Columbia is an iconic Ivy League university in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. The school has some of the most renowned academic programs in the world, paired with astonishing opportunities. Students often pick Columbia College or Columbia Engineering for their undergraduate education because of exactly this combination. They know that they can earn a valuable degree in a vibrant setting with outstanding resources.
Columbia is also an engaged community. A lot happens there, and no one would typify Columbia students as push-overs. Instead, they challenge and question. Sometimes, this gets, well, spicy. More often, though, what Columbia offers is a unique and exciting community that pushes students in positive ways.
The 6,700 students who choose Columbia College or Columbia Engineering have access to over 100 programs of study, and a 6:1 undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio. Making it into that few thousand is wildly difficult, so setting a vision for Columbia early is essential if you want to eat an early morning breakfast sandwich on the Low steps or dig into the Butler library archives. For the class of 2028, Columbia received 60,248 applications and they admitted just under 4%. The hunger for those few seats is global: the incoming class of 2028 represented 93 countries and all 50 states.
Columbia offers students who are truly committed to the school an Early Decision option. If you commit to attending Columbia in advance of applying, they will consider your application early. The long-held understanding is that this early commitment may also come with additional consideration, and perhaps a boosted chance of admission.
What is Early Decision at Columbia?
Lots of schools offer an early decision application option, but they aren’t all equal and they shouldn’t all be approached in the same way. Columbia is no different. The super low acceptance rate at Columbia isn’t new, and it isn’t an anomaly.
For the class entering in the fall of 2023, or the Class of 2027, Columbia received 5,733 applications in the Early Decision round. 840 were offered a spot, or 14.6%. This is a much higher acceptance rate than the overall (4%). However, it should also be seen within a particular context. The Early Decision round includes many students, especially athletes, who knew pretty well before submitting that they would be accepted thanks to coach support and positive feedback on an early application read. This means that the chance of getting into Columbia ED isn’t really 14.6%, but it also isn’t 4%. It’s somewhere in the middle, and our goal here is to help you beat those odds.
At the heart of this process should be passion. “The choice to apply Early Decision,” admissions says, “should be driven by a true passion for Columbia.” If you bring the passion, we can help. In this post, we’re going to break down the key actions you need to be taking to increase your chances of admission to Columbia Early Decision. The most powerful tool is ultimately a custom strategy, and we can help with that, too.
We help strong students achieve exceptional admissions results. Contact us to learn more about getting into Columbia Early Decision.
In order to strengthen your Early Decision strategy for Columbia, you first need to determine your “why.”
Why should I ED to Columbia?
Early Decision application options are, by and large, fabulous. But only if you use them right. If you are a legacy, you must apply ED. If you have a family faculty connection or supplementary recommendation from a Columbia faculty-member, you must apply ED. If you are an athlete hoping to play at Columbia, you must be in communication with coaches and apply ED. And if Columbia is your first choice, you must apply ED.
All of this assumes, of course, that you are qualified for Columbia. So, you need to be a fit for Columbia before you submit. This means having the grades, having the scores, having the leadership track record and exceptional experiences, and having something special, too. Below, we break each of these buckets down.
What can you do to increase your chances of admission Early Decision to Columbia?
Whether you have a year, a month, or a week before pressing submit on your Early Decision application to Columbia, it is possible to improve your chances at admission. Simply trying hard isn’t enough, though, it’s about trying right.
Grades
For Columbia, grades are the foundation for an application that has a chance. Nearly 95% of admitted and enrolled students are in the top 10th of their class at graduation. This is to say that it is not simply about straight A’s. If you are at a school where A’s are as common as apples, you need to push beyond that to fight your way to the top of the class.
Columbia College has no required courses for admission, but they do have required distributions and recommendations. This includes a minimum of four years of English and math, and three years of science (including labs), foreign language, history, and electives. Yes, they want to see you doing things outside of standard academics in school.
The recommendations are unsurprising given the rigidity of the Columbia Core, the iconic liberal arts curriculum that creates a shared foundation across all students bridging art, music, literature, and science. Since all students at Columbia are expected to take courses beyond their area of interest, the admissions committee expects to see this same practice play out on the high school transcripts they review.
They also want to see a deepening into your area of interest(s), especially if your school offers advanced or specialized courses relevant to the field you are hoping to pursue in college. And, of course, the grades in these classes should be outstanding. Columbia doesn’t have a minimum GPA and doesn’t summarily throw out an application due to a B-, but they receive so many tens of thousands of applications with perfect grades that they don’t have much reason to seriously consider an applicant who doesn’t meet that high bar.
Scores
While many of the top-tier schools in the United States have reinstated their pre-COVID policies required SAT or ACT scores for applicants, Columbia has gone against the current. They do not require you to submit an ACT or an SAT score, but that doesn’t mean that you are off the hook.
The admissions officers at Columbia care about and consider SAT or ACT scores, but they aren’t as important as your grades. This is why we remind our students not to sacrifice studying for a biology test (for example) in order to raise their SAT score 10 points. Ideally, everything should be in balance and both outcomes can be exceptional, but if you are struggling in a course, it is more important to improve your grade than it is to improve your standardized test scores.
That said, while scores may be optional, they do matter. For the fall of 2023, over 60% of accepted students submitted an ACT or SAT score, and we expect to see that number rise in the coming years.
And the scores that are submitted by accepted students are nearly perfect. To be absolutely blunt, if you aren’t able to get an SAT over 1500 that is a problem for your chances of getting into Columbia. With the ACT, the unofficial threshold is a 32. Lower than that, and you shouldn’t submit the score.
Now, the data does show that a small group of students does get in with lower scores. For the fall of 2023, 3% of accepted and enrolled first-years had SAT scores between 1200 and 1399, and 1% had an ACT below 30. You do not want to bet on being one of these outliers. Generally, accepted students with very low scores compared to other applicants had exceptional circumstances that made their scores irrelevant. Do not assume that you can be one of these rare cases. Instead, prepare and execute.
Activities
When Columbia looks at an activities section, or hears about an activity in a supplement, there are a few things they look for. Columbia wants to see focus and passion through long-term commitment. They want to see depth through a variety of ways of engaging in a particular type of activity or subject. For example, if you are very interested in robotics, they don’t just want to see that you’re the head of a robotics club. Rather, they are looking for that plus an internship at a relevant company, a summer job as a camp counselor for a STEM day camp, and an independent project that led to a fair, presentation, or event. This same logic and process applies no matter your area of interest, from the science and math realm to the humanities.
Let us be clear, none of this is easy. Building out an impressive activities roster for Columbia takes years of work, planning, and strategy. Having help in this process can prove critical. It’s hard to get a top internship as a junior if you haven’t already proven yourself as a leader and learner as a sophomore. We work with our students to get the ball rolling early, helping plan their summers and breaks starting as early as freshman year to ensure that when they are finalizing their applications, they are able to show their absolute best self to the Columbia admissions officers.
Remember, also, that a key piece of doing activities that are impressive is the building of relationships that extend beyond them. This is especially true for research when it comes to Columbia. If you have supported or conducted research with a faculty member or mentor, they want to know more. Applicants with a strong research experience are encouraged to submit an abstract as a supplement to their application, and they also “welcome” a supplementary letter of recommendation from your research mentor.
Essays
Everything you do, whether academic or not, eventually leads to your essays for your Columbia application. Over the years, we’ve learned what works with Columbia in the Early Decision round, and a key piece of the process is authentic storytelling that spotlights your leadership, self-awareness, and passion for a challenge. Columbia loves teamwork, but they are less focused on collaborative learning than many other universities. Whereas some schools want to see a lot about how you work with others, Columbia wants to know more about how you know yourself. In their own words, they say that “The Committee also considers the general attitudes and character of the applicant, special abilities and interests, maturity, motivation, curiosity.”
Basically, your essays communicate your character — and Columbia cares a lot about character.
So, what do you most want to say about yourself, and your character to Columbia? It is critical that you answer this question far before you even start writing your essays. Then, develop the activities and experiences that will lead to the stories that will emphasize these aspects of who you are in your essays. If this sounds a little complex, we get it. It is. But while a strong application reads as straightforward the process to building it isn’t necessarily simple.
When it comes time to start writing, you’ll begin with your main college essay early in the summer before senior year. It is important to have a solid essay draft done before the Columbia supplement comes out in late summer. Then, you edit them all in parallel to ensure that the entire package is as strong as possible.
Last, Apply Early to columbia
Finally, you need to be ready to apply early, early. One of the most overlooked parts of the ED application cycle is also the most obvious: you’re on an expediated timeline. You need to be planning early, working early, and writing early. The worst ED strategy is to rush at the end. And, if you absolutely can’t be ready by the ED deadline, don’t apply with a less strong package.
Work with Us
We make sure that our students all have the strongest package possible before submitting Early Decision. This is why our students have an insane track record of gaining acceptance to exceptional colleges and universities. When you’re up against tiny odds, it actually isn’t all that complicated. It’s simple, truly — you have to have a strategy.
We support our students through the Early Decision process, achieving odds-defying outcomes.