<p>Before writing anything else, I need to make clear that my Princeton rejection played a very small part in this thought process. I've considered taking a gap year for a while, and this is as good a time as any to decide whether there's any merit to the idea.</p>
<p>For those who haven't been following this -- and I don't blame you -- these were my college admissions outcomes. The dollar amounts in parentheses represent the amount of grant money each school offered me (I don't count loans as financial aid).</p>
<p>ACCEPTED: Bryn Mawr ($21,000), Dartmouth ($25,000), Wellesley ($3,000)
WAITLISTED: Swarthmore, Williams (I doubt I will be taking spots on either)
REJECTED: University of Chicago, Princeton
PENDING: Amherst, Macalester, Middlebury</p>
<p>I have a 6.3 GPA out of 7 in the Bilingual (English and French) IB Diploma program, my SAT score was 2270 (800CR, 760M, 710W), and my Subject Tests were French (800), Literature (750), Chemistry (710), Biology-M (710), Math II (700), and Spanish (700). I doubt that matters, really, but since taking a year off would probably entail applying to some colleges again, I'm throwing it out there anyway.</p>
<p>My family is from Europe, where gap years are relatively common; my mom spent a year working as an au pair in France after graduating from high school in Sweden and has actually suggested (long before I heard from any colleges) that I take one. I've suggested it to my dad, more as a theoretical possibility than anything else, and he seems relatively supportive. I'm already young for my grade since I started school a year early -- my parents determined that I was ready; I'd learned to read at two and a half -- and don't turn eighteen until late November this year. </p>
<p>Aside from the age issue, I've spent six years at a competitive private school in northwest Washington, courtesy of my parents' (ex-?)employer, and arrived at its logical conclusion: acing the IB Diploma and enrolling at a prestigious college. I've achieved everything I've supposedly worked for, but instead of being elated, I feel sheltered and restless. I'm utterly unsure of what I'd like to major in, work with, or really any important decisions pertaining to my future, but more than that, there are so many more things I want to do that don't fit into the trajectory of prestigious high school-->prestigious college-->prestigious corporate job. I've lived in North America and all over Western Europe, but I've never visited Africa, Australia, Asia, South America, Eastern Europe besides Russia-- or even the less affluent parts of my own city (the city I can call mine despite only ever having borrowed it). I've never held a job besides tutoring, babysitting, and teaching riding lessons to kids even more privileged than I am, and for someone who's about to turn eighteen, I'm shockingly inexperienced. I'd also like to revert back a bit to the person I was before high school, CC, the IB, and college applications... I was more genuine, I think, and probably more passionate (it's been tiring). I want to read and learn for pleasure and think in ideas instead of abbreviations. This is getting pretentious and oh-so-literary, so I'm going to stop, but I think I do have a few semi-legit reasons for considering a year off.</p>
<p>I've thought of a few ideas, but it's far from a complete or extremely detailed list, and many of the options aren't mutually exclusive.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Work full-time at a menial job; earn money for travel and a digital</a> camera; volunteer in Africa, Asia, or South America (if the latter, working can be combined with taking a not-too-expensive Spanish course to continue the independent study I started in high school; if the former, I'm fluent in French and would probably choose a francophone country) -- I've heard of Madventurer programs, and they're enticing enough to make me want to sign up on the spot, but I'm not sure if there are others I should look at</p></li>
<li><p>Work and/or volunteer for a local nonprofit organization, probably environmental or human/animal rights; volunteer at local public schools or charities; start my own volunteer project; once I'm eighteen, volunteer at an animal shelter</p></li>
<li><p>Find an internship or somewhat-less-menial job, possibly journalism- or publishing-related; write a book?!; write some articles; write anything...!</p></li>
<li><p>Contact the Georgetown professor who flaked on me last summer after virtually promising me a research internship in neuroscience; ask if he's still interested</p></li>
<li><p>Work as an au pair in an interesting country (I have several years' experience babysitting and have worked as a riding instructor at my stables' summer camp, so I suppose I'm qualified, but I'm not very good at entertaining people unless it's with 'razor wit and dazzling repartee,' to quote my very tongue-in-cheek "Why Chicago?" essay ;)) ... my mom went to Paris and took evening courses at the Sorbonne in her time off, but there are many other options</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I've come up with some limitations, some of which could probably be circumvented fairly easily, but others might not.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>This is a significant issue: I don't know, and won't know for a while, whether I will have a visa to the United States next year; if I can't get a new visa, I'm essentially exiled. I have a European Union passport and can live and work anywhere within the EU, but the prospect of applying for jobs across the Atlantic intimidates me, and I'm not sure what to do about living arrangements. Most of my ideas are contingent on my staying in the DC area.</p></li>
<li><p>I don't turn eighteen until November; I'm not sure who would hire a seventeen-year-old, or that I would be taken seriously. On a similar note, I'm a skinny little thing and not very imposing, which I suppose may limit my options for travel somewhat.</p></li>
<li><p>I'm not considering this specifically because I want to reapply to Princeton, but if I were to do it, I would reapply to Princeton and some others (I hope that makes sense). I'm not sure that any of my colleges would allow me to defer matriculation for a year if I apply to another university during that time, and the idea of taking a year off without anything to come back to feels dangerously reckless.</p></li>
<li><p>Turning down an Ivy League acceptance with significant financial aid for some ill-defined notion of a gap year is not, in many people's eyes, a very rational course of action.</p></li>
<li><p>My family immigrated (at least temporarily; the possibility of an extension is still pending) to the United States in 2001-- we have no "contacts" in high places and few possibilities for networking. Money is scarce, and expensive programs are not an option.</p></li>
<li><p>I'm vegan (I don't eat meat, eggs, or dairy), and I'm not sure if there are any programs for volunteering abroad that accommodate that, or if it would limit my options for au pair placements. I don't want to be uptight, but it's something I believe in very strongly and is not negotiable.</p></li>
<li><p>I don't have a driver's license, but I might be able to arrange that if I start soon enough.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>* This shouldn't matter, but I have to mention it for honesty's sake: I'd probably still be rejected from Princeton. It would be a more mature, more worldly, more decisive? me getting rejected, though, so maybe it's still worth it.</p>
<p>This is an absurdly long-winded dissertation of a post, but am I completely crazy to be thinking about this? </p>
<p>As a bit of an aside, I want to thank everyone on this board for being so supportive and helpful throughout this process. Without you, I doubt I would have had the courage or knowledge to apply to American colleges at all, let alone the caliber of schools I applied and was accepted to. I'm so incredibly grateful, and I hope I've managed to convey that properly.</p>