<p>I am, I hope, a prospective student during this application season. Due to circumstances, which do not need detailing here, I had to postpone college since graduating in 2005. A result is time off one year greater than the now less uncommon gap year. The trouble is I'm not having any success using contacts provided on college websites. I would like to know if this affects the application process or eligibility in any school of interest. Is that small window in the Common Application the only difference?</p>
<p>I read this board and its cool to hear about the contacts some students have, friends of friends, or new aquaintances/resources from college visits. Perhaps someone can give me some advice, it seems like a potentially important factor. I'm pretty much stuck dealing with what seem like automated email responses, and I think I got the brush off once.</p>
<p>I'll be applying to five schools, I'm looking at, among others, NYU, Columbia, Penn (so far one cc post says it shouldn't matter), Dartmouth, Amherst, & HYP.</p>
<p>In particular I'm worried about relegation to what often ends up being a separate but maybe less than equal college experience. Like Columbia's GS (subject of an unpleasant thread), Yale's Eli Whitney, or something like Harvard and Penn's extension schools. I don't know too much about them, but I'm not all that interested.</p>
<p>The reasons for the 2-year gap and what you did during that time will be important. For instance, taking care of younger sibs while your parent recovered from a serious illness would be considered a good reason to take a gap year. Spending time in alcohol or drug rehabilitation, while certainly beneficial for you, would not be the type of thing that would cause colleges to want to accept you as they'd prefer to accept students who didn't seem to have had a history of those kind of problems.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input, understandable but kind of granted.</p>
<p>I'm confident I'm not going to have trouble justifying my decisions. My real concerns are does this affect in any way, application procedure, or worse eligibility. I'm starting to feel that the admissions process doesn't really change, that in fact that small window in the Common App. that asks to explain any time off after high school will probably suffice. But as to the second, I got the feeling from another thread that Columbia (a definite application target) can rule me a non-traditional student, an almost 21-year old freshmen. Like a friend of a poster of similar age on that thread:</p>
<p>Id like to know everything I need to before I blow a chunk of my rather tight application fee budget. As far as I can tell, things like this arent usually addressed in college website F.A.Q.s</p>
<p>My underestanding is that a nontraditional student is one who was probably not on the college-bound track while in high school. Afterward, they did something like got married, worked a factory job or clerical job, went into the military and then finally decided to go to college.</p>
<p>This is very different than someone who was college bound, but took a gap year or 2 to do something like travel, volunteer. help out with their family, etc.</p>
<p>The extension schools are more for students who initially weren't on the college bound track, so would lack AP courses, high SATs, etc. that would allow them to get into things like Harvard or Columbia's regular undergraduate schools.</p>
<p>non-traditional students are generally those that are going to school at age 24 or more (some having gone to college before, others having done other things like those talked about in the prior post)</p>
<p>While you are older than many freshman, you are not really out of the ball park. My older son will take a gap year and because of the cut-off date in his school system and his birthdate, he will be a 20 year old freshman. Many international students are older. </p>
<p>You will be expected to have excellent stats, recommendations, etc and you will need to address what you learned over those 2 years -- other than that, I don't think it will be an issue.</p>
<p>If You Are Interested in Columbia College:
1. If you have had no interruptions in your schooling of more than one academic year in total, or if the interruption in your schooling has been for the minimum length of your countrys mandatory military service:
1. If you have not already spent a full academic year or more in a
college/university in the U.S. or Canada, then you must apply to
Columbia College as a first-year student.
2. If you have already spent a full academic year or more in a
college/university in the U.S. or Canada, then you must apply to
Columbia College as a transfer student.
3. If you have spent more than two full academic years in a
college/university in the U.S. or Canada, then you are no longer
eligible to apply to Columbia College as an undergraduate at all.
(See paragraph II below.)
4. If you have already spent a full academic year or less in a
college/university outside the U.S. or Canada, then you must apply
to Columbia College as a first-year student.
5. If you have already spent more than a full academic year in a
college/university outside the U.S. or Canada, then you are no
longer eligible to apply to Columbia College as an undergraduate at
all. (See paragraph II below.)
2. If you have had any interruptions in your schooling of more than one academic year, or if you have been referred here by item I.3 or I.5 above, then you are strongly advised to apply instead to Columbia Universitys School of General Studies, a non-residential liberal arts division of the university that exists to serve the needs and goals of non-traditional students. We invite you to visit their Web site. There you will find information on applying either as a first-year student or as a transfer. Financial aid is available to all candidates who qualify. If the foregoing criteria apply to you, you may still apply to Columbia College if you insist, but you should be aware that you are doing so at a great disadvantage and that your acceptance is extremely unlikely.</p>
<p>--- Sorry, seems the website is quite clear as far is Columbia is concerned, hints of a mold a Columbia student should fit. Sadly, over a year is the cut-off mark. The severe wording (great disadvantage & extremely unlikely) is what's most dissapointing, even surprising. Colleges always seemed to try so hard to refrain from such discouraging words. But its honest, and they're not eager to pocket application fees from applicants of my sort. I should have seen it earlier, I was a bit sleepless when I first started digging. This is probably why they refused the Common Application, but it looks like asumptions about other schools policies won't do.</p>