hailelagi! hi i saw your post and thought I should answer.
I visited columbia last week since i’n applying early decision and spoke to the admissions officers.
Your chances are not too low for columbia, but the no extracurriculars activities is a major issue.
You said it’s because of the district’s economy? I suppose than it’s not your fault, so they will take that into consideration.
I joined clubs, but columbia wants leadership positions. unfortunately, because of my status and situation in school, i was not able to get any leadership positions, but i participated in clubs anyway. so once i explain to them why, they will understand.
do you know your school ranking? that’ll help me get a better picture. I’m 20 out of 650, top 4%. most columbia students were in the top 10%, if not better.
your grades have to be pretty good to get into columbia. there’s no way around it, i spoke to them. you need at very least, maybe a 94, 95 average, unweighted and weighted.
what they said as for test/sat grades and clubs and essays, what they do is look for strengths.
so if one part of your application isn’t strong, what they do is look for another strong part to make up for it.
so if you have little to no clubs, if you have a perfect sat score, they make it up with that.
If you don’t have either, you better have OUTSTANDING grades and an extremely sad backstory, because there’s no saving you then. The point is to be a well rounded student.
Columbia definetely looks for diversity, so that will boost you up a very slight bit.
*advice for the sat- you’re talking to a u.s. born native english speaker. for the sat, KNOW YOUR GRAMMAR. a big part of it that will catch up to you is the english language part. know the difference and ALL of the uses of these symbols in english- dash(-), comma (,), colon (:), and semicolon(;). It will save your life, especially if you want that perfect score.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! I’ll check up on here once in a while.
If we both make it in, I’d love to meet you!