<p>to tubatina: I’m also planning on double-majoring in music!! what instrument do you play? I’m going to Brazil this summer to help out and teach English and music! Brazilian people are really nice. Hahahaha.</p>
<p>I am, but I effed up my junior year grades so I don’t know. I’m super interested in Dartmouth and Brown, too, but Dartmouth seems to not care about GPA as much as the other too. I might go for that instead 
Columbia is my number 1 though …</p>
<p>tubatina: like i said on your post, 2300 is fine. also, you stole my name (if your name is actually tina) haha</p>
<p>2300 is more than fine. I had a 2250 (two tries) and still got in.</p>
<p>Do yourself a favor, stop worrying about your marks and scores, save the money, and focus on more important aspects of your application (like essays, teacher recs, and interviews).</p>
<p>Does it mean anything if you don’t get an interview?</p>
<p>Just means there’s not an interviewer available, doesn’t say anything about how much they’re considering your application. The purpose of the interview is just to make sure you’re not the scum of the earth, and they realize they can’t interview everybody so it’s no big deal. My Dartmouth interviewer told me almost word for word that as long as I didn’t walk in and dropkick the waitress (interviewed @ Starbucks) then insult his mother he’d be writing me a good review, my Yale interviewer forgot about me 
but I still got in, and I honestly thought I’d done pretty poorly with my Columbia interview but I obviously still got in, so interviews really don’t mean very much.</p>
<p>how come you picked Columbia over Yale??</p>
<p>Wanted to stay in NYC mainly. Glad I picked Columbia for a lot of reasons at this point, one of the main ones being the core, even though I honestly came into Columbia totally dreading it.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info!!! I want to apply ED as well. I had a couple of questions though!!!
- Is Columbia a party school?
I realize that every college has drinking and drugs on campus, but some have it more readily available than others. I recently came back from the East Coast and visited Yale. It was absolutely amazing! Except when I stayed over, my host asked if I wanted to drink, and my two other tour-mates wanted to party! Basically, I walked 3 blocks at 1 AM to a Marriott and stayed the night, while my friends did a beer bong and who knows what else. </p>
<p>2) How good is the theater program at Columbia?
I heard that there is some connection with Julliard, but I don’t know the specifics. </p>
<p>3) What are the best housing options for First-Years?
Personally, I’m a very private person, I’d really like a single, and I need air conditioning. I don’t care about being too far off, because I have legs and I can walk. But I definitely want a TON of space, and a private bathroom would be great. I know it’s asking for the farm, but 4 years is a very long time.</p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time out to answer my questions!</p>
<p>Aww, that really sucks about your Yale experience ajrover. As you said, there’s partying and drinking and drugs at any school, certainly including Columbia. However, at Columbia you can totally separate yourself from it and still have a social life without going out drinking and partying. As long as you don’t end up in Carman really, you should be able to avoid drinking altogether. And just because you don’t drink doesn’t mean you can’t have friends, there are quite a few kids on campus who don’t drink (in fact one of the most popular, if not the most popular, guys I know doesn’t drink at all), and there’s lots of clubs and other ways to meet people other than at a bar or a party. Plus there really isn’t much peer pressure at Columbia to drink or do drugs since people have to pay for their beer and aren’t usually that willing to share lol.</p>
<p>Wish I knew something about the theater program at Columbia but I’m honestly pretty clueless about it, I know there’s a theater group at Columbia called King’s Crown ( [King’s</a> Crown Shakespeare Troupe](<a href=“http://www.columbia.edu/cu/shakespeare/]King’s”>http://www.columbia.edu/cu/shakespeare/) ) which you can check out and/or try to contact whoever’s info’s up for it to ask about theater at Columbia, a lot of people are often pretty nice about questions from prefrosh and it’s worth a shot.</p>
<p>For housing, in response to what you want and what you said about not really wanting a big party atmosphere, I’d suggest Furnald. Furnald is primarily singles with 3 doubles per floor and about 20 singles on each floor (although maybe about 5 of them are taken by sophomores. You’ll get an AC that you can control in Furnald (unlike the other freshmen dorms), but when it starts getting cold out it converts into a heater and doesn’t keep you cool (if you ***** to housing about melting from a freaky winter heat wave they’ll send you up a jumbo fan). Space-wise most Furnald singles are about 100 to 110 square feet, which is average to pretty good for freshmen dorms. Private bathroom’s not happening til senior year, and even then you’ll only get one if you’re super-duper-uber-lucky in the housing lottery as there are 12 rooms in watt that have them and probably around 10 in 600 west 113th (nussbaum) that have them. If you find people you wanna live with it’s sometimes possible to get a suite with a bathroom shared by somewhere btwn 2 and 6 people, but Furnald has one guys and one girls bathroom per floor, so it’s 13 people sharing a bathroom with 3 sinks/toilets/showers…or maybe 6 sinks but anyway it pretty much never gets full. Also for more info on freshmen housing look here: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062604556-post3.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062604556-post3.html</a></p>
<p>Anything else?</p>
<p>Yeah just a few more. Thanks again!</p>
<p>1) Do you have friends who are in relationships with people off campus?
I would guess that since you Columbia is right there in the middle of Manhattan then it’d be easy to find girls off campus if you don’t find anyone on campus particularly attractive?</p>
<p>2) How much money do you think you spend per year (clothes, food, shows) aside from tuition/board/etc? </p>
<p>3) Do a lot of students usually have time to work part-time jobs?</p>
<p>4) How much time would you say you spend studying/homework-ing?</p>
<p>5) Do students usually have class everyday or do you have a lot of leisure time?</p>
<p>6) Which dorms would you recommend? & do students usually live off campus after freshman year</p>
<p>1) Do you have friends who are in relationships with people off campus?
I would guess that since you Columbia is right there in the middle of Manhattan then it’d be easy to find girls off campus if you don’t find anyone on campus particularly attractive?</p>
<p>People from Columbia certainly do party with people from other schools in the city, and a lot of people keep their boyfriends/girlfriends from home for a bit, but I really don’t know anyone at Columbia other than my exgirlfriend lol that’s in a relationship with someone from another school in the city. But yeah it certainly isn’t hard to meet people from other schools, a lot of times there are FIT girls that come up to Columbia (not really sure why, wouldn’t shock me if a lot of them were doing it to find future husbands that they think will be rich), and also there’s always the exchange of students between NYU and Columbia on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.</p>
<p>2) How much money do you think you spend per year (clothes, food, shows) aside from tuition/board/etc?</p>
<p>I’m honestly pretty cheap lol, freshmen year I spent close to nothing, ate almost all my meals at John Jay (freshmen are required to get a mealplan) or other places that I had pre-bought food points, clothes I just wore the same Polos and stuff that I’d had senior year of HS or stuff that was bought for me (I’m reallllly not the “I need to have this year’s styles or I’ll die” type), and I just was pretty cheap in general. Although this year I was a bit more social and ended up spending a ton, spent probably around $500 in just the first semester pretty easily. So it really all depends on how much you wanna spend</p>
<p>3) Do a lot of students usually have time to work part-time jobs?</p>
<p>Umm, I guess a lot of people do work-study, and some people are lucky enough to get pretty nicely-paying tutoring jobs, I def wouldn’t say everybody works, but a lot of people do.</p>
<p>4) How much time would you say you spend studying/homework-ing?</p>
<p>Depends on coursload, although I guess mainly on course difficulty. First semester junior year I had 4 pretty easy courses, would’ve made dean’s list if not for one d-bag prof and I did maybe one or 2 hours of work a week. Then last semester I probably did like 10 to 20 hours of work a week with 4 hard classes and still got slaughtered.</p>
<p>5) Do students usually have class everyday or do you have a lot of leisure time?</p>
<p>Classes generally meet monday and wednesday or tuesday and thursday, w/ some language classes meeting fridays (AP-ed out of them thank goodness), but you definitely get quite a bit of leisure time (though obviously it depends on how you plan your schedule and what classes you take and when).</p>
<p>6) Which dorms would you recommend? & do students usually live off campus after freshman year</p>
<p>Different dorms for different people, depends on your personality, check out the link to the dorms post that i posted a couple posts back on this thread and if you have any more questions about dorms after reading it lemme know, and no most people don’t live off campus, even up in Morningside Heights it’s still the NYC housing market which isn’t exactly cheap.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info metsfan.
- I’m not familiar with Ivy Schools, but I did attend a private school in my life-time. My experience there was one I painfully remember. The extremely snobby rich attended and acted much like the characters on tv shows such as Gossip Girl. I mysef was picked on for not living a lifestyle like theirs, and not have a Louis Vuitton Planner. So my question would be, what type of students attend Columbia?
- In regards to the Core Curriculum, do i have to take any math courses or is there a way around that? I’m good at math, but like cleaning house, i don’t like to do it.
- Are you able to take courses at the graduate schools? I’m interested in Journalism, Political Science, or Constitutional Law. I was looking into Northwestern because their J-School is for Undergrads.
- What about campus safety? I noticed on my tour that there wasn’t any blue-lights on campus, but there were a ton of guards.
thanks Again!</p>
<p>1) I’m not familiar with Ivy Schools, but I did attend a private school in my life-time. My experience there was one I painfully remember. The extremely snobby rich attended and acted much like the characters on tv shows such as Gossip Girl. I mysef was picked on for not living a lifestyle like theirs, and not have a Louis Vuitton Planner. So my question would be, what type of students attend Columbia?</p>
<p>People from every race and every class go to Columbia, and while there are certainly some snobs, most of the kids are pretty far from snobby. Also the snobby kids are kind of fun to laugh at a lot of times, and there are even some kids who come from a really upper-class, spoiled, snobby background who sort of poke fun at themselves and I guess intentionally exaggerate a lot of the spoiled rich kid stereotypes to make fun of themselves (I know one kid like this so it’s certainly not all snobs at Columbia that’re like this, but it really isn’t bad). Another guy I know, regular middle-class kid, could’ve gone to Harvard but instead chose Columbia 'cause he said that everyone at Harvard seemed really snobbish and full of themselves and Columbia wasn’t really at all like that.</p>
<p>2) In regards to the Core Curriculum, do i have to take any math courses or is there a way around that? I’m good at math, but like cleaning house, i don’t like to do it.</p>
<p>There’s a math/science requirement in the core, you have to take Frontiers of Science either first or 2nd semester freshmen year (depending on the first letter of your last name), and you hafta take 2 semesters of either math or science, although they have courses for humanities people to get out of the requirement like a class they have that’s actually called “Physics for Poets.”</p>
<p>3) Are you able to take courses at the graduate schools? I’m interested in Journalism, Political Science, or Constitutional Law. I was looking into Northwestern because their J-School is for Undergrads.</p>
<p>Yes you are. One of my friends who’s probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever met will probably have enough grad credits in math to have his masters by the time he graduates college.</p>
<p>4) What about campus safety? I noticed on my tour that there wasn’t any blue-lights on campus, but there were a ton of guards.</p>
<p>Columbia’s campus is super-safe. There were a couple of muggings or something a few blocks away from campus last year I think, but there’s so many cops and campus security people around that you’re really really safe. I think the muggings took place around 113th street and Broadway and for the rest of the year I always saw a cop car sitting around w/ a couple officers in just basically parked on the corner of 113th and Broadway. I’m not really sure what the deal is with the lack of blue lights on campus, but from pretty much anywhere on campus and most places within a 3 or 4 block radius you could probably yell out help and get at least a few campus security guys running over to you. I honestly feel safer on and around Columbia’s campus than I do just about anywhere else I’ve been.</p>
<p>thanks Again!</p>
<p>no problem, keep the questions coming</p>
<p>I’ll be applying early to Columbia or Dartmouth (leaning towards Columbia heavily right now)</p>
<p>2310 SAT, GPA…ehhhhh could be better, 750 Lit (retaking) , 750 Math I</p>
<p>will be retaking Lit SAT II along with giving Bio (M) and Math II a try in October</p>
<p>really into music (piano and cello), politics, and community service</p>
<p>we’ll see! I am in love with this school haha - but whether or not they’ll take me is a completely different story; the SAT IIs and the GPA need to go up quite a bit, and it’s definitely a stretch!</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone else!</p>
<p>To metsfan</p>
<p>1) can you shed some light on the 6 year program where students can recieve a BA and law degree</p>
<p>2) did you study abroad? Can you tell me anything about that</p>
<p>3) do you know anyone who got in with a below average GPA (3.5~3.8) bc they were unique</p>
<p>4) do many students participate in sports (non varsity)</p>
<p>5) I read your post and I feel like I’d fit in at Carmen. How does dorm selection work? Do ED kids get first pick?</p>
<p>6) this question is random but are there any half white half Asian girls? How are the white/Asian girls?</p>
<p>1) can you shed some light on the 6 year program where students can recieve a BA and law degree</p>
<p>Tell the truth I didn’t even know it existed, pretty much completely sure that I don’t know anyone in it, so if it does exist as you say I’d imagine it’s pretty darn selective and incredibly rigorous.</p>
<p>2) did you study abroad? Can you tell me anything about that</p>
<p>I wish I had but since my major requires more courses than most other majors, and I didn’t wanna end up ever taking more than one or two classes in my major each semester, I wasn’t able to. Columbia does have a pretty incredible study abroad program though, I know people who went to Australia, one person I know got into a Columbia exchange program with Oxford, few people went to France…you can go pretty much anywhere for a semester (or sometimes two) with Columbia’s study abroad program.</p>
<p>3) do you know anyone who got in with a below average GPA (3.5~3.8) bc they were unique</p>
<p>Not really sure, after the first month or two of freshmen year everyone forgets SAT’s, grades, and everything else that went with HS and stops comparing stats after a week or so.</p>
<p>4) do many students participate in sports (non varsity)</p>
<p>A lot of people do, yeah, probably not the majority of students, but a bunch do. I think the most popular club sport (for guys at least, although there is a girls team that I know a few people on) is probably rugby. Or if you’re like me and are crazy busy, there’s always having a catch on the law every so often with some form of ball or disk lol.</p>
<p>5) I read your post and I feel like I’d fit in at Carmen. How does dorm selection work? Do ED kids get first pick?</p>
<p>For froshies there’s not picking, after you accept Columbia’s offer of admission they send you a bunch of forms, one of which is the housing form, you fill out your preference of dorms in order from 1 to like 8 (although there are only 4 dorms you also have to pick btwn single and double in certain dorms and stuff like that). And no, ED kids don’t get to pick first, everyone’s equal in freshmen housing, most people get one of their first choices, Carman isn’t that difficult to get relative to someplace like Furnald, so you should be able to get it.</p>
<p>6) this question is random but are there any half white half Asian girls? How are the white/Asian girls? </p>
<p>Don’t know of any myself, although I’m sure some exist at Columbia, it is diverse enough. I know a guy who’s half white/half asian, but no girls.</p>
<p>metsfan you’re a godsend for giving us all of this invaluable information… Even if your confirming everything I have already thought/heard it is nice to hear it straight up like this.</p>
<p>I’m having trouble getting people to chance me… Can some of you “get the fire going” and chance me for Columbia? That would be great. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-university/720194-chance-me.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-university/720194-chance-me.html</a></p>
<p>Hahaha he doesn’t do chances :P</p>
<p>Yeah I mean honestly…admissions is a bit of a crapshoot, I’d love to help you get a better idea of your chances if I could but I really have no idea. One of the factors the admissions committee looks at in choosing candidates is class diversity, and I don’t mean race-wise. If you’re a…I don’t know, Eskimo ninja with slightly above average (for the Columbia applicant pool), you’ll have a pretty good shot of getting in, but but if there are 50 other Eskimo ninjas who applied in the same year as you, you could have well-above average stats and you still probably won’t have that great a shot at getting in. That’s why I really don’t like doing chances. I would suggest trying to up your SAT’s a bit bigjay71, but you’ll be able to find people on here telling you to do that pretty much up until you get a 2400. I had someone tell me to re-take my SAT’s, didn’t do it, and still got in, so it’s up to you really.</p>