Chances at Columbia?

wondererx
Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:57:04 +0000

I’m a junior from this small, selective school in Taiwan (we only have around 60 ppl per grade,) and I’m wondering about my chances at Columbia. We’ve consistently sent students to Harvard/MIT/Yale/Columbia throughout the past decade, but I’m still pretty confused about the American system and I’m unsure if I should apply.
My average GPA: 4.1 (weighted; our transcripts don’t give us the unweighted ones somehow)
rank: 12th (we only have 60 people per grade, 16 of which have 4.0s or above)
SAT I CR: 760 M:740 W:700
SAT II Chinese: 800 Bio:730
AP Bio: 5 Chinese:5
I’m currently taking AP Euro and AP Chem, and I have 12 honors/AP credits from 9th grade til now. (so add five to that by senior year.)
Total APs by then: bio, chem, calc, euro, gov, studio art, eng, chinese, econ

EC:
MUN (as both press and delegates, assistant editor of some MUN press teams and 3 years of experience in this)
Journalism (Editor and translator of our school newspaper; 3 yrs)
Debate (won a few local/national tournaments; 3 yrs)
Student Council (exec. council member; 3yrs)
Interact (local branch of rotary; 2yrs)
Violin (which i took up in seventh grade as an interest)
Painting (a developed portfolio and some local awards)

Attended GYLC and was nominated honorable member (which rlly isn’t that big of an accomplishment, to be honest)
Worked as a translator for ASC 2007 (Asian Science Camp; it’s pretty prestigious since several nobel laureates (five?) came and gave lectures.)
[this is a cursory list of my ECs]

I don’t know what should be my hooker, since the bilingual/multi-cultural thing is a bit overused (I went to the states when I was in seventh grade and started to learn English then. It was hard at first but I think my English improved considerably, though I wouldn’t call myself to be a great writer.) The two years that I spent living in the States really changed my perspectives in so many ways, it was phenomenal; but I’m scared that with my limited expressions I will only make myself sound even more stereo-typical than I already am (academically.) Can you guys give me some suggestions and tell me if I should even apply to Columbia or not? Thanks so much!