APPLICATIONS & ADMISSION PROCESS

We greatly appreciate your interest in Columbia. The Committee will do everything in our power to make the application and admission process as simple as possible. As many prospective students, families and counselors already know, the admission process at Columbia is broad based but highly selective. In recent years, the Office of Undergraduate Admission has received over 25,000 applications for first-year admission, making the decision process for selecting candidates for the approximately 1,390 entering student spaces most difficult. However, as selective as admission to Columbia may be we still employ a holistic admission process in which every single application is given a thorough review and there is positively no minimum grade point average, class rank or SAT/ACT score one must obtain in order to secure admission at Columbia.

Most successful Columbia applicants have done extraordinary academic work over the last 4 years of their schooling, but we welcome applications from students who can demonstrate they are up to the challenge of a Columbia education (regardless of their GPA, class rank or test scores). In addition to academic credentials, the Admission Committee will also evaluate an applicant’s extracurricular impact, summer experiences, responsibilities, and interests (both academic and personal), as well as a personal statement essay, short answer responses and letters of evaluation.

For more detailed information about the admission process at Columbia, we advise you to view our listing of Frequently Asked Questions.

We strongly encourage all first-year applicants to apply electronically, using our online application. Transfer students may only apply electronically. Applicants may visit our application Web site any number of times to revise application materials before submitting final copy. Please note that Columbia does not currently accept the Common Application.

After an application is submitted, the applicant should receive a confirmation email indicating successful submission. At a later date, the applicant should receive an acknowledgement email that will provide a unique applicant ID number. With this ID number, the applicant is expected to track the status of the submitted application and the receipt of all associated documents using our online tracking system.

Again, we appreciate your interest in Columbia and you should feel comfortable contacting or visiting us to learn more.