Columbia SHP entrance exam

April 27, 2013

I woke up at 7:30 with a very, very sore throat (probably from allergies/chewing gum) and very blurry eyesight (because I hadn't worn contact lenses the night before). Then, a couple of family friends and I carpooled to drive to Columbia, to take the entrance exam for SHP.

To be honest, I thought the first math section was going to be a lot harder, but it was all basic stuff. Algebra, some easy Geometry, etc. For those of you online freaking out about conic sections and matrices: it's not that complicated...

Then, they handed out the science portion. Andddd.....my day went slightly downhill. I had never learned half the things on the test (which was designed for upperclassmen) and I left a couple blank just because I had no idea what they were  talking about and wrong answers resulted in lost points.

I didn't like the math competition part. My forte isn't math competitions, and I guess I could figure out most of the questions, but for the rest I was stuck. I ended up leaving some blank on this section, too. Whoever told me this was like the AMC, it's not. It's kind of harder.

And by the way, NYC is really crowded and noisy--I haven't visited for about two years, and I totally forgot about the chaos on the streets. Not that it's bad. :) We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant across from the building where I took the test.

Columbia is also really pretty--I really like the way the campus was designed.