Hi guys, please let me know what my chances are for Columbia ED (mechanical engineering SEAS)
Objective:
ACT: 34
SAT II: 800 Math II, 700 Physics
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): I think unweighted is 3.8/4, but weighted is 4.49/5.
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Not sure, but between top 5-10%, pretty good public school in Vermont
AP (place score in parenthesis):AP Chemistry (4), AP Biology (3), AP Statistics (5), AP Calculus AB (5), AP Macro (5), AP Micro (5), AP Lang (5) AP Calculus BC (5), AP US (3)
IB (place score in parenthesis): NA
Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Gov, AP Physics, AP Psych, APES, advanced calc (beyond bc)
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): NA
Other: emphasized my love for humanities as well as engineering; dedicated to service (many service activities).
I know that Columbia is looking for a certain type of student, I just hope I fit the criteria!!
EC’s
Comp sci Internship at a local company for the last two years, a lot of programming (boss wrote a 10/1/ recommendation)
Organized program to introduce girls to engineering (gave workshops and lessons at local middle schools)
Science Olympiad (I feel like everyone has this though)
Visits local elementary schools to help kids with their homework
Created a club that raised money for girls’ education in impoverished countries
Volunteer at a local organization that helps new and struggling businesses (worked on website)
Summer - volunteered at a science summer camp
Model UN
Track & Field
With most of the EC’s I used, I tried to connect everything together - community service, encouraging girls (in engineering), teaching kids, etc.
Also, for my Columbia specific essays I wrote about how I was really involved in humanities as well as engineering (I started a poetry club at my school where every week we “acted out” a poem; read a lot of different literature)
^^ That’s good. As I’m sure you know Columbia engineers have to take a scaled down version of the Core. I’d say you have a decent shot. Your location helps and being Asian is offset somewhat by being a female interested in STEM. Lots of kids going for CS these days so being interested in ME is a plus in my opinion. Are you looking for financial aid (being of very low income or first generation may help)? Columbia engineering has a lower acceptance rate than MIT (but the applicant pool is no doubt not as strong). Best of luck!
