2019-2020 Columbia VP&S

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Looking back a couple pages it seems Columbia’s still hovering on early-mid August complete dates, and even late July. I saw 1 reported II from very early September. It would be odd for them to fill their calendar with such a small range from the applicant pool (spoken as a still-hopeful mid-September applicant haha).
 
Logal456 said:
Looking back a couple pages it seems Columbia’s still hovering on early-mid August complete dates, and even late July. I saw 1 reported II from very early September. It would be odd for them to fill their calendar with such a small range from the applicant pool (spoken as a still-hopeful mid-September applicant haha).
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Hopes crushed into little bite sized pieces (early-July applicant)
 
Doctors' Docta said:
Wait I’m confused- their website says the interview through January... and decisions don’t get released to March.. so isn’t that a good thing for us hopefuls?
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It means only about a month of interview invites left. I think they’re currently on mid-December.

How I’m experiencing it is: it’s like one day everyone is screaming the SDN gospel “IT’S STILL EARLYYYYYYYYY” and with some people even claiming the wait for an II can even go until March. Then all of the sudden like with a blink of an eye IIs are almost all gone. Literally none of my schools interview past Feb and they reached their halfway point like over a month ago, so much for “early”
 
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Please don't quote the details below. Looking at the comments here it seems like they're almost done with sending out IIs. This is a top 3 choice for me but I haven't heard back regarding an interview. I'm thinking of doing a hybrid of an update and letter of continued interest. I wanted to know everyone's thoughts on this.

In my update I would include

1) We submitted a paper to Science and received feedback from the reviewers. We did some experiments and made edits for our second submission, we're about to send it in again. I know schools usually want accepted papers but interview season might conclude by then. Only briefly mentioned preparing the first draft on my secondary.

2) After submitting my primary, I joined the leadership of a non-profit org on the side and it had been a really meaningful experience. The past months we held a big event with thousands of attendees and made partnerships with other non-profits. This EC was not mentioned in my app at all.

Thoughts?
 
why do you think that interview season is almost over, might I ask? 😳
also, i interviewed at a t3 school recently and if they have a similar philosophy, they emphasized a super strict publications only cutoff for updates, and even then, not before ii. not sure if that helps you or not but food for thought.
 
adventum said:
why do you think that interview season is almost over, might I ask? 😳
also, i interviewed at a t3 school recently and if they have a similar philosophy, they emphasized a super strict publications only cutoff for updates, and even then, not before ii. not sure if that helps you or not but food for thought.
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Thanks for the thought!

I just made an assumption based on the comments on this thread that they’re almost done with interviews???
 
Cancelling my interview here. I thought gen chem fell under the category of “strongly suggested” that you take an additional year if you used AP but apparently it does not. Graduating in December so I won’t have time to retake the 1 semester of gen chem I’m missing. Hope my slot can go to one of you!
 
789631240 said:
Cancelling my interview here. I thought gen chem fell under the category of “strongly suggested” that you take an additional year if you used AP but apparently it does not. Graduating in December so I won’t have time to retake the 1 semester of gen chem I’m missing. Hope my slot can go to one of you!
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No, AP credit is fine as long as your college counts your AP credit. You dont need retake one semester of gen Chem
 
789631240 said:
At most schools, yes. But not here:

“For applicants whose undergraduate college awarded Advanced Placement credit in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, or English, we require they take an additional year at the collegiate level.”

(Application Requirements)
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If you’re accepted and talk to the council they often let things slide. My friend currently attends there now and also placed out of gen chem 2 with no extra class. I would attend the interview and just see what happens
 
throwaway2020MD said:
If you’re accepted and talk to the council they often let things slide. My friend currently attends there now and also placed out of gen chem 2 with no extra class. I would attend the interview and just see what happens
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Oh that’s great to know. Glad I hadn’t actually sent the email yet! Love the school I just didn’t want to waste their time if I were to be admitted and then couldn’t actually go even if I wanted to.
 
789631240 said:
Oh that’s great to know. Glad I hadn’t actually sent the email yet! Love the school I just didn’t want to waste their time if I were to be admitted and then couldn’t actually go even if I wanted to.
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Yea it’s definitely not worth it throwing away such an amazing ii if time and money isn’t tight. Obviously I’m providing an anecdote but if everything else is perfect, you should be able to argue that a semester of chemistry isn’t necessary to show competency.
 
789631240 said:
Cancelling my interview here. I thought gen chem fell under the category of “strongly suggested” that you take an additional year if you used AP but apparently it does not. Graduating in December so I won’t have time to retake the 1 semester of gen chem I’m missing. Hope my slot can go to one of you!
Click to expand...
Oh, my God, PLEASE do NOT cancel your interview here! If you get in, that can be discussed, and they will most likely let it slide.
 
789631240 said:
At most schools, yes. But not here:

“For applicants whose undergraduate college awarded Advanced Placement credit in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, or English, we require they take an additional year at the collegiate level.”

(Application Requirements)
Click to expand...
I interpret that as an additional year requires a similar number of credits in each respective AP subject, not a required repeat of the AP courses.
 
proudofmykids said:
I interpret that as an additional year requires a similar number of credits in each respective AP subject, not a required repeat of the AP courses.
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That’s definitely true. AP credit at my school is just for one semester so the easiest solution for me would be retaking gen chem 1 rather than taking an upper level inorganic chem meant for chem majors.

It seems they’re moderately lenient though which is good
 
Did anyone send thank you letters and NOT receive an acknowledgement email saying that the admissions committee would "very strongly consider" them?
 
desperatepremed2024 said:
Did anyone send thank you letters and NOT receive an acknowledgement email saying that the admissions committee would "very strongly consider" them?
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I thought everyone gets that email? Or at least I was under the impression that it wasn't that special to receive it..
 
desperatepremed2024 said:
Did anyone send thank you letters and NOT receive an acknowledgement email saying that the admissions committee would "very strongly consider" them?
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I uploaded them as updates so I only got a "thank you for your continued interest" email. Perhaps I did it wrong?
 
doobeebop said:
I uploaded them as updates so I only got a "thank you for your continued interest" email. Perhaps I did it wrong?
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They’re supposed to be uploaded to the portal that’s what I was told by the admissions office the day I interviewed
 
throwaway2020MD said:
I doubt it holds much weight. It’s just a nice gesture that they like to see. Upload it to the portal and don’t read into it anymore. We’ve done the hard part now we just have to wait lol.
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The waiting is the hard part tho :nailbiting:
 
throwaway2020MD said:
I doubt it holds much weight. It’s just a nice gesture that they like to see. Upload it to the portal and don’t read into it anymore. We’ve done the hard part now we just have to wait lol.
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I'm talking about the response that the admissions office was reportedly sending out to some people, not the thank you letter itself. I agree that thank you letters themselves don't hold much weight, but I'm wondering whether they sent this "acknowledgment" to only people they plan on admitting.
 
desperatepremed2024 said:
I'm talking about the response that the admissions office was reportedly sending out to some people, not the thank you letter itself. I agree that thank you letters themselves don't hold much weight, but I'm wondering whether they sent this "acknowledgment" to only people they plan on admitting.
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Lol
 
desperatepremed2024 said:
how long has it been since you submitted the thank you letters?
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I submitted 10/23 and got confirmation 10/24. They were titled "Thank You Note" and labeled as additional documents so I doubt it's ambiguous what they are, I'm not sure why I didn't get a "thank you letter"-specific email. I think you're definitely overthinking it, they don't make decisions until March and it's probably just an automatic reply system.
 
Although, I received the "very strongly consider," response, I did not read too much into it. I am sure it's a canned response to all the people that submit thank you notes. It's too early in the process anyways for them to rank anyone at this juncture. But what do I know!
 
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I don’t have the interview packet on me so I can’t remember, did they give us the emails of our interviewers for thank yous? (I know we also need to upload them on the portal)
 
mass-premed66 said:
I don’t have the interview packet on me so I can’t remember, did they give us the emails of our interviewers for thank yous? (I know we also need to upload them on the portal)
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We didn’t get their emails only emails for our guides. The admissions office specifically said to only upload to the portal and not to email
 
throwaway2020MD said:
We didn’t get their emails only emails for our guides. The admissions office specifically said to only upload to the portal and not to email
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i believe they said you could do both, but to just make sure you upload to portal. They want to make sure they have a copy; if the notes only go to the doctors, the emails could get lost.
 
I was complete around July 4th for this school...is it possible I can still hear back from here and other schools of similar caliber?
 
Punky Brewster said:
i believe they said you could do both, but to just make sure you upload to portal. They want to make sure they have a copy; if the notes only go to the doctors, the emails could get lost.
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I also emailed an interviewer directly (since they gave me their email), and that email got uploaded to the portal as well. So I'm pretty sure you can just upload everything to the portal and be golden - no need to email anyone directly.
 
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