Decision: Accepted
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1410 (LOL didn’t send for obv. reasons)
ACT (breakdown): Cumulative: 34, Reading: 35, English: 34, Math: 35, Science: 31
SAT II: Math II: 770, Lit: 740
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.97
Weighted GPA: 4.88
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 17/627
AP (place score in parenthesis): 5 — Human, World, APUSH, Lang, Seminar; 4 — AB Calc
IB (place score in parenthesis): none
Senior Year Course Load: 6 APs, and an extracurricular
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Several in my main extracurricular
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
I’m not going to go into detail because I don’t want to give away too much about myself. I had two main extracurriculars that I excelled at (one is a performing art and the other is research) — got thousands of dollars in grants to further my study in the activity, performed for prime ministers and delegates at an international conference, several national scholarships, performances abroad, and earned millions of views on videos posted online. I also used my art form to spread awareness about social issues such as mental health and alcoholism, which connected directly to my independent research on the under diagnosis of clinical depression in third world countries. To further show my passion for the subject, I organized a nationally recognized conference where I invited speakers to talk about innovation in the field, which was well received. I’m a part of a bunch of honor societies as well, but don’t know if that made much of a difference since everyone is.
Job/Work Experience: Tutor at Kumon (I quit tho)
Volunteer/Community service: 200 hours at a hospital, 190 at my religious center
Summer Activities:
Over the summers, I interned at neuroscience labs, volunteered a ton in the psychiatry department at my local hospital, and traveled abroad to perform and research.
Essays (rating 1-10, details): Common app — 10/10, about how I connected performing arts to my research, pretty cry-worthy; Lists — 9/10, I made them funny, and had this joke about satire running throughout all of them haha; “Why Columbia” essays — 1/10, because I had a FREAKING TYPO. But oh well, they were pretty good otherwise.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
Teacher Rec #1: 10/10 — English teacher, I’ve been on her writing team since freshman year, we’re pretty close
Teacher Rec #2: 9/10 — Calc teacher, I didn’t do that well in his class but we’re pretty close, and I’m pretty sure he addressed my less-than-awesome grades in his letter.
Counselor Rec: 8/10 didn’t know her that well
Additional Rec: 8/10 my sponsor for the aforementioned conference, seemed like a pretty generic letter
Interview: not offered one
Other
Applied for Financial Aid?: nope
Intended Major: Sociology with pre-med
State (if domestic applicant): CA
Country (if international applicant): US
School Type: huge public school
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: upper class
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): nope
Reflection
I think the reason I got in is because there was a sort of “golden thread” running through my application — everything was connected, leading to what I wanted to do with my life at Columbia and beyond.
Honestly, I had two B’s on my transcript. I’m a good student, but my grades were not spectacular by any means. This just goes to show that if you do what you love, do it well, and make your unique mark on the world, Columbia will appreciate that.
Strengths: Extracurriculars
Weaknesses: Grades
Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: see above
Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: nowhere
General Comments:
I didn’t think I would get in, and I’m so incredibly grateful for the opportunities I have been given and the support I’ve had over the past few years. I’m still in shock, and can’t believe it. Ecstatic about next year!
Good luck to all the RD applicants!!
it was really really really awkward.