<p>Hey so any chances or advice would be great
I go to an extremely competitive school in MA</p>
<p>GPA: 3.85 Unweighted, 4.15 Weighted (My freshman year screwed me, but for Junior year i have a 4 Unweighted)
ACT: 33 (I am taking it again and expect to do better)
SAT II: Molecular Biology-710, Math I- 790, US History- 800
AP: Biology-4, US History- 5, Chem- 5, Latin- 5
Other Honors or AP level Courses: World History, Mens Choir (Its really hard to get in to here), Latin, Geometry, Algebra II</p>
<p>ECs:
Varsity Golf (4 years, Captain for 1 year)
Varsity Lacrosse (3 Years, Captain for 2 years, and I'm getting recruited to other ivy schools)
Varsity Hockey (4 years, Captain for 2 years)
My town's youth commission (4 years)
National Honors Society
I work in Mass General Hospital lab, which gets hired to work for major companies like Hersey Chocolate
An extremely competitive Acappella Group
150+ hours of Community Service
National Latin Exam (Gold 3 years)
National Spanish Exam (Gold 1 year)</p>
<p>Some Various other little awards and things but I know that Columbia hates those so i chose to leave those off</p>
<p>Essay: From what people have said, my essay is excellent</p>
<p>Letters of Rec: My Guidance Counselor loves me, I've talked to her on the phone and in person a lot and she knows me well. My 2 teacher letters should be outstanding as well, i chose teachers that i've had for multiple years and that i've talked to before. </p>
<p>if your good at golf, try to get recruited by columbia. A couple of my friends who have way weaker stats than you, got recruited because Columbia sucks at golf.</p>
<p>You are likely to get in. To have 3 varsity sports under your belt and high academic achievement such as your record indicates is exceptional.</p>
<p>Lacrosse is only a club sport at Columbia (thank you, Title IX!) and thus is not a very big hook. It is a huge hook at Princeton, which fields top flight teams. I will try not to disparage this fine school, but try looking at their board on this website and see the type of people they are, if you are interested. I will note that every third posting is a comparison between their school and Harvard/Yale.</p>
<p>Good luck to you in your college search. Any college will be very fortunate to have you as a student.</p>
<p>No one is 'likely' to get into Columbia. With a ~8.7% acceptance rate, it's a crapshoot for most applicants. These 'chance' threads are useless! No prospectus, current student, or alumnus can properly 'chance' another applicant. There is no formula for getting accepted. The admissions office is not only accepting the most qualified candidates; it is also compiling a class. The admissions officers want a diverse group of kids - they don't want a class full of varsity golfers who sing. As far as I am concerned, these threads only boost (or sink) egos. They do nothing else! I know you're probably just anxious about finding out if you will be accepted or not; well, I'm also an antsy applicant, and I know that getting chanced won't calm your nerves. Instead, having an open discussion about the various schools to which you have applied and about your collegiate aspirations will settle you down. Don't waste your time with this bull.</p>
<p>albathon, you're probably right. and yet we cant stop getting on this forum :P</p>
<p>vicious, vicious process this entire thing is. and then, somebody with a royal sense of humor decided everyone should get their acceptanc results on April Fool's Day.. -_-</p>
<p>Good points, albathon. We have not even seen the recommendations and admissions essays. I made the assumption that they are as stellar as the academic record, but that's a big assumption. I've seen poor recommendations sink even the best-looking applicants. Also, lacrosse is a huge, huge hook for some Ivy schools (Cornell, Princeton), but not at Columbia.</p>
<p>jamescchen, let me first say that I appreciate your thoughtful contributions to this forum. I suspect, however, that chronic athletes (as well as chronic thespians, musicians, activists, etc.) are recognized as possessing a very important hook: an evangelical, illogical obsession with an activity the school is perennially seeking to promote. You're the expert, but if I were an admissions officer at Columbia, I would want to "recruit" accomplished lacrosse players who, in turn, will recruit newbie lacrosse players who, when old and gray, will look back fondly on their lacrosse days at Columbia...</p>
<p>There is absolutely no reason why CU shouldnt have world class athletics. I hate the excuse people give stating that theres not much spirit cuz we're in NYC and theres too many other things to do yada,yada... It should be deemed as a bonus that we're in an awesome sports town and we should be able to attract the best of the best so... why dont we? mens soccer last year was like 3 and 12? Its really quite pathetic</p>
<p>^it isn't rocket science aCT, most true things that seem highly counter-intuitive are usually not counter-intuitive. </p>
<p>CU Mens soccer and CU football aren't great because there aren't any facilities close by, traveling long distances to play is an unnecessary burden on athletes, even with not all things equal, good athletes would choose to go to other schools for the convenience of facilities. Rah-Rah School spirit is largely a factor of successful school teams. Athletes decide on Columbia not by the spirit but for the quality of the program, past record, facilities and coaching. Improve all of these and you'll get a bigger rally around school teams. </p>
<p>Fencing is top notch without too much rallying, and sqaush will be fantastic in 2 years, because of the NYC squash league, we already get top players coming to columbia.</p>
<p>I think both to Columbia's credit and detriment, the athletic department does not have the pull in admissions as does schools like the "Big Three" (HYP), where there are full-fledged teams in sports like water polo and volleyball, in addition to lax and hockey. It's most likely a decision made at the highest levels to pull the throttle back on athletics, and not to turn CU into a prep-schooler's paradise.</p>
<p>I agree with PBR that students who excel in non-athletic areas and non-varsity sports should have some backers in the admissions office. Even as a non-athlete, I want to see Columbia field top-level teams in lacrosse and hockey and then beat the crap out of Princeton. But there's a price one has to pay to keep up with the Rockefellers.</p>
<p>A recent book called "The Price of Admission" by WSJ reporter Dan Golden details the effect of sports on Ivy League and upper-tier admissions. He cites admissions rates at schools such as Harvard, Princeton and Brown as high as 50% for recruited athletes. And he backs it up with real data and quotes from ex-admissions officers. Golden won a Pulitzer Prize for his work (awarded by Columbia JS). By the way, Columbia is not cited in the book, except for a mention of the fencing team and the author's encounter with Lee Bollinger, who awarded him the Pulitzer.</p>
<p>I mentioned soccer earlier because when I was a freshman at CC back in 1983, the men's team lost in the NCAA Championship game to Indiana, 1-0. I did not know how low the team had gone recently. How sad.</p>
<p>I should point out that there are (or should be!) many excellent high school varsity athletes who are too small, or slow, or otherwise inadequate, to meet the Division I standards at Columbia, but who nevertheless are able to contribute significantly to the athletic milieu at at place like Columbia. My son, Columbia '13, was a talented 5'8", 170 lb. captain and two-way starter on his football team. Even before his senior season started, he was focused on his future college rugby career...</p>