rather low sat and gpa, but ive lived overseas my whole life, chance me?

korovabbi · 10-31-2009, 06:15 PM

gender:female
race: caucasian
SAT: 2110 (630M 740W 740CR), im taking SATII tests in a week
GPA: 3.75
courseload: the most strenuous courseload possible
AP: 4 in english composition
rank: not sure, around top 5 to 10 percent (very small class)

EC's:
yearbook editor in chief
four years of soccer
three years of basketball
ALOT of community service and church ministry
i lead a group for middle school girls

Cool things: i am an American citizen, but I've lived overseas my entire life in Ukraine and the Phillipines. I am pretty fluent in Russian, and I travel ALOT.

Other: National Honor Society, I was picked as one of five representatives from my school for the ACSI student leadership conference in Budapest, Hungary. I attended Columbia's pretty prestigious four week summer program for creative writing, and got a very good assessment.

thats about it, PLEASE chance me...this is my top choice

korovabbi · 10-31-2009, 06:22 PM

Bump
Up
Me
Please

nk9230 · 10-31-2009, 06:43 PM

Seriously, I dont see the problem. By setting up your thread in the manner, expect some harsh criticism however.

admissionsgeek · 11-01-2009, 10:21 AM

hi korov, i don't believe in chance threads, so not going to tell you your chances (as if someone who is not an admissions officer could know what's going on).

i will say one thing though: 2110 SAT, you are in the 82, 98 and 98 percentiles respectively. so please pardon me if i don't have a lot of sympathy for this post. saying you have low SATs really is delusional. you are better than the vast majority of the world that takes the SAT. grow up and gain some perspective. if you don't get into columbia, so what. you are probably gonna go to college, and a good one at that.

when you are feeling sorry for your low sat scores, think about this. only 2% of the world has a college degree (including those with community college or vocational degrees). comparatively, you are doing just fine. so re-exert your efforts in a new direction. keep on doing well in class, and keep on doing well in life, work on your application and do as well as you can, and that is about all you can do. thousands of students apply to columbia each year. a minority of them are admitted. to stand out in the application process you need to do well in quantitative aspects, but you also have to have a solid outlook on life, a belief in something more than grades and test scores that translates onto the page and through recommendations. and if you are unable to crack through and see that the admission process is about things like the right match for the environment and about qualitative indicators, then you will have trouble conveying that complexity in the application.

i hope this is a kick in your butt because this was really a poorly thought out post.

mrstreak101 · 11-01-2009, 10:37 AM

haha ouchhhh

korovabbi · 11-01-2009, 11:11 AM

well sorry, im new to this. and i go to an extrememly small high school in ukraine, so i really have very very little to compare myself to. im not dissilusioned, im uninformed, and thank you for informing me

pbr · 11-01-2009, 12:31 PM

I believe she meant that her SAT scores are low BY COLUMBIA'S ADMISSIONS STANDARDS. If so, she is correct. A 2110 is very slightly above the 25th percentile which, I would agree, is "rather low." But give it a whirl, korovabbi. You won't get in if you don't apply.

powerbomb · 11-01-2009, 12:35 PM

Or if you're not planning to apply ED, take you SAT IIs next week as planned and take the SAT I once more in December.

korovabbi · 11-01-2009, 01:01 PM

thank you for understanding. the little i do know is that columbia is ivy league and is hard to get into, therefore my scores are not exactly superb, even if they are above average.
i am taking the SATIIs next week, so that's a good thing

i took the sat · 11-01-2009, 01:14 PM

only your math is low. just throwing that up there.

seanchl · 11-01-2009, 02:00 PM

why do you want to go to columbia if you dont know anything about it?

admissionsgeek · 11-02-2009, 02:16 AM

pbr - there is a world of difference between writing 'low SATs' and 'i am on the low end for the admitted student profile at columbia.' and i think that failure to make a distinction was critical, and important for the OP to realize.

but frankly the sat middle 50 is more for gauging a student is in the ballpark, and you could say the student is indeed in the ballpark. because there are so many other factors - where the student comes from, what curriculum they take, what other testing they take - SAT II, national tests, internationally recognized tests - and qualitative indicators at play. then there is the obvious issue of anonymity - how truthful is the OP? if you tell the OP that he/she is in, it could create a sense of false confidence.

i think it is dishonest for anyone here to say the OP is 'low' even by columbia standards because that would be presuming you actually know what they are looking for. all we can do is interpret data, we aren't in the committee room. so i would be cautious in these threads to make what really amounts to be speculation.

fireshark · 11-02-2009, 02:28 AM

On the contrary, all that is made in these threads are speculation.

OP invited speculation into her chances, not a rant about how narrow her view is and caution regarding basically the whole chances forum.

=.=

admissionsgeek · 11-02-2009, 03:17 AM

no one asks for a rant. rant's are responses to material circumstances.

and clearly the intended audience is not the OP alone, but others as well. if you believe in chance forums? speak their virtues. my guess is that we all desire some semblance of comfort in this crazy time. the poster wishes to receive assurance that they might have a chance at a school. and if you read my posts, i am beyond supportive and helpful when possible, but i put my foot down when it does come to chance forums. because they often don't make sense. and it is clear the OP mentions he/she does not know much, so why would someone then do a chance thread? because it is the exemplar on here - and i think it is important to at least explain why it should not be.

usually the information provided in chance threads is exceedingly vague or they lack a defined question - could i get into columbia? with few exceptions - the answer is yes because there has been a student who looks kind of like you that columbia accepted. so often we descend into anecdotes and do not interrogate neither the simplicity of the chance format nor the impossibility to go from 'i know someone' to an actual decision.

but above all i hope to at least inform that how you ask your question does matter. be honest, you are unsure, but you want some assurance. and to get assurance you have to do your homework too. figure out if someone else has posted similarly, read up the school's policies, and ask counselors or those before you have applied (people who know you are better than those who don't).

so to the OP - consider this. say to us, i don't know many students who have applied from my situation, and I am looking for advice or thoughts about how possible it is that i could be admitted with these stats. what you will receive is not a definite answer, but rather anecdotes that might inform your decision. but if you approach it with a realization of the tenability of this format, not only will you receive a supportive 'rant' from me, but from others.

in the end you wont know if you will be admitted or not, nobody does. you have to decide if your 'dream' is worth it. but you also have to do your own end of the work - and that includes having an appropriate attitude to ask on a forum, which translates to how you ask your counselors, how you approach others in the situation.

if you think fireshark or others that i am merely antagonistic in my efforts, please know i usually have an educative ends in mind.