<p>It’s maddening how out of touch with the world some of you are. </p>
<p>Should you make it into Columbia, it will be, by far, one of the most humbling experiences of your life.</p>
<p>Wow. This conversation has taken a turn for the worse.</p>
<p>In any case, I received a likely letter on Thursday and am EPICLY excited. I didn’t even know such things existed and since Columbia is/was my first choice (well, really in a 3-way-tie with U of C and Princeton, and looking better every day), it was just completely amazing to know that they actually want me. I also got deferred from Stanford REA (not one of my top choices, but I didn’t want to apply Early Decision anywhere until I was certain where I wanted to go), which made me believe that my chances at the Ivies and other very selective universities were somewhat slim considering I am a legacy at Stanford and first in my class (3 students from last year’s class were accepted Stanford REA last year, while only two students were accepted to any of the Ivies I applied to). Thus, receiving that email was a huge relief.</p>
<p>My stats are:
2210 SAT (770 CR, 710 M, 730 W)
SAT IIs: 750 Math Level II, 770 US History, 790 Lit,
GPA: 4.0 (unweighted)
ECs are not too amazing (I act in a play a year, usually medium-sized roles, and then I do a lot of volunteering, but have yet to save 1,000s of impoverished children or anything like that)
I think my essays and recs were good. What probably pushed me over the edge, though, was that I am a legacy and that I went to the Columbia summer program before my junior year and received very good evaluations from my professors, which I also included in my application.</p>
<p>So, likely people, if you are accepted to Columbia (which is looking pretty “likely” (excuse the horrible pun)), are you pretty sure that you’ll go? For what university would you turn down an offer from Columbia?</p>
<p>congrats lolita. Were your SATs superscored? </p>
<p>Hmm…I wonder if when colleges say they superscore, they “really” superscore…</p>
<p>“Its basically a free 2-300 points on your SATs, a .5 in your GPA, gives you disadvantaged background cause u are from the ghetto, and you are a leader because there are so few of you.”</p>
<p>That’s hilarious. You are clearly out of touch with reality here. Maybe it applies to Native Americans, but definitely not Blacks and Hispanics. In fact Hispanics get next to nothing.</p>
<p>Congrats lolita! It’s especially great that Columbia is your first choice too! :D</p>
<p>Thanks you guys!</p>
<p>Powerbomb, my SATs were not superscored. I took that awful test once at the beginning of junior year and had no desire to ever take it again. I’ve always wondered about superscoring. If they actually do that, one would think they would not require that collegeboard send all of one’s SAT scores, that they would just let collegeboard or the applicant superscore their scores instead. Of course, I would rather think that because if they don’t truly superscore, it benefits me and hurts the other applicants.</p>
<p>To say you can put a numerical value on how much your URM status helps you is absolutely ridiculous…colleges are looking for diversity…they are not going to love you because you are black, Caucasian, Native American, Asian, or Hispanic, they are going to care about how distinctive of an applicant that you are. URMs that are interested in these universities are truly special people who are unlike many of their peers. That being said, I think this system is wholly unfair to the poor white and asian kids who often have the same disadvantages as these individuals. However, being a very qualified URM is something that is quite distinctive, and is something that could potentially help your chances, but does not by any means guarentee acceptance</p>
<p>^ ^ ^ The Ivies are need blind when in comes to admission . . .</p>
<p>I think theres something on the actual app that asks if you will be applying for financial aid or not. I could be wrong though</p>
<p>“The Ivies are need blind when in comes to admission”</p>
<p>Like Lizzy said, the app does ask whether or not you’ll be asking for aid. Additionally, although this may just be me being cynical, they could look up your zip code or your school district and figure out what the median income is and potentially use that to estimate how much aid you’ll need. Especially when combined with the fact that they can see how educated your parents are/what their occupations are/etc. Again, that could just be the cynic in me, but it really wouldn’t be difficult for them to estimate how needy (or not) you’ll be.</p>
<p>And they’re going to take the time to do that for every applicant they are considering admitting?</p>
<p>im sorry if my post made the thread go sour for a bit. was not my intentions at all. : /</p>
<p>i would definitely say that financial need counts towards the final decision. we have a friend who is close to the dartmouth admissions office, and apparently they do take it into account. i withdrew my financial aid application for the same reason.</p>
<p>OK…I find it really frustrating how colleges seem to hide so many things and go against their own words at times…</p>
<p>How they say they’re need-blind, but really aren’t if they didn’t want to be…how they say they “superscore” but then require us to send in all scores…how they say they accept Jan. SAT tests but sometimes don’t even look at them in time…</p>
<p>ugh.</p>
<p>^ But it’s really up to the discretion of the admissions officer. They don’t have to take financial need into account to make the decision if the school is need-blind… But really we don’t know if a school is truly need blind until we know a school has separate deans for admissions and financial aid…</p>
<p>@ powerbomb
dont worry. i didn’t do well the first time i took the sats. the 2nd time i did much better.
they really do superscore. and financial need does not count toward admission. i got 55k from columbia (efc = 0)
and im an ORM (i read some posts earlier where you guys were talking about urms)</p>
<p>Columbiastud, can I ask what your SAT scores were ?? and also, do you think they really consider Jan. SAT scores?</p>
<p>sure
um i think so</p>
<p>^ what was your score? GPA? SEAS or CC?</p>
<p>@powerbomb What did you get on the Jan SAT?</p>
<p>Wow! 55k. That’s great!!</p>
<p>thanks pigs</p>