<p>My son is very interested in Columbia's premed program, either in Biology or BME. Here is his profile:
Academics: ACT 33 (M:36/35, E: 34/29, S: 35/34, R: 28/35) super score 35
GPA: 4.31
SAT II Math 800 Bio 790
Junior courses: AP Bio, AP EnvSci, AP Psych, AP Lit.
Hon. Math and Hon. Spanish. All As
Senior courses: AP Stats, AP CalcBC, AP Chem, AP Spanish
and another AP( but forgot the name)
Other than some school tutoring on math and Spanish plus some weekend volunteering work at the local food pantry. Most of his spare time is spent on club and varsity swimming. Made the state final as junior. likely will make junior national next season but it might be too late for consideration. Nor sure whether he can be recruited by Columbia as a swimmer given his current best times. Does he stand a chance for regular decision or the only way is to go for ED? Thanks.</p>
<p>Well I would need to know his uniweighted GPA first. Does he make all A’s or some A’s and B’s?
Secondly, his extracurricular activities are few and don’t show much passion, unless he got an immense amount of awards through swimming. If he gets recruited for swimming, he will get into Columbia because his grades are stellar as well. If he can’t get recruited, then he needs to build a passion that can be seen through his extracurricular activities. For example, he could research at a lab or do anything that is related to Biology or BME since those are his intended majors. For example, I want to major in molecular biology so I did research at a cancer lab, I worked for a breast cancer NGO, I started a breast cancer club, and I got Intel Semifinalist through a project on breast cancer. So he needs to show his passion greatly and the only way he can do that is through extracirricular activities. It doesn’t even have to be a major that he is passionate about, he can even do things about swimming. For example, he can give free swimming lessons to poor children, start a swimming club, etc.</p>