In short: can great stats/essay/letters overcome a shortage of life experience to get admitted into GS?
About me:
I left high school as a junior (three years ago) and have recently obtained my GED. During these three years I have not been formally educated, although I will be starting community college in Fall '16. Since GS nonetheless requests high school transcripts if 2 years are completed, I’ll note that I had a fair HS GPA for two years which would have likely led to admission into state schools but certainly not into any elite colleges (unweighted ~3.6, top 15%, with mostly honors courses and 2 APs).
My plans are to apply to transfer in Spring '18 or Fall '18 if I am able to maintain a 3.8+ GPA during community college and hit my target score for the SATs (1520+).
The three years I spent in between formal education were great for personal growth, and I imagine I’d be able to write a decent essay, but I didn’t achieve anything tangible. As a minor (I have just turned 18), I lived with my parents and did not work, intern, or volunteer. These years have given me the drive to go back to school and the determination to do well, but is that really enough for Columbia?
Thanks in advance.
Man, just look at my story on my profile. We are quite similar.
So what caused your personal growth during your three year break? Not trying to come off mean or sarcastic, just trying to help you brainstorm on ideas. Did you work at all, or maybe do some volunteer work? I’m sure there has got to be something that you can write about in your essay that helped you grow and mature. Also, if you don’t plan on applying until spring 2018- fall 2018, you still have time to try to get some good selfless personal experiences to write about before you apply.
And if you don’t mind sharing, what prompted you to leave high school during your junior year? Maybe if you focus more on the thing that caused you to leave high school and how you have moved past that, it might suffice as a compelling story.
@YSMartinez thanks! Actually, I think your life has been much more impressive than mine. Even if you don’t end up at Columbia I’m sure you’ll end up doing great things. Interestingly, I also live in Texas which makes the similarities quite eerie.
@nygs7792 I left HS when I was 15 and a junior in high school. I was pretty advanced academically, being accelerated one year and I was concurrently taking 6 AP classes including calculus 1. (I’m sure Columbia College may not be impressed by this, but I’d just like to say that I was already doing better than a typical high school dropout so it wasn’t academic ineptitude that caused me to leave.) Throughout HS I was crippled by severe depression, my family’s poverty, social isolation, and sexuality issues (don’t really want to play the gay card… but yeah) and I wasn’t able to handle my rigorous HS classes as well as my perfectionism would have liked, so I just left.
The 3 years being “amazing” for personal growth is probably a bit of an exaggeration, but I learned how to manage my depression and started to accept myself for who I am and began desiring to improve myself through education. I am well aware that 3 years of unproductivity is excessively long, and my life certainly wasn’t as filled with hardship as some other people’s (although my parents aren’t college graduates themselves and didn’t really push me that hard). I adopted a dog as emotional support and he ran away, but otherwise the time off was simply putting my life back together. I didn’t really do anything during that time, but I won some very minor online gaming competitions which I’m sure nobody will be impressed with.
First semester of college was pretty amazing, though. I earned a 4.0 over 18 credits, all my instructors loved me, and I got a 1560 (out of 1600) on my first attempt at the SAT so I’m sure it’s completely up to how well I can express myself or if my unimpressive story/lack of EC’s is the death of me.
Classes: Calculus I, College (Algebra-based) Physics I, US History I, Fundamentals of Programming, English Comp I (credit by exam)
I think my story is quite similar to that of Maxwell Bertolero (who got into GS after 2? semesters of community college), but I don’t know whether or not he just did amazing things pre-Columbia (outside of academics) that led to his acceptance. This (combined with my strong first semester) has also invigorated me to maybe attempt at applying for fall 17 and reapply if I am rejected. Note: I do plan on starting to volunteer this semester which may or may not be enough.
I feel your struggle with depression, as well as poverty and isolation.
I’m a Christian, and I grew up being bullied because of that. (I had gay friends who were bullied alongside of me, ironically).
It is so important to accept oneself and desire progress, and it is a wonderful and life-affirming thing. I truly wish you the best 
please feel free to email me if/when you get in and let me know how it turned out, or for any reason at all.
You’ll do great, Columbia or not.
I think both of your stories are very interesting and definitely fit the criteria for GS students. You struggled, you overcame, and now you’re both doing better then ever.
My story is very different from both of yours (I am currently a marine and was not by any means a gifted student before the marine corps, and I made my fair share of mistakes) but I think the same motif is existent in all of our stories: overcoming adversity and welcoming success.
Anyway not to get off on a tangent, I think if you are able to explain the reasons for why you did what you did in high school, explain how you have grown from where you were, and somehow tie that in to a specific purpose as to why you belong at Columbia and how you will succeed, I think you will be extremely competitive (both of you that is). I wouldn’t worry about how your story compares to others. I think they are more concerned with how far you have come in your own journey and how much you have learned from your experiences. Being able to back all of that up with amazing stats (which both of you seem to have) is obviously ideal.