Since showing interest in a school is important, I visited a site which gave a list of the emails of the staff of admissions office for Columbia, with each staff member given a specific region. While this information was meant for high school counselors, this information was also in Columbia’s resource page. As a high school student, would contacting the specific person for my region to ask specific questions be a good idea and possibly help my chances of getting in?
Contacting admission officers won’t help your chances. Asking questions will help you know the school better and aid your choosing of the unive
Your presumption that your “demonstrated interest” means anything to Columbia is faulty. For some other schools, who have to fight tooth and nail to get great applicants, YES. These are those schools at your HS college fair that are trying to get people to stop by and listen to their pitch. For those reps, they’re keeping tabs on potential applicants. For top schools, with a surfeit of super applicants, not at all.
However, asking questions that are easily found on the website, particularly if you contact the AO more than once, is a surefire way to make sure they remember you - but not in a good way.
You can demonstrate your interest in Columbia with a strong “why Columbia” response.