looking foremost at your 4 year potential at that college. That community, before your post grad life. Ime, focuding too much on post grad can backfire.
And as great as Exeter is, OP won’t be the only shining star. Quintile may very well not be enough to pick and choose. Plus an admit is more than a stats competition.
The GC staff will point groups of kids at different colleges. Adcoms will have a cap in mind, to allow for kids from the other super duper preps. No guarantees.
^^ As someone with acceptances to Harvard, Yale, Stanford etc (most with likely letters) I respectfully disagree. Of course, they select students who can have an immediate impact on campus and are likely to be able to take full advantage of all the many resources they have to offer, but I stand by my opinion that they are looking for students that they know have the abitltity to go out into the world and make a difference. Many of the questions they ask such as “what matters to you and why” are geared toward this assessment.
Also, I know that OP won’t be the only shining star. That’s why I said it’s a double-edge sword and for OP to always look to go above and beyond.
Mine’s experience. I know what the reaction is when there’s too much emphasis on college as a vehicle to a career path. When talking an Ivy, Stanford, MIT, etc, they know the right kids have an exceptional chance at their future careers. Plus, the best candidates already making a difference.