How to Get Into Columbia: Strategies and Essay Examples
/How hard is it to get into Columbia? Learn Columbia’s admissions requirements and find approaches to write superb Columbia supplemental essays to improve your chances of getting in
LEARN HOW TO GET INTO COLUMBIA
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Part 1: Introduction
For some Ivy League-bound teenagers, the average campus—think green quads with falling autumn leaves surrounded by historic buildings—isn’t enough. They might want to belong to a thriving, vibrant city as much as a campus. If this sounds like your child, you might suggest they take a look at Columbia University in the City of New York.
An Ivy League education in America’s largest city is quite the unparalleled experience, as it provides students with the resources of studying at a world-class university and living in the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world.
At Columbia, your child might study the Western canon in the morning, head to work to research at a cancer laboratory in the afternoon, or intern at the United Nations or on Wall Street in the evenings or on weekends. They might collaborate with musicians and artists at The Juilliard School, conduct research on neurological disorders and the genomes that cause cancer, or explore a career in theater, film, or publishing with the Columbia Arts Experience (CAE) internship program.
Your child can also spend their summers conducting research or interning outside of New York City. Thanks to Columbia’s alumni network and the university’s funding opportunities, your child may pursue research on indigenous languages in rural Ecuador, travel to Senegal to work with an NGO in agriculture, or intern with tech giants such as Facebook or Google in Silicon Valley.
And what about after graduation? Alumni earn prestigious fellowships such as the Rhodes and Fulbright, win Pulitzer prizes for writing and journalism, enter the arts and media world in New York City, and become President of the United States. Your child would join an alumni network that includes CEOs, famous poets, Hollywood actors, Supreme Court Justices, Nobel winners, and world-class journalists.
Because of its reputation and location, your child’s largest obstacle will be getting into Columbia, closely followed by deciding how to pick the best opportunities for them! That’s why we’ve put together this guide on how to get into Columbia for you and your child, including how to tackle Columbia’s application and essay questions.
Columbia University ranking
Columbia is routinely at or near the top of Ivy League rankings:
Forbes: 6
Niche: 6
U.S. News & World Report: 18
Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education: 8
Where is Columbia located?
Columbia is located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Just blocks away from the iconic Central Park and a twenty-minute subway ride away from Times Square, Columbia’s Upper West Side campus offers easy access to the heart of NYC.
With a population of 8.8 million, New York City is a major metropolitan city that offers unparalleled access to some of the country’s most important arts, cultural, and financial institutions.
Columbia University setting
Urban. Morningside Heights—bustling yet safe—offers its own restaurants, cafes, bookstores, and shops. Just north lies Harlem, the heart of much of the city’s art world for many years, and just south are the Upper East and Upper West Sides of Manhattan, home to some of the world’s greatest museums, from the Guggenheim to the Met.
Bus and subway lines connect the campus to the rest of New York City’s boroughs.
Columbia University student population
Undergrad population: 9,739 (including nontraditional students in the School of General Studies)
Grad and professional school population: 22,063
Columbia acceptance rate
Here are the admissions statistics for Columbia’s class of 2026:
Applications: 60,377
Acceptances: 2,253
Acceptance rate: 3.73%
(Suggested reading: Ivy League Acceptance Rates)
Columbia University tuition and scholarships
Columbia’s 2022–2023 cost of attendance per year (i.e., tuition, room, board, and fees) is $85,967.
Columbia meets 100 percent of first-year students’ demonstrated financial need through a combination of grants and work study—no loans. Families earning under $150,000 per year are generally not expected to contribute to their child’s cost of attendance. 50 percent of Columbia students receive financial aid in the form of grants, and the average grant award is $62,850.
Who gets into Columbia?
Let’s review the demographics and academic statistics for the class of 2025:
95% of students ranked in the top 10% of their high school class.
Average GPA: Columbia doesn’t publish its average admitted student GPA.
Columbia average SAT score:
25th percentile: 1510
75th percentile: 1560
Columbia average ACT score:
25th percentile: 34
75th percentile: 35
International students: 13%
First-generation college students: 17%
54% of the class of 2025 identify as white. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make up the next largest percentage at 28%. 20% are Hispanic or Latino, and 18% are African American or Black.
26% of incoming freshmen intend to major in math and natural sciences, 26% in the social sciences, 24% in engineering, and 23% in the arts and humanities.
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Part 2: Columbia University admissions requirements
Columbia academic requirements
Like other Ivy League schools, Columbia is looking for students who are intellectually curious and ready to leave a mark on the diverse urban campus. Columbia wants to admit students who will not only succeed in their rigorous Core Curriculum but who will also thrive in Columbia’s distinct collegiate yet unquestionably urban campus.
Columbia seeks more than just excellent grades and test scores. Dedication to extracurricular activities, such as clubs, teams, or an individual project, can help demonstrate that your child will take advantage of Columbia and New York City’s unparalleled resources.
Admissions officers expect that your child will have taken advantage of the opportunities that they were afforded. If your son’s school didn’t offer calculus, for instance, Columbia will be delighted to see that they took AP Statistics and Calculus I at the local community college over the summer. If your daughter’s school offers a wide variety of APs, they will be looking for success in a rigorous course load throughout her junior and senior years.
Columbia doesn’t have a specific set of expectations for what your child has studied in secondary school, but the Columbia admissions website recommends the following course load for students applying to Columbia College:
Four years of English literature and composition
Four years of math (at least through precalculus), unless your child has already completed what’s available at their school
Three to four years of history and social studies
Three to four years of foreign language (ancient or modern)
Three to four years of laboratory science.
Columbia encourages aspiring scientists, physicians, and dentists to take as many courses in math and science as possible.
For applicants to the engineering school, Columbia recommends a rigorous program of math and science that includes four years of math (preferably through calculus), four years of lab science including one year of physics and one year of chemistry, four years of English, two to three years of foreign language, and three to four years of social studies and history.
Columbia encourages all students to dive deeper into their interests. A student interested in writing should consider taking a creative writing or journalism elective in addition to four years of English, while a student dedicated to medicine might add an elective course in anatomy.
Columbia application requirements
Here’s the nitty gritty. Columbia accepts the Common Application, which means your child will need the following to apply:
Columbia supplemental essays
Optional during the 2022–2023 application cycle: ACT or SAT test scores
Teacher recommendations (engineering students must submit one letter from a math or science teacher)
Secondary school report (sent from your child’s school)
Columbia also accepts the Coalition App and the QuestBridge Application.
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Part 3: Applying to Columbia early decision vs. regular decision
Your child can apply early to Columbia by November 1 and receive a decision of either accepted, deferred, or denied, by mid-December.
Columbia follows the early decision (as opposed to early action) model, which is binding. This means that your child must commit to attending Columbia if accepted. If your child is deferred, they will enter into the regular decision pool and hear back by the end of March. They can be accepted, waitlisted or rejected then. If accepted, they are no longer in the early decision binding agreement.
If your child applies early decision to Columbia, they are unable to apply to restrictive or single choice early action programs (e.g., Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford). They can, however, apply to non-restrictive early action programs, such as MIT, Caltech, and the University of Chicago.
Your child can also apply regular decision, by January 1.
How do you know if your child should apply to Columbia early?
Early decision might be the right choice for your child:
If Columbia is their top choice
If they are willing to commit to attending Columbia no matter what the financial aid package is
If there’s no other school they’d like to apply to via early decision or restrictive early action
If they are interested in applying to non-binding early action programs
If their test scores and grades are strong by the end of junior year
Columbia, like many of its peers in the Ivy+ category, accepts a significant portion of its class early—around 30 percent. Students who apply early decision, however, tend to be highly prepared, which helps explain why the early decision acceptance rate is higher. Most of these students have thought deeply about why they are an excellent fit for Columbia and have the grades and test scores to prove that they will succeed there.
Because Columbia’s early decision program is binding, they are looking for students who demonstrate a true passion for the university. If Columbia is truly your child’s top choice, it may be advantageous to apply early.
(Suggested reading: Early Action vs. Early Decision)
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Part 4: 2023–2024 Columbia supplemental essays (examples included)
(Note: While this section covers Columbia’s admissions essays specifically, we encourage you to view additional successful college essay examples.)
In addition to the Common App personal statement, Columbia requires numerous supplemental essays. The Columbia-specific application questions are a crucial way that your child can provide a window into their character, passions, and creativity. Most importantly, Columbia’s supplemental essays give your child the chance to show that they are a great fit for Columbia.
Question 1: List a selection of texts, resources and outlets that have contributed to your intellectual development outside of academic courses, including but not limited to books, journals, websites, podcasts, essays, plays, presentations, videos, museums and other content that you enjoy. Your response should be a list of items separated by commas or semicolons. Items do not have to be numbered or in any specific order. It is not necessary to italicize or underline titles of books or other publications. No author names, subtitles or explanatory remarks are needed. (100 words or fewer)
Like Harvard’s optional supplemental essay (view the prompt and an example in our guide on how to get into Harvard), this prompt asks students to share books, publications, performances, exhibitions, and other outlets that reveal something unusual or interesting about the applicant’s personality.
Here’s how Janet, an ambitious Chinese American student answered this prompt.
Meditations; On the Shortness of Life; The Tao Te Ching; The Tao of Pooh; Plato at the Googleplex; Digital Minimalism; Freedom, Books, Flowers & the Moon; Black Chick Lit; The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering; At Blackwater Pond; Giovanni’s Room; The Burnout Society; Persuasion; Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson; A Border Passage; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; 1917; Life of Pi; The Canterbury Tales; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; Pachinko; The Crucible; Tess of the D’Urbervilles; Medea; Samarkand; Graceful Atheist; Devotions; Walden; Maud Martha
Here’s why Janet succeeds in answering this Columbia supplemental essay:
She includes a series of texts that represent a wide array of interests. By including books that range from philosophy (The Tao Teh Ching and The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering) to Victorian novels (Tess of the D’Urbervilles) and even a biography of Frederick Douglass, Janet demonstrates that she is intellectually curious and excited by a wide variety of topics.
She answers the questions succinctly. As the prompt states, the Admissions readers are not looking for a narrative or an explanation. They simply want to know what you are reading, seeing, and consuming. Many students believe that they should use up all 100 words by including every book they have ever read or foreign movie they have ever seen. However, Admissions readers are looking to see that you have thought about your entries carefully. It’s hard to see what your tastes and interests are if you list one hundred books, for instance.
Short answer questions:
Question 2: A hallmark of the Columbia experience is being able to learn and thrive in an equitable and inclusive community with a wide range of perspectives. Tell us about an aspect of your own perspective, viewpoint or lived experience that is important to you, and describe how it has shaped the way you would learn from and contribute to Columbia's diverse and collaborative community. (150 words or fewer)
Question 3: In college/university, students are often challenged in ways that they could not predict or anticipate. It is important to us, therefore, to understand an applicant's ability to navigate through adversity. Please describe a barrier or obstacle you have faced and discuss the personal qualities, skills or insights you have developed as a result. (150 words or fewer)
Question 4: Why are you interested in attending Columbia University? We encourage you to consider the aspect(s) that you find unique and compelling about Columbia. (150 words or fewer)
Question 5: What attracts you to your preferred areas of study at Columbia College or Columbia Engineering? (150 words or fewer)
Gain instant access to essay examples for every supplemental essay prompt from the top universities and BS/MD programs in the United States. Subscribe today to lock in the current investments, which will be increasing in the future for new subscribers.
Final thoughts
Because of Columbia’s academic prestige and access to New York City, getting into this Ivy League school is no simple task. Like other schools in the Ivy+ category, it’s a reach even for the students with the highest grades and test scores. By demonstrating a passion in a specific area of study and by showing how they would fit into Columbia’s campus culture by writing compelling supplemental essays, your child can greatly improve their odds of getting into Columbia.
About the Author
Dr. Shirag Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world's foremost experts on college admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into top programs like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT using his exclusive approach.
THERE'S NO REASON TO STRUGGLE THROUGH THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS PROCESS ALONE, ESPECIALLY WITH SO MUCH ON THE LINE. SCHEDULE YOUR COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATION TO ENSURE YOU LEAVE NOTHING TO CHANCE.