Best way to compensate for a low undergraduate GPA?

[herodrone]

Hi, I am trying to apply and get into Georgia Tech's online masters program (possible others).  I have a pretty terrible undergraduate GPA of 2.7, but have been given opportunities as well as mentorship and excelled professionally over the past 6 years.  In that time I have re-visited many of my undergraduate topics on my own honestly feel like I have a good grasp on them.  Also, I have looked at most of the curriculum and mostly already understand it, or am absolutely prepared for.  Assuming that I can handle the course load but will be rejected due to a low undergraduate GPA, what is the most efficient way to remedy this?

1) Taking extra classes seems to be the general recommendation, I have a few choices and was wondering what would look best
  a) Re-taking undergraduate courses I did poorly in at Harvard Extension School (ex. CSCI E-61). Do graduate level courses look better?
  b) Take courses or get a certificate at UCLA Extension program.
  c) Take the free udacity version of their curriculum and show that I can handle it
  d) Take courses at a local CC (not many courses offered above a jr level, does this seriously work?)
  e) Get a micromasters from EdX


2) When you say the last 60 units are the most important, are these still appendable post undergrad? Can some of those units come from HES or a local CC 6 years later?

[dfrecore]

I personally would talk to someone at the school about it, since THEY are the experts in what they want to see. There are so many variables, that it's impossible for someone here to tell you what a particular school wants.

For instance, I have a terrible GPA from when I was 18, but a great GPA now. I'm assuming that a school will take that into account. Do I know for certain that they will? Nope. But I would certainly talk to any school I was applying to, and talk to someone there. If they recommended a certain path for me to get a better chance to get in, then I would decide if that path was worth the time/money to take, or if there was another school that had an easier (or no) path, and would take me as is.

[davewill]

I applied and was accepted to the program. Unfortunately, I dropped out because I couldn't handle the time commitment.

OMSCS is unique in that they do not have a limit on the number of students they can accept. Unfortunately, they are also unlikely to respond to an inquiry because of the volume of applications they take in. The main criteria is whether they believe you can be successful. I would not take any action that would delay applying to the program. They may well take a look at the rest of your application and accept you. Also go over to /r/OMSCS on Reddit. They have threads where people have posted their application details, then later reported whether they got in. The Google+ group is also very active and helpful.

HES is kind of expensive, but doing well in a graduate level course from there would probably be a powerful indicator that you can handle grad level coursework, plus I know that people have succeeded in transferring courses from there into the program. But don't do it unless they turn you down.