Columbia 2014 ed applicants - Page 2

avman · 05-25-2009, 12:27 PM

Hi all, I'm applying to Columbia SEAS 2014, maybe ED, I'm not really sure yet. Good luck to us all

Obstinate · 05-25-2009, 12:49 PM

Hey you guys : Why Columbia?

KB24yo · 05-25-2009, 04:26 PM

metsfan : thanks a lot!

obstinate: NYC

I don't know about you but I think I prefer living in a big city. Infinite things to do.

bigjay71 · 05-25-2009, 05:08 PM

Why Columbia? So many things to say.

That most important admissions question must make or break those on the borderline. I haven't fully formulated what I am going to say, but there are a wealth of good reasons to attend Columbia

.

tubatina · 05-25-2009, 05:33 PM

Hello, I'm planning to apply ED in the fall- tears my heart out, I'm so nervous. Main reason for applying is because of their music program, excellent professors who also happen to teach at Juilliard.

I'm from Boston, a fairly good public school, top 10% (GPA is about a 3.8). SATs are 2300, but they were my first time without any prep so I might retake them. No SAT IIs yet, but I'm doing chem and latin in two weeks. I'm half Brazilian, I used to live there and I speak Portuguese, and have volunteered there in the past. I hope to major in history and double minor in linguistics and music, but that's not certain- I also like philosophy and math.

Good luck to everyone applying!

KB24yo · 05-25-2009, 07:20 PM

to tubatina: I'm also planning on double-majoring in music!! what instrument do you play? I'm going to Brazil this summer to help out and teach English and music! Brazilian people are really nice. Hahahaha.

ChasingStarlight · 05-25-2009, 07:46 PM

I am, but I effed up my junior year grades so I don't know. I'm super interested in Dartmouth and Brown, too, but Dartmouth seems to not care about GPA as much as the other too. I might go for that instead :/ Columbia is my number 1 though ...

ChasingStarlight · 05-25-2009, 07:47 PM

tubatina: like i said on your post, 2300 is fine. also, you stole my name (if your name is actually tina) haha

Epaminondas · 05-25-2009, 08:22 PM

2300 is more than fine. I had a 2250 (two tries) and still got in.

Do yourself a favor, stop worrying about your marks and scores, save the money, and focus on more important aspects of your application (like essays, teacher recs, and interviews).

KB24yo · 05-25-2009, 08:58 PM

Does it mean anything if you don't get an interview?

metsfan · 05-25-2009, 09:06 PM

Just means there's not an interviewer available, doesn't say anything about how much they're considering your application. The purpose of the interview is just to make sure you're not the scum of the earth, and they realize they can't interview everybody so it's no big deal. My Dartmouth interviewer told me almost word for word that as long as I didn't walk in and dropkick the waitress (interviewed @ Starbucks) then insult his mother he'd be writing me a good review, my Yale interviewer forgot about me :'( but I still got in, and I honestly thought I'd done pretty poorly with my Columbia interview but I obviously still got in, so interviews really don't mean very much.

KB24yo · 05-25-2009, 09:30 PM

how come you picked Columbia over Yale??

metsfan · 05-25-2009, 10:00 PM

Wanted to stay in NYC mainly. Glad I picked Columbia for a lot of reasons at this point, one of the main ones being the core, even though I honestly came into Columbia totally dreading it.

ajrover · 05-25-2009, 10:55 PM

Thanks for all the info!!! I want to apply ED as well. I had a couple of questions though!!!
1) Is Columbia a party school?
I realize that every college has drinking and drugs on campus, but some have it more readily available than others. I recently came back from the East Coast and visited Yale. It was absolutely amazing! Except when I stayed over, my host asked if I wanted to drink, and my two other tour-mates wanted to party! Basically, I walked 3 blocks at 1 AM to a Marriott and stayed the night, while my friends did a beer bong and who knows what else.

2) How good is the theater program at Columbia?
I heard that there is some connection with Julliard, but I don't know the specifics.

3) What are the best housing options for First-Years?
Personally, I'm a very private person, I'd really like a single, and I need air conditioning. I don't care about being too far off, because I have legs and I can walk. But I definitely want a TON of space, and a private bathroom would be great. I know it's asking for the farm, but 4 years is a very long time.

Thanks for taking the time out to answer my questions!

metsfan · 05-25-2009, 11:38 PM

Aww, that really sucks about your Yale experience ajrover. As you said, there's partying and drinking and drugs at any school, certainly including Columbia. However, at Columbia you can totally separate yourself from it and still have a social life without going out drinking and partying. As long as you don't end up in Carman really, you should be able to avoid drinking altogether. And just because you don't drink doesn't mean you can't have friends, there are quite a few kids on campus who don't drink (in fact one of the most popular, if not the most popular, guys I know doesn't drink at all), and there's lots of clubs and other ways to meet people other than at a bar or a party. Plus there really isn't much peer pressure at Columbia to drink or do drugs since people have to pay for their beer and aren't usually that willing to share lol.

Wish I knew something about the theater program at Columbia but I'm honestly pretty clueless about it, I know there's a theater group at Columbia called King's Crown ( King's Crown Shakespeare Troupe ) which you can check out and/or try to contact whoever's info's up for it to ask about theater at Columbia, a lot of people are often pretty nice about questions from prefrosh and it's worth a shot.

For housing, in response to what you want and what you said about not really wanting a big party atmosphere, I'd suggest Furnald. Furnald is primarily singles with 3 doubles per floor and about 20 singles on each floor (although maybe about 5 of them are taken by sophomores. You'll get an AC that you can control in Furnald (unlike the other freshmen dorms), but when it starts getting cold out it converts into a heater and doesn't keep you cool (if you ***** to housing about melting from a freaky winter heat wave they'll send you up a jumbo fan). Space-wise most Furnald singles are about 100 to 110 square feet, which is average to pretty good for freshmen dorms. Private bathroom's not happening til senior year, and even then you'll only get one if you're super-duper-uber-lucky in the housing lottery as there are 12 rooms in watt that have them and probably around 10 in 600 west 113th (nussbaum) that have them. If you find people you wanna live with it's sometimes possible to get a suite with a bathroom shared by somewhere btwn 2 and 6 people, but Furnald has one guys and one girls bathroom per floor, so it's 13 people sharing a bathroom with 3 sinks/toilets/showers......or maybe 6 sinks but anyway it pretty much never gets full. Also for more info on freshmen housing look here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...556-post3.html

Anything else?