<p>I'll keep it short. I'm in my early 30's. Parents are blue collar. Never went to college, terrible high school GPA, but came out knowing a half dozen programming languages. Professional software developer for 15 years, self-taught. Spearheaded huge, innovative software projects, and presented internationally on them. My letter of recommendation options are impressive.</p>
<p>Took the practice SAT a few months ago out of the blue and got a 2250. I'm going to night school at a top ranked private university part time for a year, expect to get very good grades (not much to distract me).</p>
<p>Stanford is my #1 choice to go back for a combination of computer science and business/entrepreneurship.</p>
<p>Assuming I get a very good SAT score, and a high GPA on 40 quarter credits, rate my chances of being part of that 2% they actually let transfer.</p>
<p>It’s hard to say. I did meet a nontraditional student (transfer) once before, and she was in her late 30s. In general admissions to Stanford are pretty unpredictable, but it’s even harder to say for transfers. Nobody can tell based solely on your SAT/GPA. So here’s what I know about transfers: in general they’re extremely accomplished, as in “tomorrow’s leaders of the world” accomplished. They’re often the sort who get prestigious fellowships like the Rhodes. They often, if not mostly, come from community colleges rather than other prestigious universities. And mostly they’re traditional (i.e. about 20 years old).</p>
<p>That said, nothing you’ve mentioned would put you out of the running, but I don’t see anything that would carry you over to the ‘accept’ pile either - although I don’t know what ‘huge, innovative software projects’ you’re talking about, so I can’t say whether they’re significant enough to push you into the accept pile.</p>
<p>I’m a little cautious about posting too many details publicly, I tried sending you a private message, but it seems your mailbox is full.</p>