Columbia admissions... alumni

Answered

Hi @gracedlm2

As a Columbia freshman, I'm going to break it down into a more accurate granular answer. Let's review the data from 2 cycles ago which is the 2021-22 CDS info from the Class of 2025.

1560 CU/SEAS students enrolled and 1136 submitted a Test Score. I don't think there are very many admits that submitted both test scores (for argument's sake say 36), so 1100/1560 submitted test scores which is 70.5%. So say 460 didn't submit. That is low for an Ivy because, at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton the numbers are 85%, 89%, and 91% submitted 2 years ago.

My gut feeling is that a lower percentage of ALDCs submit test scores and they account for about 20% of admits. This would be the 190 recruited athletes, 80 legacies, 20 children of faculty, and 10 super donor kids. So of these 300 ALDCs, I'd say 160 didn't submit. Leaving 300.

Then there are the "hooked" applicants which are low-income, first-gen BIPOC kids. Due to various circumstances during the height of the pandemic, these applicants applied with lower or no test scores. At Columbia, 53% (827) of admits identify as a person of color, 20% (312) are first-generation college students, 21% (337) are Pelle Grant recipients, and 15% (234) are International students. And I think 74 were admitted as Questbridge match scholars Class of '25 (most of whom were low-income, first-gen, BIPOC).

So my best guess is that most of the remaining 300 that didn't submit a test score are part of the "hooked" applicant pool.

2 cycles back if you were White (American, Canadian, European, S.American), or East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, S.Korean, East Indian), you probably needed a good SAT or ACT test score to be considered unless you had other major evidence of intellectual vitality like writing impressive research papers or taking lots of college courses and doing well in them.

For the Class of 2027, I think more students will submit either SAT or ACT test scores because it's not like it was 2 years ago when test centers were closed and there was a scarcity of where you could logistically take the test. I also feel that since the US loosened VISA/travel restrictions for Int'l students, more Int'l students are applying and they are submitting SAT/ACT test scores due to competition. When 2022-2023 comes out or 2023-2024 for this current cycle, my best guess is that SAT/ACT numbers will be in the 75-80% range because of the scarcity of seats available compared to demand.

At all Ivy's there are people who get in with lower test scores but typically you either have to be an ALDC or a "Hooked" applicant to get that benefit. Many ALDCs come from top-day or boarding schools where there is less emphasis on standardized tests and APs. So if you attend Deerfield or Exeter, you are going to be taking a lot of college-level courses your jr./sr. years that don't have AP/IB designations. They might be an English tutorial level 600-699 (2nd-year college course). So if you play 3 varsity sports and have a 90.00 GPA, and no SAT/ACT, that might be good enough to get into any Ivy League college as a legacy. But if you are just a super smart Asian or non-athletic White person at a top boarding school, you will probably need a 1550+/35+ test score because you can't be recruited for athletics.

Ivies give "hooked" applicants a test score haircut as well. So a 1400 SAT or 30 ACT might be a great test score for someone Latina or Black because so few get above that level because of socio-economic reasons mostly, not intelligence nor ability but lack of access to resources. The SAT/ACT are not an intelligence test but a learned ability that if you have the time, money, and resources to grind on them, you will see measurable improvement over time.

If you are female, I recommend also applying to Barnard College. Good luck.