<p>OK, I REALLY REALLY want to go to Columbia.
I go to an EXTREMELY good, and EXTREMELY competitive, public high school in South CA. This year, we had people to go MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Yale, etc etc etc--but no one went to Columbia because the admissions rates went really low this year.
My GPA: 3.67 unweighted/4.05 weighted.
Classes: I take mostly APs. Calc, Chem, Physics, World History, US History, ARt History, English Language....Next year I'm also taking 6 AP's.
Outside of school: I do outside classes: Creative Writing, Chinese, Guitar, and Dance. I don't know where to put that on my application though.
Extracurriculars:
450+ hours volunteering. This includes the stuff below.
Literary magazine publication.
President of a magazine.
Writer in a science journal for the school.
Mock Trial-3rd place in county.
Teen Court.
a volunteer program for music.
working with mentally disabled kids for physical education.
Archery Club.
Internships at a technological place, and at a city administration office, and at a law firm.
California Scholarship Institute.
Model United Nations--awards.
Science Olympiad--award.
A club that helps impoverished students in China.
Piano for 9 years, have won awards.
SAT: 2310.
SAT II: 720, 720, but I'm retaking.
Essays/Recs: I think I can get pretty good recs and write some pretty unique essays.
interview: My school gets interviews, but I don't know if it's for RD or ED. And I don't know how to get an ED interview and I don't know if it'd help or hurt.</p>
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<p>I think you’ve answered this for yourself. If that’s true, then there’s no better time to apply than ED if your finances permit it. </p>
<p>Test scores look good, GPA doesn’t say much unless you’ve got ranking which compares you to the rest of the senior class, and courseload is rigorous enough.</p>
<p>The only advice anybody can give you is to work hard on your essay and present an interesting case for application. The whole point is trying to sell yourself so if you show that in the essay, it should be okay. Good luck!</p>
<p>Um 3.67 UW? What happened there? And what is your class rank? Everything else seems OK to me, but I have a bad feeling that your GPA will bring you down …</p>
<p>PS: Admission rates aren’t going to get better</p>
<p>If you can afford your schooling, just apply ED and see what happens.</p>