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On the other hand, I don't know of Columbia being known for emphasizing anything to an unusual degree, as in UChicago and the essay, UCs and objective stats, Emory and interest. So I'm guessing they're pretty balanced on all factors.
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<p>Columbia's known for looking for people with commitments and passions for things, who are good fits for Columbia, etc. </p>
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a 3.9 will only beat out a 3.8 if all factors are essentially equal (and all other factors being equal, they'd probably both get the same decision).
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<p>This is utter BS for at least the reason that a 3.9 and a 3.8 from two kids from different schools and who took different classes can't possibly be compared on a numeric-only basis.</p>
<p>"This is utter BS for at least the reason that a 3.9 and a 3.8 from two kids from different schools and who took different classes can't possibly be compared on a numeric-only basis."</p>
<p>even same schools same classes, they'll either reject both, accept both, or choose based on other things. They won't say we've weighted ecs, essays and recs equally, gosh we'll push this guy over cuz of that 3.9. If they're really both at the fence, ad coms will dig deeper, reading through essays and looking at ec involvement, achievement, fit more carefully.</p>
<p>i was accepted to columbia this spring, and i'd say that the most important factor for me was how i stressed being excited about NYC life and the opportunities it affords on my app. i was a good student in high school, did well on my SATs, took hard classes, and had the leadership positions...but none of that made me exceptional. i also didn't get an interview. but i think the best apps are the ones that have some kind of theme to them, especially ones where your theme fits in with the personality of the school. the two things that stand out about columbia are manhattan and the core curriculum, and since i wasn't that into the core, i went with the former.
that said...i ended up going to upenn. so if you have any questions about either place, shoot me a note and i'd be happy to talk to you.</p>
<p>I was the only person accepted into the college's class of 2011 out of a pool of around 20 applicants from my private high school in the midwest. Guess what: I had one of the lowest GPAs out of all of them, though I did take the hardest classes (11 APs) and I did well on testing. I also did not have an interview, which leads me to believe that they try to find people who truly love to learn. For instance, instead of spending much time on silly assignments in high school, I would rather pursue one of my other interests on my own, even if that meant I would have a lower grade, but in the end I would benefit from what I learned on my own. If I felt that an assignment wouldn't allow me to grow in knowledge, I just wouldn't bother, which is why my grades were lower than those who would punctiliously overachieve on such redundant tasks. Instead of having adults edit my essay down to the tiniest details, I wrote my essay impulsively, as all true writing should come about, leaving it mostly in its original form. I think that if one stays true to oneself, not succumbing to the wants of coddling teachers, not getting caught up in the nets of conformity, assuming that one is a mere, empty yet prehensile husk of human existence that will absorb new experiences and relish the rigor of Columbia's Core atop the Morningside Acropolis in order to grow and expand, then one will have a better chance of being accepted than those perturbed grade-grubbers, who may appear impressive on paper, but are all too characterized by shallow and ignominious educational goals that fail to drive at the heart of the matter, which is knowledge, knowledge, and more knowledge, driven by genuine curiosity, shaped by the influence of apotropaic magic, and applied in the future world with raw, unbridled ingenuity. Of course it is a crapshoot to some degree, since a good number of the 90% of applicants that don't get in certainly aren't unqualified, but a love of learning is true to the Columbia spirit, so it doesn't matter how good one's transcript and test scores are if one cannot demonstrate that one holds a passion to embrace life, culture, and the ever-shifting world we find ourselves growing old in.</p>
<p>I would attempt to make fun of the above poster and his or her verbosity, perhaps itself an apotropaic magic purposed to rid the uneducated from the ranks of his readers, except that it was really quite fun to read and I agree with everything that he or she said.</p>
<p>If Columbia truly seeks "prehensile husks," monkeys to grab bananas of knowledge from Columbia's trees, those who would exert an electromagnetic force upon the knowledge which scurries about around them, lazes upon the "Acropolis," huddles in the warmth of the Low Library; if this is true, then perhaps more of us should follow after the above poster's example, in search of knowledge as the exemplary purpose, the very telos of our lives as scholars. Let our goals be not those that would sate the beast of contemporary education; rather let us discover the voracious desire within, that knowledge which may yet guard us against growing old, which may (as I read the above post, with a little help from Harold Bloom) yet indeed prepare us for our final encounter with ourselves at the grave.</p>
<p>Perhaps I should scrap my existing Common Application essay, and follow after the more esoteric schema prescribed by lowesttax---an essay written upon the wave of an impulse, riding the currents of potassium, dancing upon the edge of a hastily drawn-in breath, the shock of cognition, tracing the path of energy from electron to light.</p>
<p>Heh. That was fun. I really do wonder, though, if Columbia does look for intellectual curiosity, and if it can be revealed in a way that is thoroughly honest, rather than contrived for the purpose of entrance. Are such rigorously academic students truly the most prized, by Columbia and by all? I suppose they should be---after all, we're going to college to learn, not learning in order to go to college.</p>
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I would attempt to make fun of the above poster and his or her verbosity, perhaps itself an apotropaic magic purposed to rid the uneducated from the ranks of his readers, except that it was really quite fun to read and I agree with everything that he or she said.
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Yeah, seriously. Looks like someone's been studying for the SATs, huh silverchris?</p>
<p>More seriously, lowesttax's example is an extremely instructive one. What did he have that others at his school did not? Intellectual passion. Frankly, if there were one single factor that schools like Columbia seek out above all others, it's that. And such a passion will come through in the activities, in the recommendations, in the course selection, in the interview, and yes, in the essay - perhaps there most of all. But all of those measuring sticks they use in the application are trying to get at whether you have any true passion behind what you study and what you want to study.</p>
<p>My essay was on how much I personally valued the character attribute of honesty, why I thought it was so important, why this was unusual, etc. It's a pretty basic piece, and would be sappy if not for how obviously personal a statement it was making about me. When I wrote it, I wrote it in about an hour, tops, including editing. It just flowed out, because I was speaking truth about myself. Same experience as lowesttax. Same result, too.</p>