<p>i was just going through the ed and rd decisions for columbia and i saw this student who had scores in the low 1300s and a 3.0uw gpa got into columia and was international, but he was the captain of the sailing team if that mattered. what surprises me is that people with much higher higher stats and ecs got rejected! can anyone explain this?
PS: i know essays and ecs are important but do they makeup for 4 yrs of high school?</p>
<p>sometimes they do.</p>
<p>indeed... not to mention that you can't believe everything you read.</p>
<p>I got in with a 1400 and a Top 20% rank. BUT my valedictorian, rank 3, 5, and 7 didn't get in and they all had 1500+ SAT scores.</p>
<p>remember affirmative action</p>
<p>I got in with a 1360, ranked 3rd in my class. 1st ranked got waitlisted at Columbia.</p>
<p>the ivies can pick and choose whoever they want to come to their schools. So they do...they pick the most interesting students they can find, they try to fill as many niches as possible, and they try to make the class as diverse as possible in every way, not just racially. Columbia could throw out their current class and pick an entirely new class from those they rejected and would get just as high caliber a class. So - grades are not everything. That said, you are probably more likely to get in with a 1550 than a 1300 - but there are no absolutes.</p>
<p>My school's valedictorian had the highest average (99.3 uw) in my schools ~160 year history and a 1580 and was waitlisted. A kid ranked somewhere between 30 and 40 with about a 1200 got in.</p>
<p>yes but its pretty amazing that columbia is ready to accept students showing promise in their essays and ecs over those who have high scores and good ecs... go columbia! and seeing people with lower stats (columbia standard) but good ecs get accepted has really given me hope!</p>
<p>Inneedofhelp.
I think he did not show enough interest. they have to protect their yield.</p>
<p>inneedofhelp are u sure he wasnt a recruited athlete</p>
<p>tega is right. Columbia needs to know you want to go there if accepted.</p>
<p>That's only half-true; certainly they need to make sure that 1020 students enter the class in the fall, but Columbia's (and virtually every competitive college's) acceptance rate is very conservative. In other words, they accept fewer students knowing that they're going to pull from the wait list to ensure that they have an entering class of 1020, 1600, 1175, etc. And I wouldn't put too much weight on the "interest in your school" short-answer essay either... for mine I essentially used a template: every time I saw "Chicago" I replaced it with "New York City." It worked out just fine for me.</p>
<p>I truly believe that we as non-admissions officers cannot even begin to imagine the kinds of qualities, factors, labels, etc. that are used to choose an acceptee. It could be as crazy and seemingly immaterial as someone from an underrepresented county in a state! One of the most intriguing questions of all time I'm afraid along with why are we on this planet? hehe</p>
<p>inneedofhelp, what school do you go to?</p>
<p>At the columbia info session I attended they mentioned that they had accepted someone with an SAT score of 980.</p>
<p>I think Columbia, this year, wanted people that were genuinely interested. They were not so score-hungry. A lot of people I know with fantastic stats got waitlisted or rejected. For example, probably the ONLY reason my girlfriend was waitlisted there was because she was obviously not as interested in it as some of the other schools she was applying to. </p>
<p>I had good stats and all but I visited all the way from Oregon. I think that worked in my favor quite a bit O.o</p>
<p>I don't think so. I think the fact that you were from Oregon (geographical diversity) was more important than you visiting, because you didn't even try to get an interview, nor did you contact them. </p>
<p>I visited also, but since my gc's make us rank our schools and I know my school is all buddy-buddy with Columbia, they probably told them that Columbia wasn't ranked very high on my list (I think it was #4) and so it's not worthwhile to accept me. Waitlisting is a good way to test out genuine interest: all the RD applicants from my school were waitlisted (one was eventually taken off) while all the ED applicants were accepted.</p>
<p>just be yourself and dont worry too much about how the school thinks about it. there really are no hard and fast rules to this--there are lot of different factors so leave the speculation to people with nothing better to do. i didnt interview, didnt have it that high on my list initially; from MA, a highly represented state at Columbia; had extremely high scores, but they accepted me. you will find seemingly random decision-making at all the highly selective institutions in the U.S.</p>
<p>Can anybody with high scores place a lawsuit against an ivy after being rejected? :P</p>