<p>I'm an 18-year old Finnish high school senior who decided to take a long shot and apply to HYP last fall. Not surprisingly, I didn't get into any of my ridiculously selective school choises. I do currently hold two offers from English universities, but after reading much about American colleges and especially the top schools and falling in love with them, I'm not sure if I'm ready to give up on them and just go to a lesser British school. I think I could be described as a late bloomer, since I didn't start getting active outside of academics really until the past two years. I've always done well academically, but in the last two years my level has risen and now I should graduate as valedictorian of our very small IB school.</p>
<p>Here are my stats which didn't get me into HYP:</p>
<p>**Senior in a mediocre public high school
- valedictorian of the 22 students enrolled in the IB Diploma programme
- expecting to graduate with 40-42 out of 45 possible points and with the highest mark in my three Higher Level subjects (Finnish, English, History)
- my course load has been challenging, as I've also studied French in the national high school program, and I'm expecting a score of 6-7/7 from the French final exam</p>
<ul>
<li>Since the ninth grade I've received an award for overall merit in my studies at the end of the school year. However, most awards in my school are given to graduating seniors.</li>
</ul>
<p>**SAT scores
- CR 750, M 740, W 710 (2nd sitting)
- French 750, Literature 660, Math I 670</p>
<p>**Languages and literature are my strong points (although that cannot be seen in my Literature SAT score, not really sure what happened there..). I'm fluent in Finnish and English, and I have intermediate skills in French and Swedish.</p>
<p>**Extracurriculars:
- Youth theatre (only my second year in this activity, but I'm devoting 2-8h/wk to it)
- Student council (involved since the 9th grade, vice-president in 2005, president in 2006)
- Journalism (I've worked as a freelancer assistant for the youth page of the local newspaper for a little over two years, writing articles and media reviews)
- Language course (two weeks in France last summer)
- Volunteering (I haven't done much volunteering, just about 30h through my schools CAS program. My biggest project was working in the organisation of a sober entertainment event for local youths)</p>
<p>**Jobs:
- In addition to my job with the newspaper, I've worked for three weeks in the three last summers in a local industrial complex, doing simple, mostly physical work.</p>
<p>I didn't see any of my recommendations, but I believe that they were good, since teachers like me and have seen my devotion to academic work. My essays were ok, written at the last minute though.</p>
<p>So, my question is whether anyone thinks it's a realistic goal to take a gap year, do something productive with it and improve my applications enough to have an ok chance at any Ivies or at least other top-25 schools?</p>
<p>The reason why I'm thinking about this possibility is that I feel that my applications were too rushed and that I have potential to do better.</p>
<p>Here are some things I think I could do to improve my app:</p>
<ul>
<li>Take the SAT reasoning test for a third time and raise my score to about 2300 (Or is three times one too many?)</li>
<li>Re-take all the three Subject tests and raise my scores to at least above 700</li>
<li><p>Spend a lot more time on my essays</p></li>
<li><p>Take a very advanced English language course abroad, which would help me with the Literature subject test as well with the essays</p></li>
<li><p>Spend time in France to study the language to try to become fluent</p></li>
<li><p>Do volunteer work abroad (conservation, community projects?), maybe in Africa or Asia</p></li>
<li><p>Devote time to creative writing, maybe take a course in it</p></li>
<li><p>Other art courses, like filmmaking or theatre</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So, any advice would be much appreciated! Thanks for anyone with the energy to read through the whole post :)</p>