<p>Hey, if you’re excited about it, do it. It might be a perfect fit for you.</p>
<p>For most anyone else here, I’d recommend against it.</p>
<p>Hey all!</p>
<p>First of all welcome and congrats to the new members who got in!</p>
<p>As for the Harvard Extension debate, this is not the forum for it, but I will address it since some of our most outspoken members have chimed in.</p>
<p>In my opinion and personal research, it does not hold the same degree as any university, it is in a class of it’s own. The whole open acceptance thing is a turn off to those who are in fact tuned in to what universities do nowadays. I agree with hellojan that if it suits you, go for it! And to back up such claim when I was deciding whether or not to apply to Columbia I reached out to my mentor and I questioned her about Harvard Extension. This woman is the vice president of a certain part of Wells Fargo and a writer of one of my recommendation letters that got me into Columbia GS, she also said when “hiring someone I would never question what part of Harvard they were from, the name says it all. It doesn’t matter if it’s Extension School or not.” With that being said, and she is a woman that travels all over the world representing WF, the reviews I have found online were mediocre. Most stemming from the East Coast where there is obviously a distinction. I am in Minneapolis, I am sure Harvard College and Harvard Extension have the same image in mind. With that being said, I choose to go to Columbia because I know I will have the education I want, not the name. I know I will get hired anywhere in the world, including the East Coast, and that is a freedom of mind to ME. It all comes down to what your future plans are and what you want to take with you from college. For ME, I want an education that won’t be questioned ANYWHERE and I want to take classes with my peers, not with my dog on my lap, but if that’s what life gives you, go with it and make the most of it! The bottom line is that there is a market for everything and everyone, just make sure you are following your niche. Don’t expect to go to Law School after Harvard Extension though…</p>
<p>Great insights and info, to6284! </p>
<p>Let’s consider the debate closed - on the forum, for now - and get back to celebrating the successes of future Columbians, strategizing with them, and giving them the best counsel we can!</p>
<p>i still waiting …</p>
<p>Hang in there, E! Maybe try calling the GS Admissions Office today?</p>
<p>I am still waiting too. </p>
<p>Submitted all documents by 4/25.</p>
<p>I keep checking the financial aid login with no success, then I come home thinking I am going to get a denial letter but nothing yet…</p>
<p>No news is good news I guess.</p>
<p>Has anyone who applied regular decision heard a response yet?</p>
<p>Does anyone know when will they start interviewing international applicants? I submitted my application before Apr.1 and haven’t heard anything from them yet… I am really worried…</p>
<p>There’s no harm in calling the office and asking for an update. The worst case might be that they don’t have anything to report. </p>
<p>The best case would be them sharing some information that may ease your anxiety.</p>
<p>I did call them, but they just told me to wait…</p>
<p>Argh , I have to wait more and more !!! so nervous !!!</p>
<p>OK, so I have a question for you guys who have gotten the acceptance:</p>
<p>How personal was your essay, and what did you write about ( more or less ) ? I wrote about how I was bullied in high school, and then how I overcome that, and how I moved on with life… would that be good enough for the essay ???</p>
<p>SpaceNerd, there’s no right or wrong answer. A personal statement’s story is all in the telling of it - not in the subject. </p>
<p>That said, I’ve read a few essays that have really stuck with me. My all-time favorite? It was written by an Asian-born girl who asserted her identity by asking her friends to stop calling her by her Anglo nickname. Simple, powerful stuff.</p>
<p>Being bullied, overcoming it, and moving on isn’t, on its own, a qualifier for an Ivy League (or any, for that matter) education. Not to sound insensitive, but overcoming the fact that you were bullied sounds, on the surface, as though you were just reacting to circumstance. If you were proactive about overcoming your bullying, learned life lessons that continue to impact your life and those lessons somehow make you a fit for GS, then sure, that could have some staying power depending on how you wrote about it. Not very original, but I guess mine wasn’t either. I’m also not on the admissions committee; I’m just one of the lucky schmucks who was accepted.</p>
<p>The essay is (basically) meant to be about what you’ve done with your life while you weren’t in school, address any short comings that may appear in your application and what you’ve done to overcome those, and articulating why you’re a good fit for Columbia GS and vice versa.</p>
<p>So, what did you write your personal essay on ?</p>
<p>Sean, I’m not sure that we know enough about SpaceNerd’s essay to come at it that way.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to be rude, but after reading what I said, I did come off as aggressive and presumptuous. I meant to reiterate what hellojan said about the subject being subordinate to how the story is told. I made a bunch of assumptions that I shouldn’t have, but you shouldn’t be asking if the subject of your essay is good enough to get you in.</p>
<p>Just pay attention to my second paragraph.</p>
<p>I wrote about my time spent in the military, what I learned while serving (focusing on leadership and the value of diversity); my lackluster grades in high school, addressing why it happened and why it won’t happen again; what I want to study, do with my life and why. I then tied each of these to Columbia in a very specific way, articulating how and why they meshed with Columbia so well.</p>
<p>To answer Spacenerd’s question. As you should know by now every essay is personal and so different there is no right or wrong answer. As opposed to Sean8448 my essay focused on my family dynamics and how my older brother and sister were encouraged to get married and work blue collar jobs because that’s what my parents were taught and believed in passing on. I further enhanced it by articulating how I’ve had a full-time job since I was 13 and even before graduating HS I had to work to support myself but I always found time and joy in being involved in clubs. Since graduating HS I found myself being an ESL teacher and eventually working as a manager in NYC due to a difficult divorce. Your life story is your own, there is no right or wrong answer. What matters to admissions is how you’ve taken a negative and made it positive, and if it’s been positive for you all along, how you’ve turned that around to impact others and not just yourself.</p>
<p>My essay focused on why I was frustrated by school as a teenager, my work experience, and how my attitude toward education had changed through that work experience, and therefore why GS was the right place for me now. There’s no right or wrong essay, each person needs to talk about what matters most to them, and what they want to communicate to the admissions committee.</p>
<p>3.8+ GPA with 58 college credits, US Air Force active duty and still get REJECTED???</p>