Columbia Student Writes About How She Bought Her Way Into College

[cortana431]

<p>Wow, when I first saw this thread I thought it would be about how her family has donated millions of dollars to Columbia. </p>

<p>This student is an idiot and frankly an insult to Columbia. There as so many holes in this essay I don’t even know where to start, but some glaring statements:</p>

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Of course, if you were able to afford the $2,000 prep class, you were probably also able to afford volunteer work, extracurriculars and other components of a stellar application.

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<p>So volunteering and extracurricular activities are suddenly a privilege? This statement is so outrageous; volunteering, by definition, is freely offering to help others and money isn’t/shouldn’t be a factor in how much time you can give. Same with extracurricular activities, you don’t pay to join clubs and sports teams (except sometimes a small fee). </p>

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This process forces admissions officers to examine each application holistically, looking deeper into high school GPAs, recommendations, essays, interviews, and other more nuanced elements of the application.

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<p>No. The Ivy League and peer schools simply do not have enough time to more deeply evaluate 30,000+ applicants in a few months without eliminating a good chunk of them based on grades and test scores first. With a relatively small admissions office and committee this is not a realistic option.</p>

<p>Why stop with the Ivy League? The vast majority of American colleges and have formulaic admissions based on grades and SAT/ACT scores. </p>

<p>And can this girl answer why then students with near perfect SAT and/or ACT scores get denied?</p>