Thank you Matt for creating Amphibia which helped me so much throughout high school. I wrote about Amphibia for my Columbia transfer essay and I got waitlisted! Such a beautiful show, and I miss it so much.
Guys Ima keep it a buck Im so fucking scared.
So here the sitch.
Columbia app was completed April 3rd and they received everything, then April 12th they approved me sending an updated research supplemental as the research project I talked about in my app was ongoing and was completed around that time, with a fully realized abstract. Sent it April 13th, then April 14th they started harassing me for my missing financial aid documents with a seemingly automated email until I found it has some manual component to it, then April 17th after some back and forth told me to use their special portal to straight up add a picture of my Social Security Card.
Keep in mind so far, I applied to 11 schools including columbia. 3 of which are need aware… rest are need blind…
AND THE ONLY TWO SCHOOLS THAT FUCKED UP MY FINANCIAL AID WERE COLUMBIA AND JHU. TO THIS FUCKING DAY JHU DOES NOT CARE ABOUT MY MISSING CSS AND FAFSA.
So basically, Vandy and NYU already accepted me. Duke, Rice and CMU already rejected me. None of them had a problem with my financial aid.
Yet TWO need blind schools fucked up, and only one has reached out to me to correct it and sent me to their specialized portals and actually had staff look into it. Keep in mind, JHU has different deans for Financial Aid and Admissions, AND a dedicated team for Transfers. Columbia has the same dean between both offices, and its the same people that just got through 60kish applications from high schoolers.
I have been going through psychosis for this entire journey ever since April 17th as the attention Columbia gave me with less resources is incredibly unusual, same with the fact that they processed everything smoothly until it came to Financial Aid.
Essentially, Columbia giving me special attention regarding financial aid is unusual and I dont trust it, but logically why would a school who rejected me do so when JHU, which has the same need blind policies, and theoretically more resources, has done nothing if it was all routine work…
Anyways good luck guys this was just a mini rant.
Ummm I would be happy if I got into Columbia but I can live with going to Vandy or staying at my current university.
Hi everyone, I’m currently a freshman right now in Mechanical Engineering and I’m thinking of one day doing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. I think I ended off the year on a strong start, I just want to make sure I can keep up this upward momentum! So I’m looking for advice on what to target the next few years.
GPA: 3.95
ECs: Internship at a non profit in my state, Volunteer TA, Private Tutor, Research Assistant in Semiconductor lab, Research Assistant in spectroscopy lab, Research Assistant in Mechanical Engineering Material Science lab.
Relevant Awards: High school research proposal publication, 2nd place at my universities research competition + a social impact award, super competitive state wide scholarship to the point where they made a second award just for me!
Summer plan: Intern on the R&D MEAD team at a engineering firm!
No publications so far that are my own research, so I’d love to target that soon… Didn’t apply to any REUs as I wanted more experience in engineering before applying to one…
Hi yall, freshman MechE student here applying to transfer!
I know transfer decisions has us all down, but I want you all to look back and just recognize how DAMN hard we all worked. Some of us pushed ourselves to new heights in our respective fields and extracurriculars. Even if we dont end up at our dream schools, we should be proud of the effort we put in to make ourselves competitive.
If you asked hs junior me what I would be doing in college, he would still think I’m not even going to make it to college. Now I’m doing research at THREE labs that I love, published my own research project and won so many awards for it, attended a conference because of said project and spoke at it, got recruited for a super well paying start-up, and I’m freaking INTERNING at a super prestigious engineering firm in NYC. Even if my Vandy situation doesn’t work out and I can’t afford NYU, thats okay! I achieved such great things trying to make myself stand out and reaping the benefits.
So to all my transfer fellows in despair, recognize the growth this application cycle made you go through, and be proud of yourselves. Whether in writing, extracurricular, or just plain old self discovery and WHY you want to go to a specific school.
I am 90% sure if you get an engineering decision today you got rejected. If you did not get a decision for engineering, congrats you got in!