The admissions statistics are in for the Columbia Class of 2019 and we’ve got them for our loyal readers. In all, 36,250 students applied for admission to the late Cliff Montgomery’s alma mater. Don’t know who Cliff Montgomery is? Well clearly you are not a regular reader of our college admissions blog! He was only the Rose Bowl winning, MVP quarterback of the Columbia Lions football team back in 1934. He also happened to be a great American hero, credited with saving the lives of hundreds of sailors in World War II because of his intrepid gallantry. And he was a dear friend of the Taylor family who rooted on Ivy Coach’s conception many years ago. But enough with that tangent. Back to Columbia’s admissions statistics. What can we say…we like to tell stories. It’s a big part of why our students so often gain admission to their dream colleges. And we make no apologies for that!

Of the 36,250 applicants to Columbia this year, 2,228 earned admission, marking an acceptance rate of 6.1%. Last year, in all, 32,952 students applied for admission to Columbia (in the Early Decision and Regular Decision rounds) and 7% overall earned admission. In last year’s Regular Decision round, 5.5% earned admission. A recent article in “The Columbia Spectator” states the admission rate was 6.94% last year. We assume the article is referring to the overall admission rate but that figure was 7%, according to Columbia University (and 6.94% does round to 7% so we won’t quibble).

According to Columbia’s dean of undergraduate admissions, Jessica Marinaccio, as quoted in an article on the Columbia Class of 2019 admissions statistics in “The Columbia Spectator,” “We are excited to release acceptances today to students chosen from the largest applicant pool in Columbia history. Over the past few months, the admissions staff has reviewed tens of thousands of applications, looking for students who not only have impressive academic records, but also have character and commitment, a dedication to positively impacting the world and boundless intellectual curiosity—all qualities that we believe are quintessentially Columbian.” We always like to joke that deans of admission should have these quotes on auto reply since can you ever imagine a dean of admissions saying they’re dissatisfied with the incoming class? Not in this world.

If you’re a regular reader of our blog, do you appreciate our humor? We hope so! Humor is the spice of life and if we just had to blog on and on about college admissions statistics without any color commentary, we’d get quite bored. Consider us the Charles Barkley of highly selective college admissions. Accept it. Or don’t and read another blog that is as informative as ours on matters of highly selective college admissions. Oh wait. Hey, we never claimed to be modest.