<p>Are applicants compared to the entire pool, regardless of school, or are they just compared to other who are applying to the same school?</p>
<p>Does Columbia have to admit a certain number for each school?</p>
<p>multiple levels of comparison take place - this is pretty intuitive. you are compared to those from your high school, from your region, those with your major interests, etc., these comparisons though do not lead to your admission or denial, they just help situate you within the pool. the most important immediate comparisons are of course those in your own hs - if you aren’t a top student from your school, why should they admit you when feasibly they could admit someone with a stronger profile who had the same experience?</p>
<p>your second question isn’t smart. how does this make sense? would you admit kids from a school if you didn’t think anyone was interesting? no. would you decide not to admit kids from a school just because you have admitted someone already? no. there are no maximums or minimums for each school, great schools could feasibly have no one admitted in a given year.</p>
<p>if you can’t tell, i just don’t get why you are on here posting questions that are clearly irrationally based. when you get over rigidity and realize that admissions involves multiple factors and multiple interests then you will start to see there is no set formula, nothing you can predict especially because you do not know who else is in the pool. ultimately you have to trust that admissions is doing its job - selecting students they think are best for columbia. hopefully that includes you, but if it doesn’t, hopefully it means you also did your homework and found schools of varying admission standards that you think would be good fits as well.</p>
<p>I think what he means by “school” is CC versus SEAS, not high school.</p>
<p>I have no proof, but it seems to me that the answer is no.</p>
<p>CC and SEAS are two different applicant pools I think. Im applying RD to SEAS most likely.</p>
<p>there was a similar thread that said that students weren’t compared from high schools, but only in similar interests</p>
<p>@admissionsgeek It seems pretty clear from the context of the OP’s question that school refers to SEAS/CC, not high school</p>
<p>And my guess is that applicants are compared within a school - each school has separate application requirements and there is different criteria they search for in an applicant depending on SEAS/CC</p>
<p>well, that wouldnt be too smart. it should be based on interests. no matter how many people come from the school, if each of them can bring something to columbia, they shouldnt be compared.</p>
<p>I’m referring to admissions within each school, as in admissions for SEAS vs admissions for CC.
Again, not high school.</p>
<p>Yeah, I meant the Columbia College applicant v. the SEAS applicant.</p>
<p>I thought it was clear when I capitalized the ‘c’ in College…</p>
<p>oh, sorry. i feel stupid.</p>
<p>entirely separate applicant pools, no direct comparison. However, you do indirectly compete a little when it comes to interests and building a holistic undergrad population. For example if you are a really good debater applying to seas, there might not be many other amazing debaters in the seas applicant pool, but there might be many great debaters in the CC applicant pool, so you wouldn’t stand out as much as you think. That’s the level of indirect comparison, socially, extra-curricularly, residentially and for admissions statistics purposes, CC and SEAS are one body. However, there are a fixed number of spots for CC students and a fixed number of spots for SEAS students and those two are separate.</p>
<p>no you were clear, i was just saying that modes of comparison are multiple. so yes you are compared to seas applicants from your school if you are a cc student, as you are compared to a lot of other candidates based on your background, interests, geographic location, etc.</p>
<p>your reader will place you in context in many different ways, but ultimately they have the discretion to admit you perhaps just because they like you.</p>
<p>While adgeek is correct that you’re technically compared with SEAS applicants from your school in the same way you’re compared with your other classmates (i.e. to place your academic performance within the context of your class), the short answer to your question is: no. The admissions for SEAS and CC is entirely separate.</p>
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<p>This. 10char</p>