<p>Hi guys,
I need some help. I'm white, 20 and from Massachusetts, though right now living in NYC.
I was homeschooled ('unschooled') for my last two years of high school -- the first two years were nothing stellar; all honors classes but just average grades. </p>
<p>I taught myself for the rest of my high school career and then went to a women's college for one year ('07-08). I did pretty well: 3.5 GPA, involved with the alumnae association and was a student ambassador to incoming Japanese and Korean students.</p>
<p>I don't want to include my SAT scores because I took them two years ago and they were nothing stellar, around 1800 :</p>
<p>Currently I'm taking some time off to "figure out what I really want to do" and write! Looking to transfer this coming Spring. </p>
<p>My main concerns:</p>
<p>1) Will Smith put more weight on my high school records than I want?<br>
2) Will they embrace my 'unique' situation or no?
3) I'm pretty confident in my ability to write some killer essays about what I've been doing with my time off and how eager I am to go to Smith.</p>
<p>I would definitely make the trek up to Smith to do the optional interview. If you can’t come up to Smith then you should try to set up an interview with an alum in your area. Tell them about your unschooling experience, and why you chose that. Tell them about why you think your grades weren’t great in high school and what has changed since then that makes you think you will succeed in a challenging environment. Tell them what your first college experience was lke, and why you didn’t continue and what “figure out what I really want to do” means to you and why you had to do it before graduating, as opposed to after. They’ll need and want to know the answers to those things when they read your application so it’s better that the answers come from you, then from the imagination of an admissions officer. </p>
<p>Essays are good, but transcripts are going to be weighted more heavily. You’ve got to make the case, either in the interview or the essay if it’s not made on the transcript, that you are well prepared for this level of rigor. The process is very holistic but when it comes down to it, they aren’t going to accept students they don’t feel are academically prepared to succeed. </p>
<p>So I wouldn’t say your untraditional past is a minus, in fact, it will probably help you stand out from the pack. But you need to do the extra work (great essay, recommendations, interview) to prove that even though you took a different path, you’re up to the current challenge you’re taking on.</p>