Hidden Backdoors Into Your Dream College, Part 1

As top colleges have been harder and harder to get into, read about some legitimate backdoors that select students use every year but the majority of applicants are not aware of. Nowadays, even a high GPA, high standardized test scores, and an impressive resume are not enough to get into top colleges.

I'm talking about when you can't change anything - family (for legacy), grades, standardized test scores, teacher recommendations. There are still some "backdoors" into a university. Now, I'm not advocating these approaches; I'm a fan of just taking a risk and applying to what you actually want to study. These tactics may not be right for everybody so be sure to do your research and use your own judgement.

The colleges within a university have different acceptance rates, so you can take a risk and aim for the college that you're most into that may have a relatively low acceptance rate, or play it a little safer with the college with a relatively high acceptance rate. If the college you are genuinely interested in attending (based on your academic interests) is the one with the relatively high acceptance rate, then that's even better. I'll use 3 different universities for example.

Columbia University (Class of 2015)
Columbia College - 6.4%
Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (also known as SEAS) - 9.9%

Cornell University (Class of 2014) in general has an acceptance rate of 18.4% this year. However, take a look at the breakdown from school to school:
Agriculture & Life Sciences - 21.2%
Architecture, Art & Planning - 14.6%
Arts & Sciences - 15.7%
Engineering - 21.7%
Hotel Administration - 26.0%
Human Ecology - 31.3%
Industrial & Labor Relations - 9.9%

The Cooper Union
The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture - 3.9%
The School of Art - 4.3% - 4.6%
The Albert Nerken School of Engineering - 15.9%

New York University (NYU) While I know that NYU's acceptance rate for the Class of 2014 is 31.8%, I don't have the exact numbers for each college. However, I have heard that NYU's College of Arts and Science has a higher acceptance rate than Leonard N. Stern School of Business. Keep in mind that your chances vary individual to individual - that it really depends on an individual's unique profile. For example, an individual with high grades in the humanities and an interest in the liberal arts will definitely have a higher chance of getting into Columbia College than SEAS even though the acceptance rate for SEAS is higher.

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