The College at Columbia University is one of the best undergraduate liberal arts schools in the world, at one of the worlds’ best universities. To call it exceptional is an understatement. To call it highly sought-after is also an understatement. Columbia is home to some of the best programs and professors in the world for nearly any academic subject, and gaining access through admission is extraordinarily competitive. The College is particularly known for its uniquely rigorous CORE curriculum, a college of literature, arts, and music courses all students are required to take for graduation. The CORE is intense, and many students equate it to completing a second major.
Nearly 43,000 students apply to the College each year, and the acceptance rate is currently just barely over 5%. The acceptance rate has fallen steadily since 2010, while the yield — the number of accepted students who choose to attend — has risen from 59% to 62%. This is a strong indicator of the perceived value of a Columbia degree (aka, the brand is secure and only getting stronger). Columbia University has multiple undergraduate programs with varying supplement requirements, but we are only focusing on the supplement for College for this blog post.
The 2020/21 supplement for Columbia is a partial overhaul. There are a few important parts that have stayed the same (most notably, the fact they ask for lists), and many others that have completely changed. Luckily, Columbia takes giving instructions to the extreme. Before you even start the supplement, there are two paragraphs of guidelines. Please read them. They are important.
Most notably, they make one thing very clear: When they say “list,” they do, in fact, mean “list.” “For the four list questions that follow,” they write, “we ask that you list each individual response using commas or semicolons; the items do not have to be numbered or in any specific order. No explanatory text or formatting is needed.”
If you are thinking, “but wait! I can be creative,” please squash that impulse. There is room to be creative in the longer supplements, but this is where you prove that you know how to follow directions.
List the titles of the required readings from academic courses that you enjoyed most during secondary/high school. (150 words)
This is the most straightforward of the list questions. In the past, Columbia asked for your favorite required readings from the past year, but now they are giving you more room to explore. You can include readings from the past three years! This is awesome, because it allows for the fact that Spring 2020 was more than a little messed up, and many syllabi were adjusted as a result.
As you pick readings to include, remember that they ask for “readings” not “books.” You can include books, and it’s likely your list will be predominately comprised of books, but you aren’t limited to books. Articles, poems, papers, reports, essays, and short stories are all fair game too. If you can’t remember what you read, go back and look at your syllabi, papers, or homework assignments to jog your memory. As you list them, remember to include the author or writer for each. While you may not use all 150 words (that’s a lot of readings!), aim to list at least 10 items.
Also, it’s important to note that this question is the exact reason why we keep detailed notes on everything our clients have read. Columbia is just one of many schools that asks students to recall the books they’ve read, so if you’re reading this before senior year you should open the notes app/evernote/whatever you like and start your list.
List the titles of the books, essays, poetry, short stories or plays you read outside of academic courses that you enjoyed most during secondary/high school. (150 words)
This prompt is a filter for whether you are a good fit for Columbia. They do want to know what you’ve read independently of assignments, but they are most interested in whether you read. Successful Columbia applicants have as many, if not more, lively intellectual conversations outside of the classroom as they do in the classroom. They are driven to learn, engage, debate, and gain expertise. One of the ways they accomplish that is by reading outside of the classroom. If the last time you read a book for fun was in 5th grade, Columbia is probably not the right school for you.
Like the prompt above, you should be looking to include at least 10 things here — but 15-20 would be better, and remember to include the author and/or publisher as you compile your list.
List the titles of the print or digital publications, websites, journals, podcasts or other content with which you regularly engage. (150 words)
This prompt serves much the same purpose as the one that precedes it. They want to detect whether you are just a strong student on paper or actually as engaged, thoughtful, and well-read as your transcript suggests. However, what it takes the impress them may be a little different than what you’d expect.
Before you start typing up every ‘impressive’ publication you’ve ever seen on your parents’ desks, consider that listing The New York Times AND The Wall Street Journal AND The New Yorker AND The Economist AND The Atlantic AND The Washington Post may come off — at best — as disingenuous or vanilla. The reality is, you probably don’t read all of those publications regularly. Please don’t try to argue that you do — you don’t. Maybe one or two of them would make sense on your list, but we’d rather focus on the stuff you actually engage with regularly. Also, listing all of these ~impressive~ publications doesn’t tell them anything about you. These publications aren’t specific enough to build out another dimension of your personality.
Blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, even Instagram accounts, are all fair game. Of course, you should focus more on news and culture than the Real Housewives, but colleges know that you are more than a vessel for BBC Breaking News updates. They want to see all sides of you, and maybe that means throwing in a cooking blog between your favorite science podcast and a national newspaper. Try for 10-15 items for this list, and we suggest including the type of media in a parenthetical after the title.
For example…Lindsay Ellis (YouTube Film Critic), @NoWhiteSaviors (Instagram account for an activist group).
List the movies, albums, shows, museums, lectures, events at your school or other entertainments that you enjoyed most during secondary/high school (in person or online). (150 words)
Our advice above holds here, but we need to make sure you notice the last piece of the prompt: “in person or online.” This addition not only underlines that they are aware you’ve been cooped up since March, they understand that being stuck at home may have shifted how you engage with the world around you. Gone are the days of lavish gallery openings (we wish) and here to stay are zoom lectures, virtual museum visits, and surprise albums from Taylor Swift and Beyonce (which are more our speed anyway).
For this list, you should aim for 10-20 items that are diverse yet specific to you. By that, we mean mixing music, art, science, etc., but making sure that everything you include actually makes sense for you. If you have stated that you are interested in anthropology, but there is nothing even remotely related to anthropology on this list, you may want to check out some lectures before doing this supplement. If you are looking to pursue biology, but the closest thing to bio you’ve experienced in the last 6 months was that one time you found a frog in your pool, it may be time to take a virtual tour of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
These list questions really rely on what you’ve done before you start them, but once you’ve made your lists, it’s time to move on to the short answer questions.
Columbia students take an active role in improving their community, whether in their residence hall, classes or throughout New York City. Their actions, small or large, work to positively impact the lives of others. Share one contribution that you have made to your family, school, friend group or another community that surrounds you. (200 words or fewer)
This is a new prompt from Columbia, and we love it! The wording is very precise, so we’re going to take some time to break it down.
When Columbia says that students “take an active role in improving their community,” they are very purposefully avoiding the term “volunteering.” While an answer to this prompt may very well include or even be focused on a volunteer activity, they aren’t limiting you to that. For example, you may improve your neighborhood through an after-school job coaching developmental soccer, or you might put your time into making silly parody videos that uplift your school community.
Another very telling choice by Columbia is that they have specified that your contribution or work should impact a community “that surrounds you.” This is extremely important to listen to. They do not want to hear about you traveling somewhere else to save the day. They want to learn more about who you are at home. By using this language, Columbia is also signaling, albeit subtlety, that they look out for content that looks down upon those you are working with or alongside. They want applicants that treat others with respect and as equals, looking to provide others with greater opportunities and resources without demeaning or talking down.
Finally, by “one contribution,” they truly do mean one. You have 200 words to talk about one thing, so you need to tell a compelling and detailed story that illuminates how you walk alongside others, bettering their lives while enriching your own.
Why are you interested in attending Columbia University? (200 words or fewer)
This is a classic “why us” essay, so you’ll need all of the same components we suggest for “why us” essays regardless of school. You must include your prospective major (No, undecided is not an option. Also no, you aren’t going to be held to your pick in two years when you decide your true passion is underwater basket weaving), a class or two you are excited to take, a professor or two you would like to learn from, and one or two extracurriculars. While Columbia is in New York City, we do not suggest counting “experiencing the city” or “going to museums” as an extracurricular. They know what NYC has to offer, but they want to know what you will be doing junior year when you aren’t barhopping in Bushwick.
Since the next supplement asks you to illuminate why you are interested in your prospective major, you don’t need to spend too much time explaining your interest in math. Instead, use that space to talk about something unique to Columbia: The CORE.
If you are set on or considering applying to Columbia and don’t know what the CORE is yet, we highly recommend Googling it before you press submit. As we said in the intro to this post, the Columbia CORE is one of the most stringent and rigorous core curriculums in the country. It is intense. It is hard. It is akin to a second major. If you want to go to Columbia, you need to have bought into the CORE, because there is no getting out of it. With that in mind, this is a good place to mention why you are drawn to such a controlled course of study and, perhaps, an aspect of the CORE that is most interesting.
For applicants to Columbia College, please tell us what from your current and past experiences (either academic or personal) attracts you specifically to the areas of study that you previously noted in the application. (200 words or fewer)
This is why we told you to leave why you are interested in math out of the previous supplement. For this supplement, you need to capture the reader’s attention by conveying the depth of your passion for the subject you wish to pursue. We fully understand that a large percentage of high school seniors do not know what they want to study in college. We didn’t when we first applied — but admissions officials don’t want to hear that. They are looking for applicants who will graduate in 4 years. The only way to do that is to be focused, and the fastest way to find focus is to follow a passion. So no, you may not be 100% certain your future as a mathematician will pan out, but for the purpose of this supplement math is your everything, you two are made for each other, and you have a story that proves it. Tell them that story.
For students who have completed research, there is also an opportunity to include your research experiences. If this applies to you, your abstract should include all the important details in a brief yet detailed format. Keep it simple.
Getting into Columbia is difficult, and how your supplement is received relies heavily on the intellectual groundwork you’ve laid before writing the supplement. You need to have read inside and outside of class. You need to have engaged with art and culture. You need to have participated actively in your community. It’s hard to gussy up an application when all you have to work with for half of the supplement are lists. Do the work before you start writing the supplement if you want a chance of getting in.
If you are concerned about how you translate in list format, send us an email. We specialize in bringing applications to life.