As of fall 2015, I’ll be enrolling in my local community college (University of North Georgia). I’m looking into options for transfer after spring 2016, and Fordham has been a dream of mine for years―I just want to make sure my impression of the school and my chance at admission is reasonably accurate. If not, I’d like to know that I should start looking elsewhere.
(1) I dropped out of high school early in my junior year―November of 2013, so my former classmates are graduating this year. Long story short: my father was a violent alcoholic who abandoned my mother and me shortly after my sister’s death in April 2012. I was also severely anorexic and depressed, and had been for years. Nonetheless, up until my junior year I’d been very productive; I was on-track to graduate as valedictorian, participated in my school’s chapters of NHS and Beta Club, the academic team, etc. I completed six AP credits over my freshman and sophomore years, and all of my other coursework was honors-level. My only grade below an A was in my state’s equivalent of honors precalculus (I finished with an 88). Even in my junior year, when my depression was at its worst, I used what little energy I had to keep up with seven AP classes and maintain at least an A- in all of them. So my question is: will Fordham care about any of that when they see that I have a GED? It sounds pathetic, I know, but with the way people talk about high school drop-outs, the GED, etc. I can’t help but feel like I’m not “good enough” for Fordham.
(2) I’m an Orthodox Christian (though I’m also an ecumenist, and many Orthodox would say that makes me very much “heterodox”); I’m also gay. I know Fordham has an Orthodox Studies minor (!), and I’ve heard it’s relatively accepting of LGBT students for a Catholic school. Generally speaking, would I feel safe at Fordham? Would I feel completely out-of-place as a non-Catholic?
(3) My mother makes about $34,000 annually, and my father is MIA. How feasible is it that I could even afford to attend Fordham? I’ve heard the average financial aid package is pretty generous, but when my household income is just under half the annual cost-of-attendance, well. Should I just move on now and save myself the trouble (and the application fee)?
Anyone’s advice is much appreciated!