Chances and a few questions...

antisthenes
Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:31:08 +0000

Hey! I just got deferred from Columbia. I discovered Swat in early December, so now I don’t even want to get into Columbia RD. Swat is the one for me.

800v 760m, 800 World History, 800 Lit, 720 Writing (one sitting)
GPA/class rank on the low side: 3.7, top 16%…
Plenty of ECs (4 4-years, honors, leadership positions)
NMS semifinalist
Statewide journalism award and miscellaneous others.

With the raw stats out of the way, I’d like to summarize my outlook (I posted this in a Columbia thread originally, but it’s still very true):

Yeah, the definition of type A can be pretty negative. I’ve known quite a few people with that personality profile, and none of them I particularly respect or value on a deep level. They tend to be overachievers and very competitive; I’ve also noticed that they tend to be pretty superficial when it comes to self-reflection or the question “why?”. I hate competition. I’d prefer, 10 times out of 10, to be in a community of intellectual equals where the success of one or most does not equal the failure of others. Likewise, I resent achievement for its own sake: most of the people I know who have 4.0 GPAs I can’t even have a meaningful conversation with–school does not encourage personal philosophical development (on the flipside, most of my friends have never seen the front side of a 3.2, and my best friend, an amazing musician and writer, dropped out of high school). It’s not like I can’t compete: I can, and often do, but it’s not something I enjoy doing, nor do I care much for ‘winning.’



From what I’ve read, this means I’m just cut out for Swat.

Now, a few questions:

1) Do you think my low class rank will hurt me? If so, what can I do to offset it?

2) I unfortunately did not find Swat in time to schedule an interview. Will this hurt me?

3) Does anyone want to read my Why Swat when I’m done with it?

Thanks so much for your help!!

Edit: forgot to say, I’m applying Winter ED.