Chance an International w/ AN EMBARRASSING CONFESSION!

Colleges & Universities A-Z Columbia University
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<p>Hi all :)</p>

<p>I have an embarrassing confession to make... I love learning. :O</p>

<p>I enjoy learning in general and ask too many questions. I care little about grades (though, that could work against me. see below :/). I spend my free time reading mainly on International Relations and doing similar activities (writing, public speaking). I spend my Sunday mornings reading the week's issue of The Economist over a cup of coffee. I'm sorry. :(</p>

<p>I’m a junior currently, so these stats are partially a speculation of my senior year (though I think they’re reasonable). I’m also a South East Asian male living in my native country. I’m looking to major in something along the lines of International Relations and Philosophy.</p>

<p>I spent the Halloween break visiting family in New York. While there, I spent my free time lingering at Columbia, taking the 30 minute subway ride to 116th and Broadway. I spent 4 afternoons there attending public lectures I found off the Columbia website (great site!) and took one of the tours. One of the lectures was by no less than a hero of mine, Jeffrey Sachs. It was an awesome week. I can only imagine how awesome it would be to spend four years in that same way. Since then, I decided that Columbia is going to be my first choice when applying next year. If I submitted these for Columbia ED, what would my chances be?</p>

<p>If I won't get in, I’d apply to other dream schools: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, U of Chicago. If I don’t get into any of these, I’ll likely just go to school in my own country.</p>

<p>Freshman Grades – 3.6 uw (not submitted as a holistic GPA, just a breakdown of classes)
Sophomore Grades – 3.85 uw (not submitted as a holistic GPA, just a breakdown of classes)
Junior Grades – reasonably… 3.9 uw
Senior Grades – reasonably… 3.9
Rank: 10/170??
IB Score – 42? (I take a full IB Diploma w/ 4 Higher Level courses)</p>

<p>SAT – 750 reading, 750 writing, 700 math (2200)
SAT II – ???</p>

<p>School: most competitive in the country, top IB/international school. Sends around 6 ivies/year</p>

<p>Background:
South East Asian Male, not looking for financial aid,
Regret to add this, but… one of my parents is a leading national political figure</p>

<p>ECs:
- Writes weekly current events column for country’s leading newspaper
- Secretary-General of Model United Nations Program (attended 6 conferences abroad)
- President of "Global Citizens Club" (very active club. discuss current events/philosophy, roll out pamphlets and raise awareness to issues. product of my failure to start an IB Philosophy course in my school)
- Service – Started and managed Saturday service program with environmental NGO to plant trees around the city. Began with my own school but branched out to include 3 other schools in the city. Students planted around 2,500 trees overall.
- IASAS (the league of South East Asian international schools, overseas competitions):
- 4 years doing Extemporaneous Speaking. Won medals two years (1 silver, 1 gold)
- 3 years doing Debate. (1 silver)
- Captain of my school’s Academic Bowl team (general knowledge/trivia)
- 4 years on the Junior Varsity Tennis team (couldn’t join Varsity because of scheduling conflicts with MUN. is this ok?)
- Class Vice-President in my Freshman year (stopped doing class council when I realized it wasn’t my thing. I decided to pursue my interests more instead: MUN, public speaking, philosophizing, etc. :p)</p>

<ul>
<li>Study Mandarin and French in my free time. Fluent in English and the country’s local language. (maybe I can qualify to speaking 4 languages?) </li>
<li>I also DJ (vinyl) as a hobby and do school events occasionally. :)</li>
</ul>

<p>Jobs/Summers:
My family has been crazy about spending our summers travelling to obscure countries all my life. Otherwise, I spend my summers working in my parent's govt. office and accompany my parents when politicking, campaigning. I also polish my languages (spent 1 month in Beijing, improved my grasp of the local language).</p>

<p>Recs:
Should be quite solid, but average by these schools’ standards</p>

<p>Essay:
Not at that point yet... but I find writing essays to be my greatest academic strength</p>

<p>I'm sorry for posting this as a junior :(. Though, I think I can reasonably expect to have these in my senior year. Also, I know some stats are missing (like my SAT II's). I hope you can work with what's hear. Now...</p>

<p>No doubt I have a WEAK GPA (especially in freshman/sophomore years). Will this be an issue for me? Can my ECs make up for it? What should I work on/what are your suggestions?</p>

<p>Also, I didn't take any difficult courses in my freshman and sophomore year (no honors classes). However, I'm taking a Full IB Diploma with the maximum number of Higher Level classes (4 HLs). Will the rigor of my courses still work against me?</p>

<p>Finally, will my family name help me for these top schools (or are such schools just too competitive for that to even matter?)</p>

<p>Thanks guy! Look forward to reading your comments. =)</p>

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<p>bump anyone?</p>

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<p>“Regret to add this, but… one of my parents is a leading national political figure”
are you chinese or something since u mentioned that u stayed be beijing for a month?
either way, ur family name’s gonna help u a lot
former VP of Taiwan’s four kids got into Columbia cuz of their family name
so i say u have a pretty nice shot for any ivy schoools as long as ur parents are in office or have power when u apply
goood luck dude</p>

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<p>^ I’m pretty sure he’s not Chinese.</p>

<p>Anyways, you seem to have a good shot. Your EC’s definitely look good. They might filter you out by GPA alone, but let’s remain optimistic. ^_^</p>

<p>Btw, nice to see someone else who loves learning. :)</p>

<p>Yay The Economist! \m/</p>

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<p>I have to agree with the others. You have a very good shot. Strong EC’s that show a passion for public speaking. But, a few points in there gave me an impression that you like to overemphasize your accomplishments (please, don’t be offended. I could be wrong about that).</p>

<p>P.S: I think you should be proud that one of your parents is a successful leader (why do you regret it anyway?).</p>

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<p>thanks for the replies guys. and efekently: of course I’m proud of them but it’s still unethical to get into a school like Columbia because of that :P</p>

<p>Do you guys think that they’ll cut me off right away because of my GPA?</p>

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<p>I don’t think so. Even though they’re of course looking for 4.0’s, I think their cut-off would be at least a couple tenths of a point below that. :)</p>

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<p>Very strong ECs. Are you Korean by any chance?</p>

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<p>^by what stretch of imagination is korea south east asian?</p>

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<p>Nope, my country is far less common in these top schools as Korea, so I guess that’s good news. yay</p>

<p>Btw :p… do you guys think I should put all those down under my app or should I thin my ECs down? I’d also imagine that I should write about politics/public speaking in my essay to wrap it all together, right?</p>

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<p>^^ You have a great resume, and no, don’t ‘cut down’ your EC’s. Relax, you have a year to work on your application. And if you bring out how you hung out at Columbia going to speaker series and all that, that’s going to help you a lot because you won’t be invoking the generic “Core, NYC, Academics” mantra.</p>

<p>“I spend my Sunday mornings reading the week’s issue of The Economist over a cup of coffee. I’m sorry.”</p>

<p>I do this too. I like you already :)</p>