Chance Me Thanks!!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
1

<p>Thanks for taking the time to read this! Columbia is my second choice!</p>

<p>Other schools im applying to: harvard, yale, u penn, northwestern, stanford(first choice), cornell, wellesley, berkeley, ucla, usc</p>

<p>Asian Female</p>

<p>Will be applying undecided (will this hurt me?). I go to a super competitive public school in the suburbs of los angeles , #89 in the nation, dominated by asians like myself..</p>

<p>GPA: 3.85 (unweighted), 4.72 (weighted) I have had about 7 B's in all... But almost every class I've taken has been AP/honors and I have taken many after schools, summer schools, etc.. i'm in the top 4% of my school, and my senior classhas more than 800 students! which puts me in the top 20ish out of 800ish </p>

<p>Senior Workload:
Statistics AP
Physics C AP
Literature AP
French 4 AP
Government AP
Economics AP
Advanced Orchestra
Scientific Research</p>

<p>SAT I</p>

<p>1st time: 2110
2nd time: 2200
3rd time: 2340
(i hope the upward trend helps!)</p>

<p>SAT II</p>

<p>Korean: 790
Math 2: 790
Biology: 700
US History: 670
Chemistry: 740</p>

<p>AP's (here's where it might hurt... )
Envi Sci: 4
Chemistry: 4
US History: 3 (soo weird i was one of the few people who got A's both semesters)
Calc AB: 4
Biology: 4</p>

<p>Awards:</p>

<p>Korean Essay Competition Winner, Got Published
National Honors Society
AP Scholar with Distinction
California Scholarship Federation
Math Honors Society
French Honors Society
Music Honors Society
National Merit Commended
Honorable Mention, Environmental Science category, Regional Science Fair</p>

<p>Sports:
JV Lacrosse for one year, wont even mention it because frankly i hated it</p>

<p>Leadership:</p>

<p>President/Board Member of a 40 year old service club on campus for 4 years
Concertmistress of regional orchestra
2nd Violin Principal Stand of school advanced orchestra
Activities Director of school orchestra</p>

<p>Volunteer:
hundreds of hours doing various things as part of service club
worked at senior house
part of string quartet that played therapy music for hospital
researcher for a land conservancy </p>

<p>Jobs:</p>

<p>Intern at software company and worked on web programming and graphic design
Private tutor for various subjects
party promoter (lol)
fashion journalist for various paper&online publications
freelance dj mostly for friends' parties</p>

<p>Other things that make me stand out:</p>

<p>-I am a pretty serious violinist (but won't be majoring) and have won two consecutive first places at southwestern youth music festival, attended a music clinic at stanford, been part of numerous orchestras, performed with grammy artists, been concertmistress, etc....</p>

<p>-i have a 4 year old brother who i have the privilege of taking care of the most..</p>

<p>-i am heavily immersed in culture and very involved in music, art, etc of the los angeles scene. i dj and write professionally about fashion and art. i think that's kind of unusual about a female, asian columbia applicant. most of my friends are not the strongest academics and i have an interesting background/mindset in terms of the stuff i am interested in nonacademically. in that sense i think i bring a tremendous amount of diversity</p>

<p>-i am fluent in french thanks to a mother who is a french major and had a french student stay at my house for several weeks for an exchange program</p>

<p>-i have done independent science research since junior year. one year i did a study on the use of cursorial arthropods as bioindicators of restoration success, and currently i am studying the effects of tactile&electrical stimulation, as well as supersaturated oxygen on the bioluminescence of renilla reniformis (sea pansies!)</p>

<p>wow i got carried away. but thanks for reading</p>

2

<p>this is pretty impressive: you do a lot</p>

<p>I'd say you've got decent chances. The only thing with taking the SAT 3 times is that your second score was fine, taking it a third time could either be viewed as cocky or persistent. I don't know :( Don't worry about it though. </p>

<p>Don't worry too much about hte 3 on your AP--there's a lot of other stuff that balances it. Good luck, I htink you'll be a great applicant. Kick butt on the essays.</p>

3

<p>Applying undecided will not hurt--this is not Oxbridge. You look like a strong candidate, but that being said, there are a lot of candidates out there who have CVs just like you with lots of awards and outstanding academics--what makes you stand out from the crowd? CU wants students who are well-rounded yet at the same time they need that special something (isn't that the way it is with all colleges these days?). What makes you unique (the art/music stuff sounds really cool!) is what you should highlight in your application. It is okay to not have 5s on your APs and your threepeat of the SATs is okay, esp. since they went up. It would be different if you had taken them three times and they really hadn't changed significantly. They will take your best scores for each of the three parts. Thanks for including your rank--GPAs really tell nothing about the student's academic achievement, esp. since CU will give you there own version of a GPA.</p>

<p>Besides Columbia, I believe you will be accepted to USC, UCLA, Berkeley, UPenn, Cornell, Wellesley and probably Stanford. Harvard and Yale--I don't know. The friends I had accepted to those two schools were VERY diverse. I had a good friend who was accepted with a B average and nothing special on the app. I honestly think it is a lottery getting into those two schools.</p>

4

<p>thanks for the input!! the whole undecided thing had me pretty nervous...
it's just that everyone in my school is super smart and all headed towards ivies.. if im in the top 4 percent though, it shouldn't really matter right? since my school doesnt do straight up rankings..</p>

5

<p>r u applying to columbia college or seas</p>

6

<p>columbia college. by seas do you mean the engineering school?</p>

7

<p>You wrote an abstract right? How long was it? and How did you do it?</p>

<p>thanks!</p>

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<p>hey kiwiskimo, yes i wrote an abstract for my science research study last year. (it that's what you're talking about). I don't think i'm going to be attaching an abstract to my applications though, it's too much work and colleges hate additional supplementals unless it really really blows them out of the water (aka finding the cure for cancer or something close haha). if you are still looking for help on abstract writing, here is a link with a whole bunch of student abstracts on award winning projects, enjoy: 2008</a> California State Science Fair Project Listings</p>

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<p>Thanks, yeah I'm talking about the abstract for Columbia. I haven't submitted any supplementary materials, although I'm wondering whether the recommendation from the professor whom i work with counts as one. If that's the case, then i can stop procrastinating on this Abstract, and start on my AP Physics homework! :P</p>

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<p>so are you submitting an abstract to columbia? i haven't looked at the app yet even though columbias my second choice because i've been working on my stanford early app (which is due in a week and im not even close to finishing hahah)</p>

<p>yeah i've heard of people getting recs from their mentors but i don't think i will since i didn't know her too well. ap physics sucks, im sooo struggling haha</p>

11

<p>Haha...yeah i'm thinking about it/ writing it. Just don't want to bog the admissions officer down with too many supplementary materials. I mean including the one from my "boss," that's 4 total (counselor rec is included)</p>

<p>Columbia' Engineering's my 1st choice, applying ED, and i have about 4 days before i plan to send.</p>

<p>AP physics....i 'm not enjoying it as much as AP chem...that was sooo much fun! We had numerous parties, watched lots of planet earth, had really cool labs and demonstrations...oh and we spend a week playing Rockband on our new 50 in TV taht was installed lol. Now you must be thinking our class is a joke..BUT 14/21 of the people got 5s in that class, rest got 4s.</p>

<p>sorry for digressing, I think knowing calculus helps a lot with physics...especially with kinematics and work.</p>

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<p>good luck for columbia engineering!!!
ap chem was hard but my teacher was immensely entertaining (he's writing my rec!)
rockband!! yeah!!
haha i forgot everything from calc so physics is def proving a b*tch :)</p>