Does Columbia have a quota for internationals?

admissionsgeek
Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:08:37 +0000

well, who is they? and if you know they better than i do, i’ll be surprised considering i worked in the CU admissions office as a student for a year and as a tour guide on top of that, and have a friend who is an adcom at another ivy. they both said no to their being quotas - and a bit more i can explain of course.

you know epa - you don’t know me any better than i know you, so if you know something more than me - put your cards on the table. if you don’t, then stop misinforming other folks. it is the reason why CC is such a pain, it actually directs students to bad information, speculation and draws up fear and anxiety.

i think the belief that there are quotas probably stems from the fact all these schools talk about the percentage of x or y they have in the school which brings forth the perception that unis try to make x or y percentage. from their mouths to my fingers - it doesn’t work like that. adcoms have vague guidelines from the uni on what the faculty or administration would like to see, that translates to working with faculty and administration to recruit people to apply that would be great musicians or scientists and admitting those folks cause they stand out. in general adcoms just admit folks they like, and if after the class is full they take a look and they went up in something, it is more a reflection that they got stronger students to apply than anything else.

but just because a school has no quotas doesn’t mean it isn’t hard to get into. doesn’t mean that applying from a foreign country might be difficult because your school might be less test heavy, have fewer resources, and offer fewer opportunities for you to stand out. beyond that there is the language barrier. it doesn’t mean that you will be accepted, but it also doesn’t mean you will be denied just for applying from a certain part of the world, or that you will be accepted just for applying from a part of the world. all it means is that wherever you apply from - you have to stand out.