Help: I have no idea how I look to Columbia admissions

Colleges & Universities A-Z Columbia University
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<p>Seeking odds and suggestions. I seem to sit in a bunch of gray areas. I could sure use some guidance. (I'll reciprocate for somebody else once I know what I'm doing.)</p>

<p>High School: fairly rigorous public school in South:</p>

<p>Academic Rank: 18 out of 550
Schedule: All AP or IB classes in junior and upcoming senior year, some in sophomore.</p>

<p>SAT:
M: 790
R: 720
W: 740</p>

<p>AP exams
Five 5's (Calc AB, Calc BC, Psych, English comp, Environm Science)
One 4 (US Hist)
One 3 (economics)</p>

<p>Two mediocre IB exam scores. (Microecon 4, Psych 3). </p>

<p>I'm not a great writer.</p>

<p>School Extracurriculars:
I was in two school plays
President and a founder of martial Arts Club</p>

<p>Outside school:
Volunteered at Nature Museum since 12
I tend to animals there and work little kid summer camps. Dig in dirt and take them out in streams, etc.</p>

<p>One professional theatre gig:
I got good reviews and play won "Best Play" for year in city.
Got paid for acting (which may be harder than getting in CalTech).</p>

<p>Some children's theatre classes and plays over the years.</p>

<p>Play guitar</p>

<p>I'm white male, speak pretty good Spanish</p>

<p>Also thinking about:
Northwestern, UVa (parents attended), UNC, maybe Yale, maybe CalTech, maybe Rice</p>

<p>Thinking engineering or physics for major. Maybe do some theatre.</p>

<p>Should I apply to engineering if I am on fence?</p>

<p>What are my chances of getting in and what suggestions do you have?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

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<p>Hey there - biggest donut hole in this application is any outside engineering or physics experience - research, internship, a project. In fact from the above I wouldn’t have known you were interested in engineering at all until you wrote it. Admissions don’t require you to know who you will be right now, but to have spent some degree of time thinking about it and articulating it so that you don’t sound like another undecided kid. Which will probably means you’re borderline for CU and Yale, probably in at Rice, NW, UVa and UNC, and a long shot for CalTech.</p>

<p>And if you’re scoring in your 700s for CR and WR you’re not a bad writer, you obviously have the tools, the real question now - are you going to patient enough to use them.</p>

<p>So although being interested in theatre is surely an important part of your application; you got to have a bit more behind your app than some classes and some test scores in math/sci areas to prove you stand out academically among math/sci applicants. So your narrative story has to emphasize breadth, but in the end it really has to say you’re a math/sci powerhouse that wants to do engineering because…</p>

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<p>You hit one of the gaps I am concerned about. (I figure the theatre experience is not much help. CalTech and Columbia probably don’t need somebody with accolades for pretending to be homicidal.) The reality is that I had sort of liked biology and zoology, and I had worked with it a good bit, but last year I “switched” my thinking when I took a physics class and coincidentally found myself reading Richard Feynman’s book about himself. Meanwhile, my Mom is an engineer, and I inherited her aptitude for math, and I kind of like the idea of having practical applications of my work.</p>

<p>All that said, I pretty much go to school, get out late in the day, and go to karate class or do homework, except when I’m working at the Museum or when I was in a play. There’s nowhere close by for me to do sophisticated technical work, and I’m probably a little too social (but not that much) to be designing stuff in my bedroom. </p>

<p>It sounds arrogant, but I feel like I’ve never really been challenged. That’s one of the reasons I want to go to a school where I will be. I take hard classes and handle what comes at me pretty easily, and there just isn’t much way to up the intellectual rigor of my current teenage life. Meanwhile, I have not been much for doing activities for show or for resume building, and that probably will hurt me now. So really, with these schools I am not after the fancy names; I want the people who will challenge my ability to think. I want the hard stuff.</p>

<p>I know myself pretty well. I think when I have got a challenging problem, I will be all over it and take it down. Unfortunately, probably everybody who hasn’t got an impressive technical record says the same thing, and I don’t know how to differentiate myself.</p>

<p>This is my best explanation, but I still probably shouldn’t say most of this, should I?</p>

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<p>not on your application - like anything admitting a weakness is admitting there is something more there to find.</p>

<p>humility shouldn’t ever be confused with admitting weaknesss, you should come across as humble and curious, but never someone who tries to explain away the scenario.</p>

<p>what you have? 5 mths - that is a lot of time, to start to develop relationships with your math/phys teachers and to as a result get good recommendations, to perhaps ask to be challenged by them. in the end it is in your hands a lot more than you think. a lot of the raw data stuff you have are good (not of the charts, but good enough). now it is the narrative.</p>

<p>an exercise i’d consider doing? every week spend 15 min writing down an answer to the following question “Why do I want to be an engineer?” until it finally clicks. if you mention feynman you aren’t the first kid to say that feynman made you want to become a physicist (every year there are kids who mention him on this board), so what about feynman, what about physics, what about the application of physics. if you find yourself stumped - then spend a few hours out of the week trying to figure out how you can better answer the question. if that means shadowing mom at work, or asking her to set you up as an intern…that would be a nice start!</p>

<p>but you have time. and in the end the reason why you make these efforts is not to get into a school like columbia or caltech, but because a) you’ll figure out if you actually do want to do engineering or physics, b) you’ll be more prepared when it comes down to actually doing the work.</p>

<p>and a final thing to harp because my engineering friends have led me to harp - there is a huge gulf at times between the pure sciences and applied sciences, if you do end up applying to engineering, make sure you can explain how applied sciences fits you better in that columbia supplement question.</p>

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<p>One more technical fact. Applying to Columbia Engineering requires two SAT subject tests, one of which must be either Bio, Chem, or Physics. Looking at your AP/IB classes, it doesn’t seem like you’ve taken a difficult science class.</p>

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<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>It has been hard for me to get the schedule I want. I took Chem and Physics in 9th and 10th grade, and I put down Physics II as my first choice for this past year, but I could not get it in my schedule. My school is fairly rigorous but they almost seem to make a point of not letting you push back or modify your schedule if you don’t get what you want. I got AP Envi Sci, which is considered one of the harder science classes for some reason. I will at least get Physics II my senior year (when I would like to be doing Physics 3). </p>

<p>Also, I may be more uninformed than some people at this stage. My school counselors don’t pay attention to us until the start of senior year. I took the SAT subject tests on short notice near end of sophomore year because one of my parents was reading about the college admissions process and had me do it. I think my sisters will have an easier time getting into colleges because the family is learning from the “should haves” with me.</p>

<p>I took Math and Chemistry SAT subject tests in 10th grade and am thinking about taking some more in the fall. I might do okay on the physics just because I have been reading one of the test prep books for interest sake. I had not realized, until I was reading here that the SAT II Subject tests are substantial factors. I had thought AP exams were better tests to do well on.</p>

<p>Thanks again; I have got to do some catch-up.</p>

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<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>I have to admit that the interest in engineering is fairly fresh. I like the idea of having a product, of advancing technology; but truthfully, I also like the idea of figuring things out and figuring out how the world works. The way I see it, most of the people in history (like the founding fathers) who lit with candles and achieved top speed on horses, would have found it unimaginable that we might transmit video images and sounds from far away or fly in a few hours across the continent; and if you told them that we were using invisible, soundless waves in the air that pass through solid walls, it would be the equivalent today of accomplishing teleportation. I don’t know if figuring out how to accomplish teleportation or figuring out how to harness ambient heat for transportation is pure science or is it engineering. Which discipline gets you closest to problem-solving on the cutting edge? I would like to work on the cutting edge of problem-solving. To do that, I have to get myself to that environment. I am pretty bright, but I need to be where those ideas are going back and forth, and I can’t find it where I am now.</p>

<p>I will try to take your advice and find some local engineering opportunity. I fear that it will be a bit of a “take your daughter to work” type exposure unless I am lucky. As far as my Mom, she retired when my sister was born and the company she worked for got bought by HP and closed its office here. I’ll need to try elsewhere. I have an aversion to doing any experience because it will “look good.” I would want something where I learn the “what” and the “how” or I contribute.</p>

<p>Sorry for the ramble. I hope you will let me know any other thoughts.</p>

<p>Thanks again.</p>