Can someone please tell me how important high school transcripts are in the college admissions decision process? I have a problem with my high school transcripts and I’m not sure how this will impact my desire to go to school. Here is some quick background info on my situation:
For personal family reasons I had to move out of the house and get a full time job when I was 16. My grades immediately plummeted as I began to skip school and fall asleep in class. Up until that point I had decent grades and all honors and AP classes. Eventually I chose to drop-out because the situation became unmanageable. My high school VP talked me into taking the California High School Proficiency Exam which I passed. This means I have a certificate that is legally equivalent to a high school diploma.
Over the years I have studied different technologies and computer programming at libraries. I became very good at computer programing and was able to purchase my own home with the money I made. I recently sold this home and made a huge profit. Now that money is not such a huge issue, I would like to go to college and pursue my dream of becoming a computer engineer or electronic engineer. The school I would like to attend is Virginia Tech because I currently live in VA and I could get in-state tuition. In addition, I think they have a great engineering program and I like the rural location.
Now comes the dilemma, I am 27 years old and I’ve never taken a college course. I have an incomplete high school record that is tragic at best. I have never taken the SAT. If I somehow get a very high score on the SAT would I have a chance of getting into a school like VA Tech?
If there is anyone out there who understands my situation please offer me advice on what I should do and/or what my chances are of pursuing my dream of getting a higher education at a good school.
Your story is quite familiar! Both my husband and I are currently working on getting our college degrees after some interesting circumstances during our high school years. I’m not an expert, but I know what has worked for us. My husband actually dropped out his junior year and got his GED. He enlisted in the Army, had to leave b/c of a medical discharge. After we bought a house and got married, he decided to go back to school. He is actually majoring in computer engineering, and is looking to transfer to VA Tech for his Master’s degree.
I would say that from experience, not having taken a college course is not nearly as important as having the drive and desire to succeed. If you do well on your SAT and have a counselor at the school who is really willing to work with you, you can overcome all sorts of things you might think would impede your progress.
I would suggest, however, starting out at a local community college or somesuch to start, that way you could build up your GPA and such before you transfer to the school of your choice.
Keiser College and American Intercontinental University both offer degree programs online where you can get your A.A. or A.S. in a relatively short amount of time, and still get a quality education. There are many other colleges that offer this, but these are the only two I have direct experience with.
I have found especially at Keiser, the staff and counselors there are incredible when it comes to helping you acheive your goals. They know that we all have different situations and work schedules, and that many of us are overcoming some previous academic difficulties.
Please don’t let the fact that you have a spotty academic record keep you from pursuing this if it’s what you really want. Both my husband and I were AP/IB students who for one reason or another ended up giving up on high school. We’re both in college now and we’re both on the dean’s list. It can be done!
I would call or e-mail someone at the admissions office and outline your circumstances. Schools often have different criteria for admissions of non-standard students such as yourself.
Take XJETGIRLX’s advice and take some community college courses. They will be probably be cheaper than Va Tech and will allow you to get some general education requirements out of the way, get used to taking classes, and provide you with a transcript that means something. You have been out of high school long enough that that transcript would be almost meaningless even if it had good grades on it.
When you have a few courses behind you, get an SAT or ACT study guide and learn how to take those tests. Write an essay to attach to your college application that describes your history and your goals. It sounds like it would make a good read.
XJETGIRLX, Thanks so much for the encouraging and helpful response! It’s good to know that there are others out there who have similar situations to my own and yet still managed to get into a decent school. I will follow your advice about speaking with a school counseler. I’m so ignorant about the whole sign-up process that I just assumed it was all done through the mail. Maybe I will have some more questions for you down the road as I’m a total beginner to all of this. I’ll keep you updated…thanks again!
KneadToKnow, Thanks for the info…seems that the key here is to establish a good relationship with the admissions officer and/or counseler…
I don’t have any direct experience with this, but I remember talking to a guy in my college French class (in 2000) who had done something like start college, leave, and come back years later. IIRC, the school or the state had a program that basically meant, if you’ve been out of school for at least 10 years, your past academic achievments/failures are moot, and you get a fresh start.
I also know that it can sometimes be difficult to transfer credits from a community college to a larger university. My uncle had to re-take many of his classes because the university he transferred to wouldn’t accept them.
I’m not saying that starting out at a community college isn’t a good idea, it might well be, but call VA Tech FIRST and find out what programs they offer for people in your situation, and what their advice would be. If they recommend starting out in community college, find out beforehand what classes you should take and whether the credits will transfer. Get a written plan-of-action and keep in contact with the admissions or the counselors at VA Tech so that you can find out about any policy changes that might affect you.
Virginia Tech has a Non-Traditional Student Organization, they might be able to give you pointers on who to contact at the admissions office or the school in general. Although they’re likely to have lots of varied backgrounds that won’t exactly correspond to your situation, they might be able to give you a general idea of what being an older student at VA Tech is like and what they did in terms of community college, etc.
I thought Virginia Tech took very very few transfers. Whether or not that is the case, I really think you should look in to the school you want to go to, rather than jetting off to community college. For instance, the university may transfer credits better from one comm. college than another. You’d want to go to the preffered one, if possible.
I dropped out of high school the first semester of my sophomore year. My grades were horrible, some of them were in the single digits (out of 100). I got my GED, and went to work full time at an auto parts store.
Later, at 26 years old, I decide I want to go to school. I didn’t have to take the SAT or ACT. All they made me do was take a placement test and I was in, no problem.
I don’t know if VA tech is very hard to get into, but I found a lack of high school to be almost no impediment at all.
Small college admissions representative checking in…
As others have said, your life experience and professional accomplishments will be a tremendous help for your admissions case. Our office looks at those factors all the time when considering a “non-traditional” candidate. Many colleges have guidance procedures for such candidates.
However, many do not, and I am not at all familiar with Va Tech. My recommendation would be to schedule an appointment with the Admissions office (when you make the call, be sure to point out that you would be a non-traditional candidate, as many schools have seperate admissions office for such students). Explain your situation and they will likely outline your options, which will probably be:
They can get you accepted and you can start at Va Tech now.
They would like to see you get some formal academics at a community college or possibly another four year school before making a decision on your acceptance.
If its ‘2’, hopefully Va Tech will have an articulation agreement in place with a local community college, making the transferring of credits a very simple process. For folks in your situation, I often recommend a semester or two in the local community college system (here in St. Louis, it has a pretty good reputation) to get the feet wet before jumping into what would likely be a tougher academic situation.
When you meet with the Va Tech admissions folks, it would be a good idea to have a copy of your resume as well as your GED diploma. You may also want to speak with the GED office in California and ask them to send your documentation to the Va Tech admissions office.
I am 26, I have a G.E.D., and took the ACT about 7 years ago. I am inrolling in a comunity college monday. They require a placement test, to see how well I do at Math, Science, and Language Arts. My G.E.D. superceded the high school trancripts, and my old ACT score is superceded by thier placement test. I have no idea if any of this is relevant, but it’s late, and I’m very happy to be finally going to college.
