<p>Hey, I have heard from several people that the first year is the toughest year and that students who performed well in high school end up with low GPAs and even sometimes academic probation. Upperclassmen, how was your first year at Columbia in terms of grades? Did you have trouble adjusting to college life?</p>
<p>“Hey, I have heard from several people that the first year is the toughest year and that students who performed well in high school end up with low GPAs and even sometimes academic probation. Upperclassmen, how was your first year at Columbia in terms of grades? Did you have trouble adjusting to college life?”</p>
<p>thousands of high school students decide against applying to columbia each year because it’s beyond them. From those who consider that they have a shot, columbia rejects 9 out of every 10. it can’t be that easy. </p>
<p>messing up freshman year is especially common with people from weird school systems, and with people from mediocre highschools and small towns, where they’re moving from the 99th percentile of intelligence/achievement in their peer group to the 50th percentile at columbia. This shocks and can destabilize people, welcome to columbia, welcome to competitive life.</p>
<p>I took my time to get in swing of things with classes, homework and exams. If you’re still in the 5th grade mold of worrying about tiny details and being a perfectionist in everything you do, columbia can and probably will be rather nasty to you. My favorite columbia facebook group is:</p>
<p>Columbia university: where you best hasn’t been good enough since 1754</p>
<p>description: … we know the value of a hard earned C.</p>
<p>it’s not that hard to do well. There can be a thousand reasons why some kids don’t perform: and it’s not just being surrounded by students as bright as they are. It can be the sudden freedom, a lack of direction, too much to do, a lack thereof…</p>
<p>…at the same time I know a lot of people who sailed through their four years. Freshman year maybe more of a situational rather than an academic adjustment, which is why grades can suffer. I know mine did at least in part because of it, but also because I thought I could get away with not really studying since I knew most of what was covered in some of the classes I took. Bad idea :)</p>
<p>freshmen year’s the easiest classes you’ll take (other than possibly senior year, haven’t gotten there yet), but the adjusting to college factor does play a pretty big role for a lot of people. so definitely wait a bit before calling freshmen year the hardest (especially if you’ve got a hard major).</p>
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<p>I didn’t any trouble adjusting, but I came into Columbia totally not giving a f*** about grades. I worked hard enough in high school, felt like I made it, figured I was smart enough to do fine in life without giving 120% effort at Columbia, and wanted to enjoy myself. So I decided I’d put in some amount effort – something in between blowing off school and f’ing myself over and actually trying my best to get A’s. I also did really well on my midterms because I think a lot of people did have trouble adjusting to college and/or the material, so I got really overconfident and figured I could do even less and still get by. And I ended up doing pretty mediocrely on some of my finals. I ended up getting I think 2 B+'s and 3 A-'s my first semester. </p>
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<p>Senior year classes are by far easier than freshman year. Few freshman classes, while substantively easy, have very generous curves. Many upper-division classes have really cushy curves. This would obviously include some seminar class where you get an A if you show up or some elective where the prof wants people to take his course and thus gives everyone As.</p>