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Excellent chance for Columbia. Harvard is a toss up. Definitely a good chance at $$ from Penn.

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You have a pretty slim but realistic shot at Harvard. Don’t ED. You also have a good shot at $$$ at Penn, though your GPA is below Penn’s median, so I wouldn’t count on it. Write the 5-year plan. Congratulations!

Your chances at Columbia are very good even without ED.

I’m fairly certain that, if you did ED to Columbia, you would get in. But I think you stand a good enough shot at RD that ED’ing isn’t the wisest choice (unless you know 100% that there is no place you would rather be). Personally, I would love to see the $$ awards that come from places like Penn, Michigan, etc. before deciding on Columbia.

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Then perhaps that is the route to go. The only thing I would consider is that, should you get into Harvard, you could perhaps parlay that into some $$ from Columbia (though I’d imagine that, if you got into Harvard, you would just go there). And you could even parlay $$ awards from slightly lower ranked schools like Michigan or Penn into some $$ from Columbia, especially if the awards are substantial. But perhaps the possibility of squeezing 30-45K out of Columbia isn’t worth giving up the additional security of an ED application. I think its win win no matter what. Congrats on the score and good luck with the apps.

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