<p>I recently got a mail from Columbia stating that, (i am quoting) "You are receiving this message because you have been identified as a good fit for Columbia University through The College Board Student Search Service" . The mail is an brochure type thing about UG engineering program.
this is a little unusual as i scored only a 2100(total)/1440(CR+M) on my SAT.
So if i apply is there any chance i might get in cause my score is no breathtaking.
i am not entirely saying this email can get me in but i am asking whether i might have a shot at Columbia bczz of this mail.
Thank you</p>
<p>They are just saying that. Getting that email does not improve your chances whatsoever.</p>
<p>see, i first thought that but Columbia is an ivy league not some local 3rd class university. why would the send this mail when they already get more applications then there are seats for filling (there acceptance rate is 7%)?? I mean a low applied to university might do that…but its not expected from columbia.</p>
<p>I got it too. I am also receiving emails (multiple actually) from UPenn and other schools. Do all these emails mean I have a better chance at getting accepted? Nope. I wish that were the case</p>
<p>You’re right: Columbia and its peer institutions don’t need any more applicants.</p>
<p>But they want applications from certain qualified students who might not otherwise have thought of applying there–because they’re from Appalachia or they’re the urban poor or they live on an Indian reservation or their parents never finished high school or what have you. (Or their Kenyan father abandoned the family, leaving them to be raised part-time by their mom with academic aspirations but no steady income, and part-time by their maternal grandparents.) They think that an elite college education might offer these students a leg up and a path to social and financial stability, and they’d like to offer them that opportunity.</p>
<p>But since many of these students that Columbia et al. want haven’t had all kinds of bourgeois advantages like Kaplan or Princeton Review classes, in order to identify them, these colleges can’t set the SAT cut-off too high. This means they end up sending email to a lot of students whose combination of test scores and socioeconomic circumstances make them long shots for these colleges, at best.</p>
<p>Not saying that you are necessarily a long shot, shauryagupta. I don’t know you, I don’t have any idea, and I don’t do chances. But I am saying that the communication from Columbia (or Penn or Harvard) doesn’t necessarily mean that your shot is better than anybody else’s.</p>
<p>I have been getting mails too from Cornell and Yale who have congratulated me for my “academic success”- as was written in the mails. Certainly, the mails do nothing to improve chances but I think they are testaments that you are heading in the right direction, and your score lies within their preferred score range. </p>