High School Ged

Q: I'm supposed to be in my senior year but just dropped out and enrolled in a GED course. I never really went to high school. I went a few times a week in my Freshman/Sophmore years (In Bronx Science, a world renown high school with more Nobel Prize winners than any school in the world) and I basically stopped going March of my sophmore year. I still went, but like once a month. I have almost 300 absences on my transcript and because I still enrolled in 7 courses a semester, I continued to get 40s in them, resulting in a 57 average (my GPA would be 0 - good thing they don't give negative numbers). I have a high SAT score though. Scored 1350 my first time (V640,M710) and just took it again yesterday (probably be at least 1450. I did much better this time.) I'm taking 3 SATIIs this november. What are my chances of getting into a good 4 year college (have no intention of going to two year schools)? The ones I'm looking at are: UC Santa Barbara (or Santa Cruz), Rutgers -New Brunswick, Florida State, and NYU (reach!). So what are my chances with a GED (hopefully I get a high GED score) and a high SAT score? Most colleges still need my high school transcript and I'm worried they'll see my 0GPA (even though I didn't even attend any of those classes).

A:check back to previous messages in the newsgroup, the subject of underachieving, high SAT scoring people has been the latest big subject here. Some of us intend to create an underachiever's FAQ guide to applying to colleges. You and I have a very similar record. I went to Stuyvesant and had a 70 average, while going to classes sporadically and turning in very little homework. My problem was depression.

I don't know what your reasons were, but I'm sure there is/was something. I dropped out March of Junior year, scored 1540 on the SAT and thought I was fucked. I applied to a school called Simons Rock College of Bard, a school for younger students. Unfortunately, I sent my application in late, so I didn't get in until the next available class which is 90% likely to be next fall instead of the spring that I was hoping for. I'm taking the SAT IIs this November just like you, in Math 2c, physics, and writing. So now I have a fallback school, but I'm applying to schools anyway, because I don't think I want to go to a school where I am 1-2 years older than all my classmates.