Ben your advice on gap year applicants

<p>Ben ,
I would just like to know what is the plight of students who take an year off after high school and then apply to MIT.
See with regrets my Math IIc score is 660 (I know its very very low) so I have to lift it up. Anyways I cannot retake the stupid test now coz I have my class 12 boards to study for. I think I'll take them after the Board exams.
So is there any harm or loss to students who apply after graduating high school or are they at a better position (since the class 12 record is also available)..and technically the app goes out in dec 2006 and I'll graduate in may 2006 so thats not much of a year. but still. Please give your views.</p>

<p>Well, the definite truth is that there is no harm in applying both now and after a year. Getting rejected this year has no effect on your getting accepted/rejected the next year (I was informed at last year's central meeting).</p>

<p>Also, the MIT adcom has mentioned that in many cases, students who take a gap year tend to have more worldly experience that can be used to enrich the MIT community. I know Matt supports the idea of the gap year.</p>

<p>thanks Olo..and see everyone dont just answer this question in context to my low SAT II score , in general also how do you support the idea of gap year.
Ben should I retake MathIIc this year..(actually I have about consistent A in class and we do Multivar calculus here in ISC so will the SAT II really matter as long as I have good school record and good ECA)</p>

<p>Ben are you on the forum. If you do see this please reply.</p>

<p>Ben (and everyone else in Admissions) is probably pretty busy now since EA season is underway. If you need a question answered urgently, you probably need to send email, rather than waiting for him to have time to check CC.</p>

<p>just pushing this up.</p>

<p>I agree with MM, the MIT adcom is probably incredibly busy considering EA apps are flooding them right now. I don't think a forum post is the best way to contact Ben, and you may be better off e-mailing him.</p>

<p>However, you'll be the best off doing some research. The search took 0.21 seconds, according to Google.</p>

<p>Click [url="<a href="http://matt.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/07/mind_the_gap.html%22%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://matt.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/07/mind_the_gap.html"]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;], straight from Matt McGann...</p>

<p>We are all in New York for the College Board Conference + dealing with MyMIT being down. Ugh. Sorry for the delays.</p>

<p>What Olo said is good advice. Just don't enroll in another university if you're serious about reapplying to MIT because then you would be seen as a transfer student and the admit rate for transfers is incredibly low. At the same time, you should apply to other places to make sure you have options as MIT is so competitive, especially for international students.</p>

<p>Thanks Ben so I take the reply as 'no disadvantage is there for a reapplying student or gap year student' they all are judged equally.</p>

<p>Yep! We will want to know what you did in that year to make sure you did something worthwhile - i.e. not play video games 18 hours per day. :)</p>