<p>Well, I guess posting this here is a little premature, since I haven't even taken a standardized test yet, but I thought i'd see what people think about my situation.</p>
<p>I have what are probably too high ambitions for the college(s) i'd like to attend: Ivy's or at least one of the more prominent colleges in the nation. </p>
<p>I missed my entire four years of high school though due to an illness, and only made up three years of Math and English through home schooling, and nothing else. Because of missing high school, I obviously have no extracurricular activities, honors, or anything else to my name. I also wasn't able to get the credits in time to get my diploma, so I took the GED recently instead.</p>
<p>The illness robbed me of what probably would have been some of the four most enjoyable years of my life. Now, I think it's going to rob me of getting into a really good college too. I'm confident that I could get the scores alone to get into these top colleges, but after looking at the merits of others on this forum, good scores appear to be only one piece of the puzzle, and a pretty small one at that.</p>
<p>But, on to my question: Does anyone know if the ivy leagues and other top colleges have any special admission guidelines for people who are/were disabled or suffered from an illness preventing them from attending high school? It appears from the admission statistics that they lend extra weight in order to admit a lot of different minorities, since they make up as much as 65% of the people enrolled in some of the colleges. I'm just wondering if anything like that is in place for people with similar circumstances to mine which might help offset the huge disadvantage of having no honors/etc to my name. Appreciate any info anybody can give about this.</p>
<p>I performed a search on that and pulled up a few articles on google relating to it. It sounds as if the Columbia college studies for nontraditional students are different than the studies taken by normal applicants to the college though. Even the instructors and courses may be different from the sound of it. That's not really what I had in mind.</p>
<p>From what i've found on the subject, the prospect of them giving some leighway considering my circumstances does not look very promising. There seems to be very little documentation of cases like mine.</p>
<p>Is there any chance that they might accept me pretty much based on my scores alone, given that I was unable to attend high school and attain the usual honors, APs, ECs, etc? How do they handle people who were officially home schooled? I noticed on a few of the colleges' websites that they had a certain percentage of undergraduates that were home schooled.</p>
<p>I think you should call some colleges to get more information on your situation, and how the admissions process works. When you apply, you should probably send a letter explaining your situation. I'm sure colleges will take your illness into consideration.</p>
<p>Call your schools you would like to attend and ask them these questions. They will be able to answer your questions much better than we can here. </p>
<p>From what I have learned, every school treats homeschoolers differently. Don't listen to anyone but that school, even other schools. Also, different admission counselors will give different answers to your questions.</p>
<p>There is a saying that nothing beats a failure like a try. Only talking directly with admissions staff will really get your questions answered, as you must plead your special case directly to them, not us. </p>
<p>Be prepared to possibly do one or two years in community college, proving your academically worthiness before moving on to the college of your choice. Ask the admissions staff if their school has a relationship with any particular cc?</p>
<p>What do you bring to the table?
Why should a top tier college consider your special situation?</p>
<p>You can't just state that you've always wanted to go to their school. You have to demonstrate that, even though you have a nontraditional education, you still have something to offer them, something that they want.</p>
<p>Adcoms are human and can make exceptions to the rules. But you have to prove worthy of them making that exception. If you score super high on the SAT, ACT and/or a state sanctioned non-GED high school exit exam, adcoms will have something to work with.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to be insensitive, but what about your academic or personal experience makes you worthy of being accepted to a top school?</p>
<p>How have you overcome your academic and personal challenges to even handle the courseload of a top tier school?</p>