How to get into Columbia

What is Columbia’s reputation?

“New York City at your doorstep” “intense courseload” “no school spirit” “the most diverse Ivy” “beast of a Core Curriculum” “stress culture” “over-crowded dining halls” “diffuse student body” “no space to study” “apathetic administration” “non-athletic”

Columbia is distinct from the other Ivy League universities in many regards. Most importantly, it’s located right in New York City, on the Upper Westside of Manhattan, in a neighborhood known as Morningside Heights. Because of New York’s extremely efficient (if somewhat dirty and dangerous) subway system, you can find yourself anywhere in New York in 15 to 30 minutes. And that means that as part of your Columbia education, you have unparalleled access to museums, Broadway shows, restaurants, speaker events, internships and anything else that’s offered on the planet. You’re studying in the world epicenter of modern culture.

The infamous Core Curriculum.

You can’t talk about Columbia without talking about its prominent Core Curriculum. All of the Ivies (except Brown) require undergraduates to take a certain number of “distribution requirements” to fulfill their liberal arts education, but generally give students quite a bit of leeway in choosing which courses they want. The idea is to make sure that, apart from their major, students have achieved a broad educational foundation. It would be hard to say you truly earned a “Harvard education,” for example, if all you did was take music theory courses.

But Columbia takes this concept one step farther: they require all undergraduates to take many of the exact same courses — and a lot of them — so that core classes constitute between one-third and one-half of your entire education. The benefit is that you emerge from Columbia with a strong foundation in Western literature, political thought, philosophy, arts and music. And most classes feature small, 20-person seminars which provide excellent opportunities for stimulating discussion and debate.

The problem, however, is that this represents an enormous percentage of your time on campus, and dramatically cuts into you ability to take whatever electives you want. It is also somewhat controversial that many of the texts covered in the curriculum come from “dead white men,” although the university has added more diversity in recent years.

The Pros of Columbia…

In many respects, New York City is second to none. If you want great international food, you can find it all. You can walk down the street and pass by people from every single corner of the globe. It’s the richest melting pot of peoples, cultures, perspectives, backgrounds, socio-economic groups, you name it. Also, it’s the world center for many industries, so you have prime access to internships, jobs, meet-and-greets… all just a short subway ride away. And, unlike many New York universities (such as NYU), Columbia actually has its own distinct campus; it’s small, but quite beautiful, and it provides a “safe bubble” from the rest of the crazy city.

Columbia might also have the most diverse student body in the Ivy League. While all of the Ivies are diverse by national standards, only 30% of students at Columbia are white, compared with 50% at Dartmouth (the highest percentage) or 35-40% at the other Ivies.

The Cons of Columbia…

For many Columbia students, the biggest negative is the lack of school spirit and campus community. Students describe the campus as “diffuse,” perhaps because there are so many distractions in New York to draw people away from campus, or perhaps because there really aren’t a lot of popular Columbia sports teams that draw people together (athletics are not very big at Columbia, and the playing fields are quite far away). Many students complain that there’s no “social center” to the campus, and most students end up just “doing their own thing.” Compare this with the strong school spirit at Dartmouth, Yale and Cornell.

Columbia (like Princeton and Cornell) also has a reputation for being a bit of a grind school. Courses here are very hard, students study all the time, and there’s a “prevalent stress culture” that you’re never doing enough.

Many students also complain about the lack of space. Columbia has the smallest campus, which perhaps isn’t surprising since it’s located in the middle of an overpopulated city. But everything seems to be crowded: there’s long lines to get into the dining halls, students can’t find a place to sit down to eat, every study room seems to be already reserved, etc. Being NYC, it seems that space is at a premium everywhere on campus.

Also, as great as New York City is, it can become prohibitively expensive, especially for cash-strapped college students. If all of your entertainment options require you to shell out $20-$50 (at minimum), your budget may soon be in crisis.

What does Columbia look for in applicants?

Hardcore intellectuals seem to make up much of the student body. With the school’s de-emphasis on athletics, students tend to be “brainy” “nerdy” “studious” and “urban.” As the most diverse Ivy, the university is also looking for a rich melting pot of backgrounds and perspectives, so you’ve got a much better chance of getting in if you come from an underrepresented group. Historically, Columbia is also said to have had a hard time attracting students from rural backgrounds, so that may help in your application process as well.

You should also know that there are four different ways to get into Columbia, since the university is broken down into four different undergraduate colleges. There’s Columbia College, which is the main liberal arts program. There’s Columbia Engineering (SEAS). There’s General Studies, which is for older students who’ve been out of school for a few years. And there’s Barnard College, which is an all-women’s college that’s part of Columbia University. When you apply to Columbia, you have to designate which specific college you’re applying to.

Tip #1 for getting in: apply to Barnard College

One of the best-kept secrets for getting into Columbia University if you’re female (or if you identify as female) is to apply to Barnard College instead of Columbia College. Barnard is literally right across the street from the Columbia campus, and students from both colleges (male and female) go back and forth taking courses on each other’s campuses since certain departments are housed in one school or the other. (Yes, there are some men is most Barnard classes.)

Barnard students get to participate in almost every aspect of Columbia life, including joining clubs and sport teams, eating in dining halls, and even occasionally living in Columbia dorms. Plus, when you graduate, your degree says both Barnard College and Columbia University, which is a nice bonus. Does the Barnard name carry the same prestige as Columbia? Maybe yes, maybe no — it depends who you ask. But you can always just tell people you went to Columbia.

The best part is that even though Barnard is a highly-ranked women’s college in its own right, it’s much easier to get into Barnard than Columbia, particularly when you apply Early Decision. While Barnard’s Regular Decision acceptance rate is slightly better than Columbia’s (9% for Barnard vs. 6% for Columbia), the Early Decision rate is substantially better (29% for Barnard vs. only 11% for Columbia).

And, it’s worth noting that for the Class of 2026, Barnard filled 62% of its freshman class with Early Decision applicants. So if you want a world-class Columbia education, plus a strong, supportive (and admittedly very liberal) sisterhood, consider applying Early Decision to Barnard. One more benefit: Barnard’s core curriculum is far more flexible than Columbia’s. You can read more about Early Decision here.

Tip #2 for getting in: apply to the School of General Studies

If you’re a “non-traditional” student, which Columbia defines as anyone who’s been out of school for at least a year, or who can only attend college part-time, you can also apply to the School of General Studies at Columbia. It’s made up of a lot of military veterans (about 40%), a lot of international students (27%), and a lot of part-time students (27%), and the average student age is 27. But it's much easier to get into (28% acceptance rate) than Columbia College (only 4% acceptance rate).

But here’s the best part: transfer students have a whopping 58% acceptance rate! That’s not a typo. Almost 60% of applicants who apply to Columbia’s School of General Studies get accepted. And while you live separate from students in Columbia College (presumably because many of you are older), and the financial aid is garbage, you take almost all of the same classes and get basically the exact same education. Your classmates won’t know which college you belong to unless you tell them.

Do some employers care that you went to the School of General Studies rather Columbia College? Some will, but most won’t. After all, you can simply put “Columbia” on your resume. So if you really want to go to Columbia, but don’t quite have the resume, just wait a year and apply as a first-year student, or start college somewhere else and then apply as a transfer. Bingo.

Final tip for getting in

You should also know that while Columbia is technically “test optional” for the SAT and ACT, 69% of admitted students submitted their scores for the Class of 2026. That means that while you can still get into Columbia without submitting your test scores, only about 30% of students managed to do so. Our advice: sign up for an SAT or ACT program, crush the test, and submit that score.