My Chances at Columbia

<p>Wow, I feel really embarassed to be posting this, but here it goes anyways. I am a junior right now and am looking at Columbia I guess as a reach school. I am also looking at Swarthmore, Amherst, Wesleyan, Middleberry, and Oberlin as alternatives if I can't get into Columbia. Tell me if I have any chance at Columbia though :) I might apply ED.</p>

<p>GPA: UW Sophomore year- 3.75
Junior year so far I have been getting straight A's (maybe one B) with mostly AP/challenging classes</p>

<p>APs: U.S. History, English, Spanish 5</p>

<p>SATs 2: 2100 (750 writing, 750 verbal, 600 math) I'm going to try to get my math grade up with practice. Maybe to atleast 650. </p>

<p>Class Rank : I think I'm in the top five of a 150 person class.</p>

<p>Extracurricular:
literary magazine (soph,junior)
field hockey (soph)
Model U.N. (junior)
National Honor Society (soph, junior)</p>

<p>Other things I'm involved in:
~I go to an arts school and am in a writing prime. That means I spend 1.5 hours each day in school focusing on creative writing. I am mostly interested in poetry. I have won two awards already for poems and hope to win more this year or next year. I have been told I have some talent.
~Also, this last summer I took a poetry class for 3 college credits at University of Maryland College Park. I got an A+ since my professor loved my work.
~I spent a summer volunteering for 150 hours at the National Aquarium in Baltimore where I live. I also had a paid job there for two years.
~Next year, there is a very good chance that I will be going to live in Germany for twelve months as an exchange student as part of the Congress-Bundestag program. That it one reason why I am really looking at what colleges I can apply ED to now since I wouldn't be able to do all the searching and planning next year. I would go to high school there but language might impede me from taking the most challenging classes (I would learn German in an immersion course once I get there.) So I'd really appreciate if you'd tell me if you think going to Germany would help or hurt my chances of getting into an Ivy. I think it might help because I plan of majoring in IR and/or foreign language. Then going on to med school (but that's unrelated.) So would it make me stand out?</p>

<p>So feel free to tell me I'm not special. I might just cry for a day. Just kidding, I'd really like to have a realistic picture on this. Everyone else posting on this board has such an amazing transcript!</p>

<p>You've got a shot and your numbers are within Columbia's range. Columbia is a reach for almost everyone, but you're certainly not an auto-reject.</p>