An Extra Year of High School?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Right now I am junior and I am confused as to whether I should take an extra year of high school before I apply to college and if that would look bad to colleges that I took an extra year of school.</p>

<p>Why do I want to do this? Well the biggest reason is because I am not currently a permanent resident which would mean that I would have to apply in the international applicant pool which is harder to get into. Also financial aid is very hard (almost impossible) to come by for international students. Practically, it is much harder to apply as an international student(like I am right now) than wait an extra year and apply as a domestic student.</p>

<p>The other reason I want to take an extra year is because there are somethings that I wanted to have accomplished by the time that I was done with high school that I haven't quite gotten to do yet, like mostly extracurricular things.</p>

<p>My grades are pretty good (3.89 GPA unweighted w/ APs ) but my extracurriculars are not so good. I am a homeschooler so it wouldn't be hard to arrange to do the extra year but my biggest fears are colleges would interpret it like laziness or that I am below the level of my peers because I couldn't accomplish the same thing in the same amount of time. Also how would I word that on the college application? It wouldn't be a postgrad year because I would not have applied to college or graduated high-school?</p>

<p>During my extra year, I would like to take some college classes, do some independent research, work on my extracurriculars and art( like produce a CD because I love music and run a marathon because I am a runner. Are those decent extracurriculars, I don't even know.) Also I want to do some mission work.</p>

<p>So in summary I want to wait an extra year because I want to apply as a domestic student but I would take that extra year to do some really cool things so that i could stand out. Does that sound like a good idea and how would colleges interpret that?</p>

<p>Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!</p>

2

<p>Homeschoolers aren’t evaluated quite the same way as students who attend a normal high school, so if you and whoever it is who is supervising your schooling think that another year of study make sense, that’s fine.</p>

<p>You also would have the option of taking a gap year after finishing high school and before starting college. If there is something you’d like to do (just don’t take any college classes for credit) this would be a good option.</p>

<p>Waiting until you can apply as a permanent resident makes perfect sense. No college or university in the country will hold the delay against you.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the advice! </p>

4

<p>Homeschooling provides you with more flexibility. You’ll just indicate your completed 5 years of high school as a homeschooler. You’ll need to present SAT subject tests and AP test results, plus any results from dual enrollment (college classes taken BEFORE high school graduation). Since you’d be doing mission work part of the year, it’d make sense, actually.
In addition, as happymomof1 said, waiting until you’re a permanent resident makes perfect sense.</p>

5

<p>Thanks so much for the advice! I was just nervous that colleges would look at that in a bad light and think I wasn’t able to carry such a heavy workload in a given amount of time but you guys have given me some positive advice. Thanks!</p>