<p>Anyone have experience with a student who got waitlisted somewhere, chose to do a gap year volunteering, then reapplied to the school that had put him on its wait list? I'm curious if this is worthwhile since presumably he was qualified enough for them to consider admission, and now has more achievements than he did in December.</p>
<p>If I remember the experience of Andison who reapplied to some of his schools after a gap year–he did not get into the couple of schools to which he reapplied. Got into some great schools the second time around (including but not limited to MIT), but the doors that were shut the first time remained shut the second time around.</p>
<p>I interviewed one young man who was waitlisted at all his top schools. He took a gap year, then applied ED to the one I interview for. It was clear during the interview that he’d spent his time reasonably well, and more importantly, he’d focused on how well he and the school would suit each other. He got in.</p>
<p>Use the time to re-evaluate goals and matches. If you can search for Andison posts, his second time around he had a more realistic and open attitude towards a variety of schools,instead of the just the top 6 “prestige” factor. And as ellemenope said, that included MIT the second time around. If all he does is repeat what he just did, success may not be in his future. It is better to use the time to understand himself better and where he could fit in and be happy.</p>
<p>I think it would depend on a few things. Is this a Washington U that seems to waitlist everyone it doesn’t accept? Have you or the counselor called the school for feedback?</p>
<p>Schools waitlist for all sorts of reasons. There are courtesy wailisted legacies, staff kids, feeder school kids, staff kids and those a powerful alum wrote a letter for. The school has no intention of accepting these kids.</p>
<p>If you’ve determined the school really wanted to accept him, it could help.</p>
<p>What about rejection? My friends D is hoping for that.</p>
<p>Looking at your other posts, the college in question appears to be Stanford with legacy. Thus, there is no way to know if the WL was a courtesy to a legatee’s family. Or, it could have been his test scores (<1400), or any other number of factors. While small town Alaska is definitely a plus factor, high test scores can always help. (Despite Stanford’s official pronouncements to the contrary, high Subject Tests can help as well.) </p>
<p>But with a <10% admission rates, six months of quality gap time might not help bcos next year will be a whole new batch of applicants at Stanford. OTOH, higher test scores and an ED application somewhere else…</p>
<p>Not sure if it’s worth a year of your life just to reapply to a school that waitlisted you. I would rather go to another school and reapply as a transfer. Unless you have something planned that is meaningful, it’s not worth it to waste a year.</p>
<p>If as Blue says you’re talking Stanford and the candidate is a legacy with sub 1400 scores, I would not take a gap year hoping to get in unless he was prepared to really up the scores in addition to doing something to strengthen the application. I personally don’t know any Stanford legacies that were outright rejected.</p>
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<p>Deferred on early round, rejected in regular round. Now you know one, hmom5.</p>
<p>I do. My nephew was rejected SCEA. His stats weren’t that bad either - 2250, 3.9 UW.</p>
<p>Thanks for the interesting and helpful posts. I can see why schools would do “courtesy waitlists” for legacy kids and that may have been the case. He just took SATs again (had only taken them once with barely any prep, and this time he put a lot more study time in) so maybe higher scores will help. He will be considering a lot more options than just Stanford next year, and I hope volunteering with college graduates will help him learn about schools where he might fit well.</p>