Accommodations for Applicants Affected by Natural Disasters, Civil Unrest/War, or Regional Internet Outages

Columbia GSAS is aware that circumstances beyond an applicant’s control may affect their ability to submit an application or supporting materials in time to meet an application deadline.  If you are affected by a natural disaster, civil unrest/war, or by a regional internet outage, Columbia GSAS will do its best to accommodate the submission and consideration of your application.

We encourage you to complete and submit your application as soon as possible. GSAS will alert the program about the current conditions, but you should add a supplemental statement to your file explaining your particular situation. GSAS Admissions will enable the addition of supporting materials, such as official test score reports and letters of recommendation, after the deadline date for your program. 

Please note: If the deadline for the program to which you intend to apply has already passed, or if you believe you may not be able to complete your application prior to its deadline, please write to the GSAS Office of Admissions at [email protected] to determine whether it is possible to submit a late application. Though we make every effort to accommodate applicants impacted by circumstances beyond their control, your application may be reviewed only if the department indicates space remains in its incoming class at the time of your inquiry. Late-submission requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

If you have not yet taken the TOEFL or GRE (if required for your program) at the time of submission of the application, please enter the date that you will be taking the test/s on the application.  When you have received your scores, please upload a copy of your personal score report or a screenshot of your scores from the ETS website via the UPLOAD MATERIALS portal that appears on the APPLICATION STATUS page after you have submitted the application. The unofficial scores will be used in the review of your application until the official scores are received. 

Please note that even though the online application system will indicate that your application is incomplete, it will still be reviewed by the appropriate faculty admissions committee. All admissions decisions will be based on the materials available at the time of review.

If you will not be taking the required standardized test/s for several months, please be aware that the test scores may arrive too late to be taken into account in the review process, since admissions decisions may already be in progress. In such cases it may be preferable to wait until next year to submit your application.

Columbia GSAS will add letters of recommendation to your file as soon as they are submitted.  However, letters must be submitted via the online application. We do not accept letters emailed, mailed, or faxed to the Admissions Office.

If you need to request an application fee waiver, you can access information about submitting an Extenuating Circumstances Fee Waiver Request here.  The link to the fee waiver request form will be accessible on the APPLICATION STATUS page after you have submitted the application. 

If you have any specific questions not addressed here, please write to [email protected] for assistance.