<p>Thanks to everyone who replied my thread and helped me get rid of some confusion. I am an international student and I will be applying to Columbia University and its my No.1 choice. I prefer Columbia over HYPSM and all other top tier colleges. As I was researching, this 10% acceptance rate thing daunted me. So, I asked you guys.
Does anybody seem to know how many international students applied to Columbia last year and what percent of students are accepted? And, how many of them received financial aid?
I have good academics, EC’s and will be able to manage good recommendations and essays. Overall, I am in par with a admitted Columbia student. But, its not enough because its a very prestigious and selective school. I just wanted to know if I can increase my chances of getting admitted. By the way, I will be applying to SEAS.
Thanks to everyone…</p>
<p>^great to hear that, in response to your questions:</p>
<p>1) There are no numbers for international student applications. Anecdotally if you come from an unrepresented country like Malawi or generally underrepresented like Cambodia, it should be slightly easier. If you come from an competitive region, like India, China, Singapore, Hong Kong then it is more difficult to get in.
2) Asking for financial aid makes it more difficult, but if you come from an over-rep country then not significantly more difficult than already is the case. Columbia looks at financial aid apps in a different pool and takes the top 60-70 kids in that pool, giving them a lot of aid (as much as they need). Columbia has about 40-50 first year students who are international and receive aid, this means about 30-35% of international students receive aid (there are ~120-130 out of 1380 total students who are international). 50% of the undergrads at columbia receive aid.
3) Having scores that meet Columbia standards is the first step, it still will be difficult, but definitely worth a shot. If you apply ED you should have a much better shot. ED acceptance rate for seas is like 30-33%, and RD acceptance rate is 12.7%. You can always reject an ED offer if the money is not enough.
4) SEAS as a school has seen a real upward trend in the last 5-10 years, acceptance rate has halved in 4 years.</p>
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<p>lol, it is great to hear ego-stroking these days.</p>
<p>Confidentialcol is a beast!</p>
<p>Having done my undergrad at Arizona State, I just want to say that I think you guys are crazy spending time splitting a fly’s hair worth of difference between all of these amazing universities ;)</p>
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<p>Not true. I’ve heard this acronynm used in real life (as well as many other internet forums). If your implication is that Columbia is HYPSM-level, that is also not true. HYPSM dominates Columbia in cross-admit battles. They also have better professional and graduate school placement. Among disciplines they offer in common, HYPSM surpasses Columbia across the board.</p>
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<p>Keep in mind that Columbia’s 10% acceptance rate is an indirect result of Early Decision, which artificially boosts its yield. Columbia also excludes older (GS) applicants from its calculations; HYPSM doesn’t do this.</p>
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<p>What makes you think that Columbia cares less about scores and grades? Do you seriously think that Columbia is nearly as selective as MIT??? Based on raw intellectual power, MIT students run circles around Columbia students.</p>
<p>interestingguy, what are you trying to do here? You can’t make a blind man see.</p>
<p>First, these threads about which school is “better” (whatever that means) drive me crazy.</p>
<p>Second, interestingguy, you were doing fine until your last sentence: “Based on raw intellectual power, MIT students run circles around Columbia students.” How do you even make such a statement? The data do not support this statement. I would pull out the data, but we’ve all read it, ad nauseum. MIT is a specialty college, with a well-defined focus on math/science/engineering/economics. Other fields are also outstanding, but look at the data on the number of undergraduates who have declared majors outside of the core fields (currently, the number is approximately 50). Are those who focus on the humanities at Columbia without comparable “raw intellectual power”? In my little corner of the world, the very good (but not top) student in my son’s class at MIT was rejected by Columbia. The valedictorian is at Columbia, but had no interest in the specialty curriculum at MIT, and did not apply (nor did he apply at HYPS). I know, anectodal evidence is meaningless, but I really doubt that anyone knows whether non-science students at MIT “run circles around Columbia students,” nor does anyone know even whether all (or most) science students at MIT run intellectual circles around Columbia science students. Hyperbolic generalizations do not further any sort of debate.</p>
<p>“Hyperbolic generalizations do not further any sort of debate.”</p>
<p>amen.</p>
<p>Dude - I personally know 3 people who got into MIT and were rejected from Penn and Columbia (the Colleges at both schools), and one of them was even rejected at Cornell engineering (admittedly, a fantastic school).</p>
<p>Yes, this happened during RD - but I would not simply say that
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<p>This discussion is irrelevent. Almost everyone I know here knew they wanted Columbia, and now that they are here wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s all about fit, not some abstract number. MIT and Columbia aren’t comparable schools. So a ranking that pits them against eachother is worthless. </p>
<p>I think ranking/admission rate comparisons are for high school kids who don’t really understand college yet (i was one once, i sympathize), and for people who are insecure about their alma mater.</p>
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<p>What is the purpose of these little anecdotes? I know a dozen people who were admitted to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton and rejected from Amherst or Williams. Students admitted to Columbia SEAS and MIT but rejected from Swarthmore.</p>
<p>For the fellow that made the generalization that MIT students are, overall, more intellectually capable than Columbia students, why aren’t SEAS and MIT comparable, in terms of however one wants to evaluate institutional/student strength?</p>
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<p>My point, kwu, was that admissions to any of the elite colleges, which encompasses roughly 10 schools, overlap mightily and are entirely a crapshoot, especially RD. Thus it’s absurd to make claims like, “MIT students run intellectual circles around Columbia students.”</p>
<p>^ There is probably slight truth to claiming that MIT’s VERY TOP students are, as a whole, more accomplished than Columbia’s VERY TOP students. Let’s face it; barring some exceptions, HMP (probably in that order) dominate when it comes to attracting the I_O medalists. But their student bodies are extremely comparable as a whole, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is full of crap.</p>
<p>^I would agree that the top math/science students at MIT are likely more accomplished than the top math/science students at Columbia. In other arenas, I doubt it.</p>
<p>I totally agree with monstor’s statement. Basically sums it up perfectly.</p>
<p>My understanding is that aside from the top 20% at any of the top-10 schools, the students could be shuffled and there would be no difference.</p>
<p>For example, a kid at UChicago, Columbia or Penn from the top 10% of those schools’ classes is obviously smarter than a kid from Harvard or MIT who’s in the bottom 50%. This accounts for these anecdotal stories wherein people “know a kid who got into Harvard but was rejected from Columbia, Penn and Dartmouth!” etc.</p>
<p>This is kind of ridiculous. Who cares which ivys/elite schools have higher SAT scores?? The point is that these are great schools and everyone who goes to any of them, whether it be Harvard or Columbia or Dartmouth or whatever, is a super qualified student. Average SAT scores or GPAs being about 1% off doesn’t make any one school more selective than the others. They’re all looking for different things in applicants, attract different types of students, and have different class sizes. That’s it. So just figure out where you want to go and apply there, don’t put all of your decision making on rankings</p>
<p>Threads like these make the baby Jesus cry.</p>
<p>This is why I hardly ever read CC anymore, and when I do it’s mostly to help students rather than get caught up in these d!ck-measuring contests.</p>
<p>confidentialcoll, kwu and FastFood - you three should know better.</p>
<p>I don’t have a dick.</p>
<p>^^^lol tmi</p>