<p>Here it (towards the bottom part) says 19% students in class of 2018 are international! What does this mean? I can think of maybe one or several of the reasons below:</p>
<ol>
<li>Columbia is in serious need of tuition money.</li>
<li>Columbia needs these full paying internationals to offset the dramatic increase in domestic low income URM admits.</li>
<li>If you are not either international or low income URM, there's no need to apply to Columbia</li>
<li>You misunderstood the 19% part. It really just means that 19% of the total applicants are international.</li>
</ol>
<p>For comparison, Harvard, Yale and Princeton freshman classes consist of 11% international. Yes, they are all 11%, and don't ask why... . But for Columbia's case, 8% more full paying internationals makes a big difference IMO. Assuming a generous financial aid of $40,000 for low income applicants, this could mean as much as additional increase of 12%. Let's say if 10% was the previous URM/low income population, now it would be 22%, a 120% increase!</p>
<p>It could be that Columbia is conducting some sort of social engineering experiment. But why? Does it not get enough willing full payers that have high SAT scores? After all, all internationals can show are high SAT scores. The GPAs and course load ECs are complete bull. I know this for a fact as this is what a high school principal in southern china told me. Everything except the SAT for these students are completely fabricated by the school. I am sure Columbia knows this. But what I don't understand is why Columbia is doing this. It seems if they want to do this social engineering experiment, all they need to do is to take in more full paying high SAT students, but perhaps with lower GPA and AP rigors, and so so ECs, etc. </p>
<p>Perhaps someone else can offer more insight here? Should I even bother applying to Columbia if all I can contribute is just to lower they admission rate by a few basis points?</p>
<p>Columbia has over $8 billion in endowment. I doubt they need student tuition money. Don’t overanalyze this - if you are truly a stellar applicant with real passion to attend Columbia, they will see through the fake superfluous padding. </p>
<p>Columbia is a significantly more diverse school than H, Yor P. You will clearly see it on a visit. Possibly the result of being in New York City, the most diverse and most desireable city in the world. Columbia receives way more international applicants than the other schools. Columbia also by far welcomes more minority and international students as it is trying to be a more global university like Oxford and Cambridge, than purely an American University. Columbia has one of the highest (if not the highest) percent of students on financial aid in the ivies and one of the most generous finanacial aid programs available. Columbia gives out more financial aid than its more wealth peers. Why is taking wealthy American students that pay full tuition better? </p>
<p>There are 262 million college students in the world, 30 million of them in the US. Columbia, a private university, has just under 20% of it’s undergraduates chosen from the almost 90% who don’t live in the US, and you see it as “social engineering”? Bluntly, that sounds racist. </p>
<p>The top universities in the world try to attract the top students in the world, where ever they come from. Oxford and Cambridge do the same thing. ALL the students benefit.</p>
<p>and, ps, just b/c a teacher in China told you that everything in the Chinese student’s applications is phoney a) doesn’t make it true and b) doesn’t mean that international students get in just off SATs. </p>
<p>Wow, it’s hard to know where to begin! First, international students at Columbia are not all full pay. One of my son’s best friends at Columbia is an international student on full scholarship. He is a lovely young man whose accomplishments are incredibly impressive and go way beyond test scores (though he has those too). My son is friends with a number of other international students, all of whom are interesting, talented and terrific young men and women. I’m not going to go into details, as I don’t want to post identifying information, but they certainly deserve to be at a school like Columbia, and it’s clear that they didn’t get in just on the basis of test scores.</p>
<p>The international students at the school also really add to the diversity of the school - I’m not just talking racial and ethnic diversity, but also diversity of cultures and perspectives - in a way that benefits all the students there. And it’s not as though, at 19% of the total student population, international students are dominating the campus. Only you can decide whether you want to apply to Columbia. But if you do apply and you’re lucky enough to get in and go there, I’ll be very surprised if you don’t decide that it’s a great thing to have the international students in the school.</p>
<p>I am sure no one here is disputing the hard facts which are (1) columbia admits almost twice as many internationals as other Ivies, and (2) columbia admits the <em>most</em> URMs among the top schools including the Ivies. </p>
<p>Now if you are considering columbia, I am sure diversity is important for many people. But your chances of getting in should also be a factor. If you are not an international applicant or an URM, I am just arguing that your chances should be quite a bit smaller, mathematically speaking, assuming everything else be equal. (Before you pounce on this, I am not saying internationals have higher chances than you)</p>
<p>Also, columbia is just one of the two schools among the top that does not publish its common data set. It makes one wonder if they have something to hide.</p>
<p>Not sure what you’re trying to imply now (or why I’m bothering to respond), but I’m happy to see that at least you’ve abandoned your thesis that Columbia is doing it for the money. :)</p>
<p>Just to save you the trouble, I’ll make the math simple for you:</p>
<ol>
<li> With an admit rate under 7%, your chances of being admitted to Columbia are very small.</li>
<li> If 11% of Columbia’s class consisted of international students rather than 19%, your chances of getting in would still be very small.</li>
<li> That said, your chances of getting in are better if you apply than if you don’t apply.</li>
</ol>
<p>When asked about the high percentages of international admits, the presidents of UC berkeley and ucla openly acknowledged that they did it for budget reasons. When you read NY times about rising international admits for liberal arts colleges, it was attributed to money reasons matter of factly. Now when it comes to your favorite Columbia university, with almost twice the percentages of international admits as other Ivies, and rising each year, it’s now because of diversity reasons? </p>