<p>wg: That’s exactly how I feel, but I’ve decided that I shouldn’t let $$ influence my decision of applying ED. The chances of getting in ED are a lot higher, but I’m sure that CC will accommodate any financial problems you have to some extent? Hopefully? :P</p>
<p>yeah, all the ivies are accomodating…but it’s always nice to be able to compare. i guess in the end the decision is based mostly on school preference and not financial aid.</p>
<p>also, i want to take advantage of ED because 1) you can be finished with apps by november 2) i have enough time to really really focus on one school 3) higher chances and opportunity to show deep interest in school… so, 99% chance i’m applying ED to columbia 
hope i get in :)</p>
<p>have you already started working on your application? or is that just me ( i know, i’m weird)</p>
<p>well, columbia apps arent available until the first of july? and common apps isnt either, i believe. overall, i will start working on college apps in july.</p>
<p>it’s not weird; my counselor recommended (ordered) doing that.</p>
<p>by the end of the summer–perhaps by august-- i’ll have written my common apps and its essay, columbia essays, and some of the essays for other colleges.</p>
<p>that’s the goal.</p>
<p>hahaha the application from last year is online. and i doubt they change. so heads up if u wanna start. i’m pretty sure i’ll have my essays down by the end of august too :P</p>
<p>haha youre def not weird, i haev my admissions essay done.</p>
<p>yeah…i’ve been looking for the app, but everytime there is no hyperlink on the website; I CANT CLICK IT…i guess i have to wait for the new one?</p>
<p>[First</a> Year Admission | Columbia University Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/applications/firstyear.php]First”>http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/applications/firstyear.php)</p>
<p>is that where you found it?
it says: "By clicking here, you can view a paper version of our fall 2009 Application for First-Year Admission. "— BUT THERE IS NO WHERE TO CLICK.</p>
<p>Hahaha click downloadable application. It’s in blue for a reason ahahahaha ;)</p>
<p>the light blue paper thing that says “application?”…there is no hyperlink…maybe it’s my computer’s fault</p>
<p>Haha no bro. The light blue thing that says Downloadable application. Under “Students must apply online unless they do not have access to the Internet” and above “By clicking here, you can view a paper version of our fall 2009 Application for First-Year Admission.”</p>
<p>yeah that part is blank. i’ll just try another computer; thanks.</p>
<p>super-- it worked on another computer :)</p>
<p>ok so what does everyone like most about columbia? me-- courses.</p>
<p>haha me –> NYC baby. CC is one of the most prestigious university located in the best city in the world. Too bad LA doesn’t have something like this 
</p>
<p>I like the CORE too. It forces you to take classes you may not want to take and I heard you learn a lot from it.</p>
<p>yeah i love the core, especially all the reading. at another college, one would have to take 2+ courses to be able to read and discuss the selections that lit hum requires…</p>
<p>i also love the environment, both the campus and the city.</p>
<p>what do you think will be your major? are you applying columbia engineering?</p>
<p>I’m from norcal.</p>
<p>You could say that I’m well rounded. I am a strange breed of Chinese and Black.</p>
<p>^^ that’s kinda cool. I’m assuming the mother is Chinese?</p>
<p>i’ve noticed that there are a lot of people from california…
my tour guide at columbia is from cali</p>
<p>Hey, I’m a member of the Columbia class of 2013 who applied and was accepted Early Decision. It wasn’t until I visited the campus for a third time in October of last year that I knew that I wanted to attend Columbia over any other college out there (I’m looking at you, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, UPenn, Amherst, Swarthmore, Georgetown, Dartmouth, Duke, and UChicago). I would certainly suggest that if you find ONE college that you REALLY want to attend, apply there early decision.</p>
<p>Now I’m going to give my stats and probably throw a few of you off.</p>
<p>Going into my Senior year I had about a 3.61 GPA while taking the most challenging course set my school offered for each year of high school (aka what every top-tier college expects). I was about 22 in a graduating class of 153 at the time of my application. My only partial-excuse for this GPA is that during my sophomore and junior year several of my family members were extremely sick and I believe my grades suffered as a result of this. Moreover, I had a spell of sickness (bronchitis a few times, horrible stomach flu another) during my Junior year that caused me to miss around 4 weeks of school in total, or between 1 and 2 weeks of school per quarter. Basically, I was always making up school work during my Junior year.</p>
<p>In an effort to show that I could hold a very high average, I worked damn hard during the first quarter of my Senior year while taking the maximum amount of AP classes my school offered and did receive a very high gpa. So, Columbia received my 3.61GPA, my excuse, and my high first quarter grade. I have no clue if it made any difference, I only know that I was accepted.</p>
<p>Now let me give you the usual test stats:</p>
<p>SAT: 2200
M: 780
R: 690
W: 740</p>
<p>SAT II:</p>
<p>Bio-M: 800
Am-Hist: 740</p>
<p>I got a 31 on the ACT on my first take, but decided to not report or retake the ACT since I thought it sucked. It did.</p>
<p>As for the usual, fluff high school “extra-curricular activities,” here is what I did:</p>
<ul>
<li>President of my school’s chapter of the National Honor Society</li>
<li>Member of the student council since 9th grade</li>
<li>Parish Collaborative for 2 years (Collaborative between my school and a local museum that focused on exposing and teaching students about the arts)</li>
<li>Varsity Tennis for 3 years (never captain)</li>
<li>Math team for 2 years</li>
</ul>
<p>Thing is, most of what I did and what I believe set me apart from other students is what I did outside of school.</p>
<p>In 8th grade I started a soldier support project that focused on sending school supplies and care packages to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan (support the soldiers, not the war). I started the project after talking with the wife of a soldier serving in Iraq shortly after our Invasion. She said that he was trying to rebuild schools but that the soldiers had no supplies to give to the students. Long story short, my mom and I were put in contact with soldiers in Iraq and I began reaching out only to my school, local clubs, and even national corporations. Before anyone says “oh, it was your mom doing everything” let me ask you this: if you were a soldier, would you be more likely to respond to an 8th grader or a mother?</p>
<p>All in all, I sent over 4,000 pounds of donated school supplies to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and 3,800 pounds of chalk boards, chalk, and chalkboard paint to a board of education in Iraq. The story about the chalk boards is an interesting one. The company that donated the chalk boards asked to remain unnamed, but it pulled chalk boards off of the shelves of stores across the country and shipped them directly to me. The project has branched out further and we have sent hundreds of care packages and supply packages to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in particular we have been helping to support a medivac unit in Kirkuk and medics throughout Iraq.</p>
<p>That’s the largest project on my resume. The second largest actually dealt with larger quantities of supplies, but over a shorter period of time.</p>
<p>This project was founded by my mother and me. We ran what we believe was the largest hurricane relief project on the east end of Long Island in the months after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. For this project we set up a supply drop off station across from a local shopping center and collected massive amounts of supplies. All in all, we sent three tractor trailers down to Louisiana and Mississippi, each filled with at least 48,000 pounds of clothes, water, tools, and basically anything that would help hurricane victims. The project then switched to focus on resupplying fire departments in one county of Mississippi. We sent to them axes, hoses, fire fighting clothes, hasmat suits, jaws-of-life, and six vehicles. I also went down to New Orleans to clean out houses 7 months after the hurricane, and my mother and I visited the fire departments we helped in Mississippi during the same trip.</p>
<p>Last summer I began to work for the local Obama campaign. While the local chapter was one of the most disorganized groups I have ever worked with, we still managed to register new voters and show a presence at several local events. Then, during Columbus day weekend, I went down to Pennsylvania to campaign. I helped out at a rally where Obama spoke in West Philadelphia and then spent two days campaigning door to door and helping the regional campaign office I worked out of. The Pennsylvania campaign was the total opposite of my local campaign; it was the most organized campaign I have ever worked for.</p>
<p>I’m also a self taught computer programmer. When my school decided to cancel what would have been its first computer programming class, I got fed up with dealing with my school and decided to teach myself how to program. Two years later and I have learned about 12 languages, ranging from x86 and Power-PC assembly to PHP and worked on many projects. I was one of the first iPhone programmers during the summer when the first generation iPhone was released. At age 14 I reverse engineered the mapfile structure of a PC video game using only a hex editor and a programming calculator.</p>
<p>I also am extremely interested in physics and math. Since my school would not let me take Physics AP or AP Calculus AB during my junior year, I decided to teach myself as much as I could. I spent the summer between my sophomore and junior year reading books about quantum and relativistic physics and the next summer I read more books on physics and began to teach myself calculus. For one programming project last summer I learned the basics of linear algebra (mostly vector cross products) and eigenvalues. </p>
<p>Basically what I want to get across is that test scores and GPA aren’t everything. I believe that colleges want to see that you have strong interests that you have continued for several years. I believe that top-tier colleges especially want to see that you have a love for learning and aren’t just another kid who will go to college to shut himself up in his room for hours and hours of rote studying. Columbia in particular wants students who want to learn, want to be great, and want to take hold of their lives.</p>
<p>Columbia has the best application for getting to know a student. The common app is hollow and encourages other schools to accept by number alone. Use every last space on that application to let the person who reads your application know who you are. Columbia wants to know you as a person, not just as a number. If it wanted to fill its class with kids who have perfect SAT scores, it could. Only valedictorians? Easy. Thing is, Columbia doesn’t do that.</p>
<p>Be an interesting, even lopsided applicant, not just a ****ing number.</p>