Applying to US colleges during 2nd gap year.

Applying to College
1

<p>Hello everyone, here is my story:</p>

<p>I'm a prospective international student applying to US colleges during my current 2nd gap year.</p>

<p>At high school, I was always top of my class. I had been working hard during all four years to get a scholarship upon graduation to study Engineering in Germany. This scholarship is only awarded to the top 15 students of the whole country. At that time, I believed I would definitely get it. </p>

<p>I graduated top of my class in 2012 (5th in my school). I didn't get the scholarship however, which lead to my being devasted for the whole summer. I was so disappointed and lost I decided to take a gap year to figure out what to do with my life (it was dramatic back then, hah.)</p>

<p>I will not go into details, but let's say I spent the first 7 months (September to March) learning as much as I could about everything. (Including but not limited to Anatomy, College level maths and physics, economics, computer science etc ...)</p>

<p>And then I heard about students from my country studying in the US while receiving generous financial aid packages. (This was March 2013)</p>

<p>That information was a godsend. After all the only reason I wanted the Germany scholarship was that it would give me the opportunity to go to a US grad school or even work there. (We have the general idea here that once you're in the developed world, all the doors would be open to you)</p>

<p>So this was March 2013, after 7 months of extensive learning trying to figure out what road I should take, I realize that I can go to the States. I didn't have a hard time deciding, so I jumped into the application process.
By now you would have realized I'd be applying for the fall of 2014, which means two years after I graduated from high school.</p>

<p>This leads us to my question:
How will this influence my admission? Or rather my acceptance chances? Is there a certain policy concerning this kind of situations?</p>

<p>I will be applying as a First-Year student (of course) and I will be applying for financial aid.</p>

2

<p>lol isn’t germany in the “developed world” too? germany is freaking awesome.</p>

<p>the thing is, gap years will not affect your chances as long as you have been doing something useful in that time.</p>

3

<p>Thank you for your answer.</p>

<p>And yes, that’s exactly why I wanted that scholarship, since it would have had “opened doors for me.”</p>

<p>So the 2 years gap isn’t against any certain policy? And yeah, I didn’t include what I’ve been doing for privacy reasons. They were extremely useful.</p>

4

<p>What country are you in right now?</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>This does happen, but no so often that you should rely on it.</p>

6

<p>The thing is, it’s been happening for a long time now, but we never really hear about it here because only a few people actually attempt this. Our country is not anglo-saxon. In other words, people here are horrible at English. The few people who do apply often get accepted because most of them speak English fluently and are from pioneer high schools, hold 4.0 GPAs, and are unique compared to the general population here. I fit that profile. </p>

<p>The only problem (I wouldn’t call it that, this is the best thing that ever happened to me) is that I had a late awakening that resulted in this 2 year-gap.</p>

7

<p>Where are you from? Sweden?</p>

8

<p>I’m from Tunisia, North Africa.</p>

9

<p>Hmm, okay, do this: contact your nearest EducationUSA office. They can help you with your application and stuff much better than can anyone on this forum.</p>

10

<p>I already have my best friend (an undergrad in the US) helping me with all the application process. Everything is set but this simple matter. I just wanted the opinion of the CC community since I heard some admission officers are actual members here.</p>

<p>Till now, it doesn’t seem like there’s any policy against this gap year situation. Any additional insight on this matter is very much welcome.</p>

11

<p>That is one person with one experience. It doesn’t take anything away from that to add the experience of Education USA. It is not a simple matter to gain admittance with your costs covered. It is rare, compared to the number of internationals trying. So take the help. Likely your country is underrepresented and that may help so I wish you well.</p>

<p>Admissions officers who post here are mostly in the individual college forums answering questions about their particular college. They are not giving opinions for individual students chances or what helps or hurts them. There are no policies pertaining to gap year or 2 gap year anywhere. Students who are older than that are also not prohibited from applying. My own opinion, from not having a background in this particular situation, is that one gap year is no problem at all. Two are unusual and I think it helps to have a good reason for it and demonstrated productive activity or need to work to support your family or something. Not just reading books by yourself at home. Or moping around because you didn’t get accepted where you wanted, and you had no alternate plan, so be sure not to sound like that.</p>

12

<p>Alright then. Thank you for your answer, I appreciate it :)</p>