<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I was wondering if anybody could help me out with a question I had concerning admissions to Columbia College: how "grade-centric" is Columbia? A lot of the ivies such as Princeton place a huge amount of emphasis upon GPA (I mean obviously they all place a lot of emphasis upon grades but some more than others); is Columbia one of those schools? If I've gotten 3 B's (1 freshman year, 1 sophomore year and 1 junior year, but my unweighted GPA is still around a 3.9) is that going to be a big deal when it comes to admissions? I also don't have the benefit of legacy/etc (I'm an Asian female at a large public school).</p>
<p>Thanks so much for your help!</p>
<p>3 B’s, no biggie. Colleges know their applicants are human, an occasional B is totally okay, especially since you still have a pretty good GPA. Plus, there’s nothing you can do about those B’s now. Just focus more on your essays and things that you have control over right now.</p>
<p>Like awkward hamsty said, 3 Bs is generally not a biggie, but considering your Asian ethnicity, it could be an issue if they are in subjects related to your decided major. It could also be a problem if those Bs are putting your rank behind other people in your class who are of your ethnicity.</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses. The B’s were in subjects that I am definitely not planning on majoring in (math/physics), but since Columbia places a lot of emphasis on well roundedness (given that they have the core curriculum) I’m not sure if that will be an issue, since those B’s show that I am somewhat weak in the math/science areas. Additionally, my school does not rank, although we do report whether people are in the top 1/5/10% of their class.</p>
<p>I got two Cs my first semester junior year and had an overall GPA of 3.5 but got into the engineering school. GPA is not that big of a deal.</p>
<p>Wow ok. Did you have some sort of justification for that though? I don’t think I have much of an explanation for my grades except that I’m bad at math/science…</p>
<p>Yeah grades do not matter as much as you believe they do.</p>
<p>I was hospitalized for a month in the ICU when I was in ninth grade. Because of that I suffered from depression and anxiety, but I did not say that. I only told them that some of my grades were missing because of a medical leave I had freshman year, and that is an explanation for why I had to drop a lot of the sports I played. In my interview when I was asked if my highschool career reflected me as a person, I said no and lightly explained the situation.</p>
<p>Your rank matters more than your GPA. At some schools, those three B’s will mean a huge drop in rank (bad). At others, you’ll remain at the top of the class (fine).</p>
<p>glassesarechic, what if my school doesn’t rank? We do have percentages though (as in if you’re in the top 1%, 5%, 10%, etc).</p>
<p>Actually I was wrong; my school isn’t even allowed to report the percentage of our class that we’re in… we do report the highest GPA/median GPA of the class though. How would Columbia evaluate those B’s then?</p>
<p>^^^ interesting read. I have never heard of “Herd my Cattle,” and I don’t know what type of credibility it has as a blog site but this piece does address a fear I have had about Columbia. I’ve known it to be a decent place to get a masters+ but I was wondering about whether undergrads get lost in the shuffle. This piece, if it does anything, will make you question the value of an education. One could get blinded by the fringe benefits of a school like Columbia(NYC and all it can offer culturally) but mastery over what you have learned is much more important than museum access or that sexy internship. If what is said in this blog is accurate, then that’s alarming. </p>
<p>My D has a few choices but the lure of NYC is strong, I don’t want her to go to an insitution that is too busy to care about her individual journey thru school.</p>