Maybe I was arrogant in thinking that I had a very good shot to get in ED. But no matter how many times I look at the numbers, it simply doesn’t make sense. Even assuming that this year, the number of applicants to Columbia shot up astronomically due to the Obama candidacy, (which shouldn’t affect engineering as much as the rest anyway) I can’t understand how so many beyond-qualified people were deferred. (Wayyyy above middle 50% of SATs, relatively strong ECs etc.) This doesn’t just apply to Holmdel students (We went 0/5 if you count one of the guys that went to High Tech from Holmdel) applying to Columbia though. I went online to the College Confidential forums, where college-crazed students and parents waste their time. (I was on the “Columbia Early Decision Acceptance” Thread, where people report on their results) I was totally astounded and very confused. I realize that SATs are a load of bull, and they are very unfair, but a difference of more than 150 pts between two people is at least somewhat significant. There were just so many kids getting in with 2150s and below, while it seemed nearly all of the 2280 and above scorers were deferred. You can make all of the arguements about extracurriculars and essays and teacher recs that you want, but none of these seemed to apply. There were kids who clearly had no passion for any of their extracurriculars, simply “club-whoring” and it was clear based on the fact that they had a huge list of clubs and activities, but simply nothing to account for any of these activities. (Awards, outstanding performance, not even varsity sports) I also hate to bring this up, but the asian demographic was clearly not getting its fair share of acceptances proportionally to its number of qualified candidates. (Not knocking on any of the minority groups that “benefit” from affirmative action because from what i could tell, they didn’t gain an “unfair” advantage. More like certain groups were disadvantaged.)
/rant
Screw it. Hearing back from UI Urbana tmw. Unfortunately, the deferral means that I have to do a bunch of essays for 5-7 more colleges (I’m scrapping a few if i can get into UI since UI’s Electrical Engineering is really good) I might just throw in a Stanford application even though it’s a total Hail Mary attempt. Perhaps I can scrape out a 4:25 or so really early in the winter track season and call up their coach. Then again, Stanford’s track/xc is SICK, (Ryan Hall went there) so even running a 4:25 probably won’t be enough to make the coach put in a good word up at admissions for me. More realistically, Harvey Mudd and Duke are my next two choices after getting deferred. UC Berkeley is another reach, but gotta hope. Caltech would be nice too. I got into Rutgers today. Clearly did not offset any frustrations with Columbia though.
Positively, I was really pissed after I checked my app status, so I did a bunch of upper body and core training, and I’m really eager to start running again. I think I have a lot left to prove with my running. (racing in particular.)
No Anime and Smash till winter break so i can finish apps that I left for until Columbia deferred me. The worst part about deferral is that you have to wait another 4 months.
