Chances, please?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
1

<p>This is pretty much copied from my thread on MIT forums. (i got deferred EA there)</p>

<p>SAT: 720 CR, 750 M, 800 W (2270 Total)
SAT II: 800 Math II, 800 Physics, 650 French (am taking Chem in Jan)
GPA: 3.86 UW
Rank: school doesnt rank, but probably top 10/~700
APs: Physics B (5), Physics C (5, 5), Calc AB (5), Calc BC (5), Stat (5), CS AB (5), French (3)</p>

<p>Other Stuff:</p>

<p>French Honors Society (officer, was inducted in 10th grade, skipped a year of french)
Mu Alpha Theta (co-president)
National Honors Society
Science Olympiad/Math Club: founder, team manager
Tech. Students. Assoc.: vice-president
Red Cross: did all of their graphics stuff, t-shirts, brochures, etc for a big event. won logo contest again this year, will do it again this year.
Math Team: consistently highest/close to highest scorer...but there aren't officer positions
Odyssey of the mind: 4 time state finalist, one of my big activities</p>

<p>NJ science league: got in for 3 yrs, got top 10% (highest honor) last year
US Physics team: semi-finalist, top 158 in nation, only junior from my school last year to get it</p>

<p>Teacher Recs:
Eng.: she loved me, got an A in her class (a very tough class), she's said to write great recs
Math: i taught the class for about 2 weeks when he was out sick, had a strong A in his class, he liked me
Counselor Rec: not bad, she knows me pretty well, took the most rigorous schedule
Essays: they weren't bad i think</p>

<p>additional info:</p>

<p>finished all math, physics, comp sci courses in my school this year, so i'm taking two independent studies in diff. eqns, classical mechanics, and c++/opengl.</p>

<p>apart from that:</p>

<p>-did volunteering at a spiritual learning center summer camp for a couple years; takes up a good deal of my time.
-also did volunteering at an art museum for a while
-bunch of little stuff here and there... most of my time is devoted to in-school extra curriculars</p>

<p>Could you guys tell me kinda where I stand?</p>

2

<p>your academics are definitely in range, your ECs seem a highly engineeringy, they fit more into an MIT/cornell/carnegie mellon mould, than into a columbia mould, but that's shouldn't really hold you back. </p>

<p>"Eng.: she loved me, got an A in her class (a very tough class), she's said to write great recs
Math: i taught the class for about 2 weeks when he was out sick, had a strong A in his class, he liked me"</p>

<p>i think these will be significant, especially the math thing because it shows you are a capable and trusted leader.</p>

<p>"Essays: they weren't bad i think"</p>

<p>unless you're being unassuming and modest (which would be refreshing on this site), this might keep you out. They give you freedom in the essay so that you blow them away, a mediocre essay might hurt your chances. </p>

<p>It's clear that you have a decent shot at getting into seas, i can still see you being rejected if they think that you won't fit columbia well, but nothing objective is keeping you out.</p>

3

<p>Just a couple clarifications:</p>

<p>my math teacher did say he would mention about the teaching thing in his letter.</p>

<p>i forgot to say that those two letters were the ones that went to mit.</p>

<p>the same letter's also going to columbia for math but instead of english, i'm using a chem teacher.</p>

<p>i had like a 99 or something in his class, he liked me too, recommended me for science league (same year i got the top 10% thing), sent me to chem olympiad, and taught me more independently of the class. i think that letter should be pretty solid too.</p>

<p>the columbia essay i realli liked and the people who reviewed it for me said they thought it was a strong essay too. i talked about an awesome science teacher who taught us like multi-variable calc, linear algebra last year (he's a science teacher but his class was essentially math and quite difficult)</p>

<p>as far as the fit, based on college info sessions and everything else ive read/heard about columbia, it sounds pretty much in line with what i want from a college experience. im pretty confident i conveyed that correctly in the Why Columbia and Why Engineering questions.</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice and your thoughts!</p>

<p>EDIT: i am applying to mit, CMU, and cornell as well :)</p>

4

<p><em>bump</em></p>

<p>anyone else?</p>