Admissions Question

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of Virginia
1

<p>This is mostly a question for Dean J, but if anyone else feels they have some insight into my problem then feel free to chime in.</p>

<p>Dean J, this is more a question in general for admissions reps than specifically being about the University of Virginia, but I figure you can probably help me out anyway. I have two questions actually.</p>

<p>First, I am a senior in high school, and I may not be able to attend any of the schools I applied to this year due to financial issues. However, I don't really want to go to community college, at least not yet. So my plan is this: take a year off and work to help pay for college, and apply to some new schools. Would this be favorable or unfavorable in terms of my application strength.</p>

<p>Second, my high school offers very few honors/AP courses, and I have not even taken all of them. Maybe half or a little less (think like two AP's and two honors). It has also hurt in other ways, because while I am easily the most capable student in my class (~20 people, not being egotistical), my class rank has suffered accordingly. My reason for not taking the classes is not what I consider to be a good or valid excuse, so I don't think it would help to state, but maybe you have a different point of view. Basically, the kids in honors were in the same classes with me, but had maybe 2-3 extra assignments per semester, and, while this is not a very significant increase, I did not see the point in taking them just so I could have the word "honors" next to the name of the class on my report card. I am a first generation student also, so my parents had no insight into the college application process, nor do we have a real guidance/college counselor. Anyways, my question is, if i were to take a few courses at a local community college this summer (as I plan to do merely to explore my interests) and get A's, would that help make up for the lack of high school course rigor/class rank (~ top 30%)? Also, would it be more beneficial to take them at the local university (U of Colorado- Boulder)? If so, how much of a difference would it make, because we're not exactly swimming in money and I wouldn't want to pay extra for a rather negligible difference.</p>

<p>Well, thanks for reading that giant wall of text (if you even bothered).</p>

2

<p>I can’t really say how Community College work will affect you, since I don’t have an application in front of me. </p>

<p>If you knew you were the most capable student in the class, I don’t really understand why you wouldn’t know the value of taking the top courses offered at your school or why you wouldn’t feel prepared to take them.</p>

<p>That being said, taking a gap year is becoming more and more common. I think it’s a great option for students who don’t want to go straight on to college after high school. Every year, we have admitted students who defer for a year and we have students who apply a year after graduating from high school. The activities those students have done during their gap years range from working to doing service work. I think their perspective can be an asset to other students here.</p>

3

<p>Ok, but would it make any difference taking the classes at a state U as opposed to a community college?</p>

<p>I didn’t see the value of taking the honors classes because of two reasons: 1. I still believe that I would not have learned any more than by being in the regular class (after all, we were in the exact same classroom at the exact same time, with the exact same teacher) , just a bit more work. and 2. As I mentioned I had **no<a href=“absolutely%20none”>/b</a> knowledge about college admissions because neither of my parents went to college and I didn’t have a college counselor.</p>