<p>Yaktowner - I’d talk to the GS admissions department about it. Let them know the details. They may suggest you take some classes at a community college to prove you’re ready to excel in the classroom now.</p>
<p>I gave them a call and they said that the training program I went through is solid enough proof that I can handle a more demanding academic lifestyle, but they said not to completely bank on it. Something I did not know is that if rejected, I can get a feedback from them and apply again for any semester. There is no wait period. So its looking like a lot is riding on the essay. Wish me luck!</p>
<p>Hi there, are there any experts on the Columbia school of GS that I can pm? I want to give a shot at applying to this school and have many questions.</p>
<p>Regards,
Mark</p>
<p>There’s a whole sub-message board about it. You can also PM me, but I imagine you’ll get the same answers in the public forum. It should be at the top of the general Columbia page.</p>
<p>By the way, is this an error from collegeboard or has the acceptance rate been up to 35%? I’ve always read that it’s around 23%…</p>
<p>[College</a> Search - Columbia University: School of General Studies - GS - At a Glance](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>It went up, but collegedata still has it at 23%</p>
<p>[Columbia</a> University, School of General Studies Admissions Information - CollegeData College Profile](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1436]Columbia”>Columbia University, School of General Studies Acceptance Rate | CollegeData)</p>
<p>College Search’s numbers don’t make sense. Fall and spring incoming classes are both larger than 55 students. Summer admission? Omitting early admissions? Something’s off.</p>
<p>EDIT: I should add I don’t have much opinion on what the real number is (although I imagine personally it’s much higher than what my classmates wish), just that the numerator/denominator in that 35% are funky.</p>
<p>I am the parent of a high school junior who very well may want to apply to Columbia General Studies. She is on a professional ballet track and hopes to obtains her degree slowly, while dancing professionally. I have questions pertaining to her chances of admission. Because of her intensive ballet study, she has opted to homeschool for high school. She is dual-enrolled at a respected community college, but has taken mostly online courses. Any suggestions how she might improve her chances of admission? She has won merit scholarships for dance, although she is not interested in pursuing a college major in dance.</p>
<p>In rough order, make sure she has excellent: essay, grades, SAT scores, letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>There’s no one trick to GS (General Studies) admissions. Typically most students did well in whatever their most recent academic effort was (previous academics won’t hold you back much, nor are online classes particularly discriminated against, as far as I know). Ideally in the 3.8+ range, but that’s not a hard requirement. She should have good SAT/ACT scores, but they don’t need to be quite as good as Columbia College for most applicants. </p>
<p>She should write an essay that really reflects her desires, and why GS in particular is an attractive program. The academics are HARD, and balancing full time dance with part time study will be tough. Most of the dancers and athletes I know at GS are now retired. However there are plenty of working parents, and if they can balance their schedules, your daughter can too. </p>
<p>What I would suggest is trying to meet with some admissions folks soon. If you’re near NY they have information sessions pretty regularly. If not, there are typically admissions folks going to college fairs all over the country. You can find details on gs.columbia.edu, emailing <a href=“mailto:gs-admit@columbia.edu”>gs-admit@columbia.edu</a> or by calling 212-854-2772.</p>
<p>Note that GS has its own subforum: [Columbia</a> School of General Studies - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/columbia-school-general-studies/]Columbia”>Columbia School of General Studies - College Confidential Forums)</p>
<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I wanted to post all the information I could to help educate people who are considering GS, but are having second thoughts due to the negative posts throughout the majority of these [ivy league] college forums. I was recently admitted into Columbia GS, a fact that I take tremendous pride in, and the decision to apply to Columbia was not a hard one to make. *(A little side note about myself: I do not rush into decisions that will have a tremendous impact on my life both mentally and financially). I wanted to be as thorough as possible after considering Columbia GS, so I read and researched just about everything I could that had to do, or mentioned, Columbia GS and this is what I have found:</p>
<p>Brief Overview:
Columbia GS is one of the official three undergraduate schools at Columbia University, dedicated to non-traditional students. The other two undergraduate schools that make up Columbia University are Columbia College and Columbia Engineering (formerly known as SEAS), which are dedicated to traditional students. You must apply to GS if you have taken at least a one year break in your education, and you cannot apply to either CC/CE if you have taken more than two semester course loads at another school. In addition, you are automatically ineligible to apply to CC if you have taken over a year break from school. Also, you cannot apply to more than one school during the same cycle. </p>
<p>Being that all three schools are official undergraduate schools of Columbia University, they are all considered to be in the “Ivy League”. Some have questioned the prestige of Columbia GS because the admissions process and criteria differs from that of CC, but it should also be mentioned that CE too has a completely different admission process and criteria from either schools. This is because all three schools have different admission committees that review their own applicants for each specific school, thus the different admission rates for each school. The rankings are based on the combined average CC/CE admission rates. GS rates are excluded in the overall admission rates, because (from what I’ve gathered):
1.) Most applicants for GS are transfers opposed to first year students
2.) GS applicants are non-traditional it would not make sense to lump them into the admission rates with the other traditional applicants considering there is different criteria that are examined. Nearly all the other schools in the nation only record traditional students admission rates, it only makes sense for Columbia to do the same.
*if there are more logical reasons I’m sure someone else with add to this section.</p>
<p>Now, I have no idea what life is like at Columbia nor after graduation, but the fact of the matter is that GS is a part of Columbia U, regardless of how the other students or peers throughout academia view GS students. Prestige has become synonymous with admission rates, but I would not be too worried about GS admission rates considering there is only a fraction of qualified applicants able to apply to GS (about 1500-2000 transfer apps) compared to the 34,000 first year apps CC/CE had this past year. Not to mention CE had admission rates varying between 23-31% prior to 2006. In reality if you took CC/CE admissions rate for 2005(I believe this is the correct year) CC had a rate of 12% and CE had a rate of 31% making their combined rate about 21.5%, similar to the rate of what GS posted recently. Their marks have come down dramatically in recent year (especially after Obama was elected in 2008), but this is because of the substantial increase in applicants. As the years pass, GS will continue to have lower acceptance rates as it becomes more well know (if you want to look at it in that light).</p>
<p>As for the classes, there are only a few that GS students can’t automatically register for (I believe they can petition for registration into these courses however), but they have the same equivalent course in the GS sections. The rest of the classes, including the core requirements are the same and integrated. You learn side by side with the other students of the college as well as from the same professors, and graduate with the same Columbia University degree, with only minor adjustments:</p>
<p>GS diploma:
[Regarding</a> the School of General Studies Diploma | General Studies](<a href=“http://www.gs.columbia.edu/news-article-find-out-more?ntitle=4164]Regarding”>http://www.gs.columbia.edu/news-article-find-out-more?ntitle=4164)
This is an image of the diploma, posted on the GS website</p>
<p>CE diploma:
[File:SEASdiploma2003.jpg</a> - WikiCU, the Columbia University wiki encyclopedia](<a href=“http://www.wikicu.com/File:SEASdiploma2003.jpg]File:SEASdiploma2003.jpg”>File:SEASdiploma2003.jpg - WikiCU, the Columbia University wiki encyclopedia)
As you can see this is nearly identical to the GS diploma (along with 13 graduate school diploma)</p>
![http://www.wikicu.com/File:SEASdiploma2003.jpg]File:SEASdiploma2003.jpg](http://www.wikicu.com/File:SEASdiploma2003.jpg%5DFile:SEASdiploma2003.jpg){kind=link}
<p>CC diploma:
[File:Ccdiploma2007.jpg</a> - WikiCU, the Columbia University wiki encyclopedia](<a href=“http://www.wikicu.com/File:Ccdiploma2007.jpg]File:Ccdiploma2007.jpg”>File:Ccdiploma2007.jpg - WikiCU, the Columbia University wiki encyclopedia)
[Diplomas</a> - WikiCU, the Columbia University wiki encyclopedia](<a href=“Diplomas - WikiCU, the Columbia University wiki encyclopedia”>Diplomas - WikiCU, the Columbia University wiki encyclopedia)
Only CC and Columbia Law have diplomas in Latin, but are worded the same as the other diplomas (including the GS diploma)</p>
![http://www.wikicu.com/File:Ccdiploma2007.jpg]File:Ccdiploma2007.jpg](http://www.wikicu.com/File:Ccdiploma2007.jpg%5DFile:Ccdiploma2007.jpg){kind=link}
<p>The only real difference you will find with these diplomas are the dean’s signature line. They will correspond to the specific school in which you attended (ie: General Studies, Columbia College, etc…)</p>
<p>One last this I wanted to reiterate, is that GS is a unique school within the “Ivy League”. There is no other “Ivy League” school that houses a specific undergraduate college for non-traditional students. Yale and Brown have programs within their college, but they are not schools of either institution. Yale only accepts about 5-10 transfers (and usually they are extreme cases such as Mike Richter - former NY Rangers Goaltender) into their Eli Whitney program, who graduate with a degree from Yale College, because there is no other undergraduate school at Yale. The same goes for Brown’s RUE program; however, you must be away from school for at least 5 years. The other programs mentioned on this board that were compared to GS were Harvard extension and UPenn LPS. Harvard extension is similar to Columbia’s School of Continued Education, but is open enrollment. You can take courses at Harvard under certain contingencies, and you will not be fully integrated as some people alluded to. UPenn’s LPS is not a school, it is actually a program housed within another college (School of Arts & Sciences) at UPenn.</p>
<p>I hope this helps. It is late so please forgive any misspellings or shortcomings. If I left out any information, I will add it another time.</p>
<p>Its kind of ironic how on one hand we have a few patronizers equating the School of GS to any ole public institution…and on the other hand the average GPA of a GS student at Columbia is far above all of their counterparts while taking the same classes as a CC, Barnard or SEAS student…so on one hand GS students aren’t qualified and on the other hand they are so qualified that they do better than everyone else…a quagmire indeed …</p>
<p>Hi everyone!
I graduated from a 2 year college in Spring 2009. After that, I enrolled into another college in Fall 2009, but ended up withdrawing. I then completed Fall and Spring semesters of 2010. I sat out Spring 2011, but attended Fall 2011. I am currently not enrolled this semester (Spring 2012), also.</p>
<p>In case that was terribly confusing so here’s a breakdown:</p>
<p>Fall 2007- Spring 2009: Completed, A.S. degree received
Fall 2009: Attended but withdrew from all courses
Spring 2010: Completed
Fall 2010: Completed
Spring 2011: Did not attend
Fall: 2011: Completed
Spring 2012: Did not attend</p>
<p>G.S. asks “Do you have a one-year break in your education since high school?” As you can see, i’ve had several semester breaks throughout my educational journey but not a consecutive full year break. Am I eligible to apply or am I looking too deep into this? Also, is it hard to get accepted into this institution? (My grades aren’t superb but aren’t terrible, either) I’ve worked full time since Summer 2009 and if i’m accepted to G.S. I will be a full time student. If these questions have already been answered on this thread, my apologies (this thread is terribly long!). </p>
<p>This is my first post so thanks in advance for your help & please forgive my ignorance! :)</p>
<p>GS is great!</p>
<p>Let’s just say that if you’re a traditional undergraduate student (i.e. going to college right after high school graduation), the School of General Studies is not for you.</p>
<p>Unless of course you’re one of the many traditional undergraduates who wants a dual-degree program with JTS or Sci-Po.</p>
<p>hellojan:</p>
<p>I’m sorry, that’s not traditional and there are very few students in that program.</p>
<p>Ah, I was just referencing your bit about going to college right out of high school. And that, I thought, was how you were defining traditional.</p>
<p>I’ve always liked William Sloane Coffin’s line about us, as modern people, having to both recover and recover from tradition. </p>
<p>GS is for everyone. It’s never mattered if you we’re straight out of HS or a woman or a veteran. That’s our version of traditional.</p>
<p>GS is anything thats not traditional. im doing a dual BA between sciences po in france and columbia GS. for two years im in france then ill get a second degree by finishing my next two years at columbia.</p>
<p>I get that GS takes the same classes as CC students, in general. However, how can CU say that GS students are treated just as well as SEAS and CC students when CU’s website clearly states that in order to be a CU legacy their parent would have to have graduated from CC or SEAS. I’m just confused how CU picks and chooses when to treat GS the same as SEAS or CC. Can someone explain how one could graduate from SEAS and have a legacy child go to CC? Or would a legacy only be considered CC to CC? If the first is possible than wouldn’t a graduate from GS be able to be a legacy to CC/SEAS?</p>
<p>Could you tell me there is any Chinese student(from mainland China) in Dual program? Thank you!</p>