What are my chances of getting into Columbia with a 3.78 Gpa

Answered

Hi @sandybiagui,

Thanks for asking your question. I'm sure a lot of high school seniors are wondering the same thing. Do they think their GPA is high enough for an Ivy League school?

I'm going to give you the best answer I know since I'm going to Columbia University next week to start my Freshman year.

Ivy League schools do not really have GPA cutoffs, nor do they have SAT/ACT cutoffs. But at the same time they have score cards which give you either a 1 to 5 rating based on your 1.) Academics 2.) Activities/ECs/Co-curriculars 3.)Recommendations 4.)Athleticism, 5.) Personal Character.

The 2 main categories are academics and ECs. The subcategories would include Grades, Test Scores, Course Rigor (how many APs, IBs, honors, DE, College courses), and something called Intellectual curiosity/vitality (these are things you do outside of HS to further investigate subject areas of particular interest to you)

Extracurricular activities are very important at Ivy league schools so if you can play a varsity sport, join an orchestra, band, or dance team, or continue using your voice writing for the school newspaper, various journals, or leveraging your leadership on campus, those are all a plus.

The real boosts for acceptance at Ivies exist if you attend a Private Day or Boarding school and are an ALDC applicant. That means a recruited athlete, legacy, development donor kid $$$, or a faculty brat. Depending on the Ivy you apply to be an ALDC can give you a 5X advantage over someone that isn't. The lesser boost occurs if you are a "hooked" applicant which is someone Black, Latino, Indigenous, Disabled, or from a Marginalized background like being LGBTQIA. Within the "hooked" category are those who are low-income and first-generation applicants.

So if you come from either an ALDC or "hooked" background all Ivys will be more lenient in evaluating your application versus someone that is White, or from an Overrepresented Minority like Indian/Pakistan, Chinese/HongKong/Taiwanese, S.Korean, and in some cases Saudi, Brazilian, or Vietnamese.

The best way you can understand your chances is to use Naviance. You and your parents should have access to that if your school uses it. Look up the 8 Ivys and see how many students apply and how many get admitted and how many matriculate. Then look at the scatter plots and see what the most favorable mix of GPA/SAT or GPA/ACT is.

I went to 2 HSs. At my first HS which was a public school 3rd ranked in my State, only 1.3% were admitted into Ivies. Of the 8 Ivies, no one was ever admitted into Princeton or Brown from my HS. And of the remaining 6, more students were admitted into Cornell, Dartmouth, and UPenn, versus, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. No one was an ALDC in my zip code. And we didn't have many "hooked" applicants. I was one of 3 people admitted to Columbia in the last 6 years.

At my Boarding school, 30% of those who applied to Ivies were admitted with a 22% matriculation since many of them applied to different Ivies and got into them as well. I would say that about 1/3 were ALDCs and the other 2/3rd were from over-represented minorities with super high test scores and ECs. So the range of GPA might be from 88% to 95% on a 100-point scale. And the SAT range might be from 1300 to 1600 and 28-36. I'd say the recruited athletes had the low GPAs and test scores and the Over-represented minorities had the 93-95% GPAs and 1500+/34+ SAT/ACTs.

Since I don't know your stats or ECs, I'm just sharing this so you can do your own research and come to your own conclusions if applying from your HS is a good use of your time.

Also, keep in mind that Barnard College is a great alternative to Columbia college and they have slightly lower standards for admissions with a 10% admit rate versus a 3.73% admit rate.

Good luck.