<p>Hey guys, I’m looking for a bit of advice. I’m currently 18 years old, and taking a gap year from high school. I didn’t travel to the Philippines to save sea turtles, but instead moved to the city and began to work. I’m currently working as a host in one of those chic Times Square restaurants, and also interning as a financial analyst at a small merchant bank in Rockefeller Center. One top of this, I’ve got an internship lined up at Penguin Group starting next month. (i’ve made good use of my connections)
However, I did relatively poorly in High School. I graduated with a 3.3 GPA, albeit I scored a 1970 on the SAT (670M, 680CR, 620W). I did a couple of extracurriculars, but never earned any real accomplishments.</p>
<p>I am wondering if this is enough (when played up) to get me into GS. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>If it isn’t, then I will apply to CC leveraging athletics. (3rd in the state, track and field hurdles).</p>
<p>Just looking for the right path to take.
Thanks guys!</p>
<p>I’m a prospective student, and unfortunately have found this thread appalling.</p>
<p>One usually assumes that someone who’s been accepted to a school within the top 50 ranked universities (let alone 10) in the nation should be pretty smart. However, attempting to uplift your future prospects by claiming your school is better than this, or more selective than that, is a great sign of a misguided mind.</p>
<p>If you’re looking for your degree to carry you throughout your life and professional career, you should definitely re-evalute your idea of education. Degrees open doors, but it’s people that walk through them.</p>
<p>Anyone under the impression Ivy League certainly means success, please read this article:</p>
<p>I’m simply interested in Columbia for its position on the cutting edge of research, as well as the variety of degrees offered. It would also be nice to be surrounded by hard working people. After reading this thread though, I’m sure hoping the majority of CC students and Ivy Leaguers alike don’t have the same mentality as those of you who have judged someone “inferior” based on their academic credentials or terms of admittance.</p>
<p>Imfrickenfoofy - After starting my first semester at GS this year I can tell you that this thread (or the entire CC board) is not indicative of the actual feeling on campus. No one cares if you’re GS, CC, SEAS or Barnard (or the Business/Law Schools, SIPA…etc, for that matter). It’s a competitive atmosphere but everyone is generally supportive of each other. GS is very much like a little family; the student council puts on a lot of events, including happy hours every Thursday, where you meet a lot of other students from every school within Columbia.</p>
<p>And thank god for that, AMorrison. Hope you’ve gotten over that UCLA game in the tournament in 2006, too… it really wasn’t your fault.</p>
<p>I’ve called this thread “Frankenthread” before, and like Rasputin, it has survived many attempts on its life. At this point, I think half the posts are about trying to excuse the 2 or 3 really bigoted posts buried deep down in it somewhere. There are meaningful differences between the CC/SEAS and GS student bodies that you can generalize about, but I think the best thing this thread could possibly do is just go away.</p>
<p>“I live in NY. I will be transferring from a Community College to GS. I am still in my teens.”</p>
<p>If you went to Community College right after high school, or took one gap year, then you haven’t had a break in your education for more than a year, so you’ll have to apply as a transfer to CC (or, of course, SEAS).</p>
<p>“I’m currently 18 years old, and taking a gap year from high school.”</p>
<p>If you’re only taking one year off from high school, then you’ll have to apply to CC/SEAS. Applicants only apply to GS when they’ve taken more than a year off between high school and the start of college. If you wanted, you could take a second year off and then apply to GS.</p>
<p>There’s no point in allowing this thread to become buried deep in the bowels of CC. Anyone that does a Google search for Columbia GS is going to find this thread as results #3 and #4. The very least that can be done is to use this thread to help newcomers and dispel any myths.</p>
<p>GS could start managing their admission stats just like everyone else does in the Ivy’s. They could start with the easy parts like require the ACT/SAT I and SAT II for everyone, or at least publish the average score of the people who took them. And then incentive people to do well in order to raise the average score of the school. I am perfectly ok with them being more forgiving of past mistakes than the traditional Ivy’s, but anybody can retake the SAT’s and get a high enough score (say at the Columbia College level or higher) after enough hours of study. I know a guy who was legacy and took his SAT I around 15 times and eventually got into Harvard. GS having the same or higher stats than CC/SEAS, and also raising more money for the school -which they are trying to do very hard- would go a long way to close any existing gap with CC/SEAS in terms of prestige or opportunities for graduates. Most of the resentment from the other schools comes from a suspicion that “the stats” are lower.</p>
<p>Hi Quiman,
As far as I know, no one at HES ever says they are the same as Harvard College. Most people who go to HES do not apply for the AIB degree program. And to take class at Harvard College, one must apply for Special Student Status in order to enroll up to 2 classes per semester for one year!</p>
<p>Hi Schrader,
I agree that HES is not comparable to Columbia GS in some ways. For instance, GS students are allowed to enroll in the same classes as Columbia College students. In contrast, HES students are restricted from taking classes at Harvard College unless they apply for Special Student Status after completing eight HES classes with a 3.3 GPA or higher. However, the one thing that HES provides, unlike Columbia GS, is the opportunity to enroll in classes on a provisional basis before they can apply to the AIB Program. The provisional status at HES allows me a chance to enroll in a few classes to see if I could handle the school’s rigorous academic standards or not. In addition, the admissions committee at HES will judge you by how well you perform in your HES classes instead of your previous college record. This is an option that suits my academic interest because I would not be rejected before having an opportunity to prove myself. An opportunity that was denied to me by both Columbia GS and UPenn LPS.</p>
<p>That’s worth noting. But if someone is confident they can perform at the level required of them at Columbia, as I’m sure most GS applicants are, I think they’d see provisional enrollment as an extraneous step toward their goals.</p>
<p>Not sure why we’re feeding the ■■■■■■ here (seriously: one post and it was to take a shot at HES and G.S. = ■■■■■) but the Hahvahd Extension/G.S. analogy is erroneous. </p>
<p>Aside from the 3 required classes, HES is open-enrollment, correct? </p>
<p>Ah, yes:</p>
<p>“Harvard Extension School courses are open to the public. Simply register–no application is required.”</p>
<p>I seem to remember having to write essays, fill out applications, submit recommendation letters, take an exam, and be interviewed for G/S. Such a process indicates a slightly more selective process than that of HES. </p>
<p>I’m not qualified to discuss the courses at HES–never been there, never enrolled–but it seems to me that the comparisons between G.S. and HES end at “continuing education.”</p>
<p>Sort of a moot point, regardless. G.S. is G.S. and Hahvahd Extension is Hahvahd Extension. Comparisons are odious: hardly worth online status anxiety. </p>
<p>“This is an option that suits my academic interest because I would not be rejected before having an opportunity to prove myself. An opportunity that was denied to me by both Columbia GS and UPenn LPS.”</p>
<p>So would the thousands of students who apply to undergraduate school out of high school. Selective schools reject people. So what’s your point?</p>
<p>My point being that I applied as a transfer student from a community college. Besides, I can apply for a second BA degree at Columbia GS. I was refering to the notion that I wasn’t granted provisional status, meaning that I wanted to enroll in a few classes at Columbia GS to see if I could handle the classes. However, I guess a 3.5GPA from a community college doesn’t count.</p>
<p>If this is what you really want, why not go for it? HES could be the chance you need to prove yourself. But you have to really go above and beyond there. It will be critical to see HES for the opportunity it is rather than being resentful that you didn’t get admitted to the programs you really wanted.</p>
<p>Honestly, I can understand why the adcoms would be concerned about a 3.5 GPA at community college. Someone who is capable of handling the work at top universities should be able to earn almost all A’s at community college. (This is probably even true at particularly good community colleges. I attended the College of DuPage, one of the best community colleges in the USA, and would consider this to be the case even there.)</p>
<p>Now, I’m not saying that you’re not top university material. Instead, you might just need some validation that you are. Even if you don’t have it yet, you can earn it.</p>
<p>Last but not least, I can understand your frustration. If you’re capable of achieving but have gone through difficulties in life, it’s not easy to get to where you’re capable of being. It’s a multi-step process which often takes a few years. It’s useful to take one step at a time. E.g., even if you’re determined to eventually attend Columbia GS or Penn LPS, this is the time to focus on HES or whichever opportunities you choose to pursue in the here and now.</p>
<p>Hi Take3,
Thanks for the positive comments. Not being granted provisional status was the whole reason behind my frustration towards Columbia GS. With HES open door policy, it does give me the chance to prove myself academically. The majority of my grades from my current school are A’s. I only have 12-A’s , 6-B’s, and 1-D. I plan to replace the D that I got from my Intro. to Logic class with a better grade. Then I plan to enroll in Calculus I & II, which should transfer with no problems. I hope to make an “A” in both classes because this has been a goal of mine since high school to complete a Calculus class.</p>
<p>By “replace the D”, do you mean that the college that awarded it will replace the D with a better grade if you take the class again and earn a higher grade? Or are you just going to take it again with both grades appearing on your transcript? If there’s some way you could actually remove the D, that would help quite a bit. Even if not, getting a better grade on a second try can only help you. It paints a picture of the D being a fluke.</p>
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<p>It sounds like you enjoy learning for its own sake. Is there any way you can demonstrate this trait when applying to universities? It’s something adcoms will view positively.</p>
<p>One last thought. Could you try taking some classes at HES, earn good grades in them, possibly address the D in some manner, and then apply again to Columbia GS and Penn LPS?</p>
<p>Hey. I’ve been really interested in applying to Columbia GS for a long time and have been taking classes at a local community college. A professor I have this semester told my class that anybody with a GPA of 3.7 and above (which I have) can talk to him about applying and he will be more than willing to help. I know he has a family member somehow closely connected to the admissions committee there and would be able to I guess have some kind of influence in admissions. I’m not entirely sure how much of a role that can really play in the process if my professor himself doesn’t have any direct affiliation with the school. But anyway, I have a 3.8 GPA at Community College and scored high 600’s on the reading and writing SATS and mid 500’s on the math. I did well in high school (clubs, sports etc.) but heres the problem…i failed out of my first college that I went to straight out of a high school. It was a pretty prestigious art school that was extremely demanding and I had been only in recovery from a pretty serious illness for about 11 months before going off to school. I finished one semester with a 1.9 GPA. This is going to stay with me now through the transferring process and there is no apparent way around this. Do I have a chance? Or should I just look at second tier colleges? Any suggestions?</p>