<p>I know I'm nothing extraordinary, but I've fallen in love with Columbia.</p>
<p>I just ask you to be honest, and assess my chances for Columbia Early Decision.
If you could give your opinion of my ED chances in terms of a percentage (in addition to any comments you may have) I'd appreciate it greatly.</p>
<p>Thanks anyone.</p>
<p>GPA: 96.5% [unweighted]
Rank: 19/375 (top 5%)
SAT I: 1510 / 2310 (CR 720, M 790 / W 800)
SAT II: Math Level1 740, Literature 660, Biology 690 </p>
<p>ECs/Awards:
Math Club / Mathlete Team; Officer, Vice-President, President
National Honor Society
Honor Roll (90+% average) each year
Spanish Club; President
Silver - Nassau County Interscholastic Math League
Math tutoring
School Newspaper; Feature Editor
2nd Place, schoolwide Art Contest
1st Place, school Biology Fair
100% school Character Rating each year
Poem published, The America Library of Poetry
Certificate of Merit - New York Math League
Youth Football Volunteer Coach
Brown University Summer Program - Anthropology
Volunteer, Special Olympics
Babysitting, freshman yr on
Summer work @ insurance office</p>
<p>Recs should be very good.
Essay, I feel confident about. I'm a good writer, and have begun work on my Columbia essay. It starts out describing my first ever visit to the American Museum of Natural History (coincidentally in Morningside Heights), and goes on to discuss how it developed my interest in anthropology, which led to my summer course at Brown, which was not just an experience that led to a greater appreciation for and knowledge of the discipline of anthro, but an experience that taught me a lot about myself, as I had never been away from home before.</p>
<p>Location: Long Island, New York
School Type: Very competitive Catholic
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Gender: Male</p>
<p>My stats were extremely similar to yours, save for higher SAT IIs and a different but not that much more helpful location. If you could shore those up and garner some impressive AP scores, plus of course good essays and recommendations, you'd have a fairly good shot.</p>
<p>I dunno anything... just a rising senior here... but judging from replies I've seen to other chance threads I'd say you'd have a good chance of getting in, especially ED, as long as your essay and recs are really good. you have a lot of ECs... ._. haha. if you go by 2010's stats, chances in general getting in ED are 23%. (lol sorry if you knew that already, I'm not being much help am I?)</p>
<p>can I ask what's made you fall in love with columbia?</p>
<p>columbia2007:
Thanks =)
I'm probably going to take Literature and Math Level1 once more before ED to try to get those up (I know I can do even better in Math, as that's my strong point)... I'd like to get Literature to 700 and Math to 760+. That'd bring my SAT II average score up about 20 pts, which I would like.
I think the reason they're relatively low is because my school doesn't offer APs, which also addresses the second part of your advice statement.. I guess they kind of go hand-in-hand, since AP classes would've prepared me much better for the SAT IIs, I'm sure.
And I really think I can ace the essay.</p>
<p>freddieisurhero:
Thank you too.
I've talked to several people who attend/attended Columbia, and they've told me nothing but amazing stories.
I've visited, and it's the nicest campus I've seen thus far (although I haven't been to too many schools).
The Core is so appealing as well... AND it's in NYC (45 minutes away from my home!), which has so much to do -- Including the AMNH, where I would try to get an internship if I were ever accepted to Columbia.</p>
<p>I really love the campus as well, how mostly everything is in one place. :D most people I know don't actually like that though... lol.</p>
<p>Yeah, ditto.
It's a nice urban campus.</p>
<p>i'm doing ED too. your ECs are far more superior to mine
and that anthro passion of yours is a really good edge.</p>
<p>Seaghost, that internship sounds like a great idea. Best of luck pursuing it. In my experience few people come to Columbia already having decided to pursue anthro, though the university has an excellent department (the discipline in its modern sense was practically invented here). </p>
<p>You should know that the area the natural history museum is in is firmly Upper West Side rather than Morningside Heights, which depending on who you ask extends south only to 110th or 106th Streets.</p>
<p>Yeah!
One of the little known unique things about Columbia is that they kind of began the formal study of anthro.</p>
<p>Thanks -- I'd love to get an internship at AMNH. If for some (amazing) reason I was accepted to Columbia, I'd definitely go for an internship there.</p>
<p>I hope writing about AMNH in my essay isn't too generic... I wouldn't think so, since you have to at least live in the area to know the museum, and I think intent on pursuing anthro is kind of unique in itself.
Who knows.</p>
<p>I think it's a wonderful concept to put into your essay. And it's far from generic; instead I'd say you'd be part of a great tradition of using the museum poignantly as a literary/artistic symbol: see "The Catcher in the Rye" or the recent film "The Squid and the Whale". Mine was much more quotidian by comparison; I wrote about obsessing over the photographs in National Geographic.</p>