<p>Freshman student at a college in the greater NYC region.</p>
<p>High School Stats:</p>
<p>SAT - 2080 - 750 W 710 M 620 V
GPA - 3.77 Weighted 3.55 Unweighted (arguably the biggest pitfall)
AP - 5 in Gov, 4 in Eco, 3 in US and World History
Activities - Two Varsity Letters, Baseball Captain, Eagle Scout, National Honor Society, FBLA Treasurer, the whole nine yards ...</p>
<ul>
<li>these stats got me into penn state, saint joseph's university, and my current school. Wait listed at Lehigh and Wake Forest. Denied BC, Georgetown, NYU, GW</li>
</ul>
<p>College Stats: (first semester) Economics Major - Honors Program</p>
<p>GPA - 3.96 - A's in all business course and 1 required core (calc, CIS, eco, envi sci) A- in Lit</p>
<p>Activities - University Eco and Finance society, University Debate team</p>
<p>Got an internship on wall street this semester at a wealth management firm. Learned a great deal about finance at the firm and my essays + recommendations will reflect my experiences. </p>
<p>What do you think my chances are for admission?</p>
<p>St. John’s University - Tobin School of Business</p>
<p>^GPA is good, high school record is underpar for Columbia, you seem like a pretty driven kid. I’d say you have a decent chance, but getting in as a transfer is heavily dependent on whether the admissions office sees you accomplishing a huge amount in those 3 years at Columbia. They want to see why you need Columbia, and why Columbia needs to take you. The finance bit may turn them off, even though there are a couple of hundred of us finance people in each year group. I would worry less about that and more about showing them that you have exhausted opportunities at St. Johns and need some school with a broader platform and more opportunities on which to build. I think you might deserve to get in, but they might think you belong at an NYU Stern instead of Columbia. One thing you can do to help your case is to be pro-core curriculum and talk about how you want to expand the gears in the your head through a study of western thought (for example).</p>
<p>Thanks for your thoughts. A great deal of my experiences this past semester have been financed based, but I am still an economics major. I would like to take my economics background and my finance experiences to develop a broader knowledge of the economy. The prospects of wall street are intriguing but I am much more interested in public policy and financial oversight. I will try to make that clear in my essays so that the admissions office can see that I am not a narrow minded student. I appreciate your thoughts. Are you a student at Columbia? How do you know so much?</p>
<p>^I’m a senior at Columbia, I don’t know much at all, just a guesser. The Public policy + financial oversight will go down well with them I think. You can be as selfish as you want once you get in.</p>
<p>O ok. Did you transfer in?</p>
<p>… any other thoughts?</p>
<p>SAT verbal is too low. While your SATs don’t mean much after you’re in college, don’t forget, most classes at Columbia are curved - meaning, the smarter your classmates, the lower your GPA. Don’t mean to discourage you, but Columbia’s “Core” requires tons of reading and writing. I’d be worried that your reading comprehension skills might not be up to par given your Verbal score. You’ll be scored against students with 800 verbal scores.</p>
<p>And despite being a humanities major, econ classes at columbia are no easy ride. You’ll need Calc 3 and econometrics to graduate. I’m an econ major here and last year the class median in econometrics was a C+.</p>
<p>Some people here are ridiculously brilliant. I used to think I was smart…until I came here. As the classes become more advanced, some of our lives literally become living hell because of the level of exams they give.</p>
<p>My SAT scores were from nearly two years ago, and after a full semester in college, I feel that my comprehension skills have increased. Nonetheless I understand that Columbia’s student body is made up of some of the best young minds; however, unless I take on the workload that they do, I will never become one. Thanks for your thoughts … any other opinions?</p>
<p>I think you should retake the SAT to have a better shot.</p>
<p>“My SAT scores were from nearly two years ago, and after a full semester in college, I feel that my comprehension skills have increased. Nonetheless I understand that Columbia’s student body is made up of some of the best young minds; however, unless I take on the workload that they do, I will never become one. Thanks for your thoughts … any other opinions?” <<< Any thoughts about this post and the profile in general?</p>