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 just under 35,000 applications for first-year admission, making the decision process for selecting candidates for the approximately 1,400 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 four years of their schooling and 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 Frequently Asked Questions.

We strongly encourage all first-year applicants to apply electronically. Transfer students may only apply electronically. Columbia accepts only The Common Application with the required Columbia Supplement for first-year and transfer admissions.

After an application is submitted, the applicant should receive a confirmation e-mail indicating successful submission. At a later date, the applicant should receive an acknowledgment e-mail 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 are welcome to contact or visit us to learn more.