<p>Does a year off equal to good decision or not here? need your Help!</p>
<p>Hello my peers,
I got a serious issue regarding my college choice. I am an international student who applied and have been rejected to most of the colleges I applied for. including Princeton Cornell Columbia Upenn and it didn<code>t work out unfortunately. Now here is the thing. I came here on sept 2008 after having graduated from high school in a non English speaking country. I think the biggest mistake I made was to take the SAT right after while my English wasn</code>t even that descent.The score I got was soo bad that To be honest, I dont want to say that anymore. So this was very unwise and even stupid.
However for the grace of God, I managed to get into Rose-Hulman,Polytechnic NYU and waitlisted at UVA. </p>
<p>The thing is I want to do engineering now and that I really want to get into Cornell or Stanford or MIT and everything possible that can be done, will be done for that. I acknowledge my mistakes and would definitely try again if it is the right thing to do. So now I am trying to figure out which way is the best for me.Do I just move on and pick one of these colleges or you still think that it is better to take a year off, study for the SATs or ACT and then reapply for fall 2010? I mean I can still transfer though but if I end up at Rose for example, I heard that it would be harder for me to transfer out because of the class offered there.</p>
<p>In general, I think gap years can be okay IF you have a plan of something to do during a gap year. It’s not okay to just hang out and do nothing. Colleges are going to want to see what you did with that gap year. Some students do programs like AmeriCorps, or they volunteer elsewhere for a year, or they may even work full-time to save up some money – but you have to have something to do to explain why you have that gap between and what you were doing. Just saying you took a gap year to raise your SAT scores doesn’t sound nice.</p>
<p>However, in your particular situation, I think that you should go ahead and go to school! You got into some really great schools – Rose-Hulman is good for its purpose, NYU is great and you may still hear back from UVA sometime school. A lot of people really want to get into Cornell, Stanford, or MIT – that’s why those schools are so selective and admit so few. There’s no real guarantee that you’ll get into any one of the places if you take a year off (there’s nothing saying that the only thing that kept you out is your SAT score, either). Honestly, you have very little to gain from taking a year off, but a lot to lose (namely your acceptances and financial aid packages at the great places you did get into).</p>
<p>Every year 90% of the students who apply to those top schools don’t get in and have to go somewhere else. So while a gap year in and of itself is not negative, in your case I think it would be a bad choice.</p>
<p>go to rose hulman and be happy. if you do well there you can think about transfering, but for right now, be happy that you got into rose-hulman, it is a very good school for engineering</p>
<p>@juillet he got into polytechnic nyu, not THE nyu.</p>
<p>juillet and Mule2013;
I<code>ve read your post and I think you gave me good feedback…Well it is true that taking a gap year would mean doing something that will significantly change my situation and increase my chances. In fact, I was planning on joining a humanitarian organization which basically help destitute children afford an education by building schools in Africa. It is based here in NY.Meanwhile I wanted to try to get a job while prepping for my exams. Now juillet, you made a good point by saying that I have lot to lose and few to gain when it comes to taking that decision. It is true that a lot of bright student are competing for those schools, but the feeling of not being able to go there next fall is really persistent and is taking some proportion that I can</code>t
handle. </p>
<p>Mule2013 is right by saying that I should be happy, I mean I am trying, I am really trying and as a fact, if I chose one of those schools, I think I might get rid of this deception but I dont want to regret. This is why I am seriously considering a gap year. Now Rose-Hulman is not a bad school as you said, NYU polytech is somehow still average and UVA is good and hopefully there is still a chance so…well I am little bit undecided.</p>
<p>Yes! I was studying English indeed through an ESL program that lasted 6 months. Now I`m set with the language factor but I feel like it is I could have done better in those admission process.(during the admission process, I was not exactly receiving the adequate information had to figure a lot of things by myself).
"You have just HAD a gap year! What exactly have you been doing this past year? Studying English? Working?"
In fact in this case, for a non native speaker, you should be indulgent regarding the time needed for me to become fluent and prepared enough to go to a good college in the USA.
"Pick the school that is the least expensive for you. Enroll for this fall. Get on with your life."
Thats a good advice even though I prime academic over money for now. When I started this thread, it seems like I`m getting over that deception and realizing that the possibilities I have are even excellent considering my situation.</p>
<p>You are quite correct that six months is barely enough to get ready for college level studies. The TESL community generally considers that it takes 5 to 7 years to develop a full command of academic English. This is something that does enter into the kind of advice that might be useful for you. You may want to consider the kind of ESL support services that will be available to you at the universities you are considering. In particular, can you take an English for Academic purposes class that will help you continue to improve your writing skills? Is there a “writing workshop” or “writing help center” that you can go to for proof-reading and editing?</p>
<p>Another concern when you think of a gap year would be your immigration status. I don’t know the rules for doing volunteer work on an F-1 visa. (I am assuming you have F-1 status in order to study in the ESL program.) Would it eat up all of your OPT time? How would you support yourself? I think that you should check out the specific rules for your visa before you commit to a gap year activity.</p>
<p>If attending one of your “dream” schools is absolutely necessary in order to find employment in your home country after graduation, then I would agree a gap year is in order. But since there were other schools on your list, I don’t think that the dream schools are absolutely necessary in your case. If you are uncertain about your career objective, and would like to have more time before committing to a specific program, a gap year could be a very good idea too. Likewise if you want to just have time away from any kind of schooling and you are able to live in an English language environment and can continue to improve your language skills. But, again, you have to figure out what to do about your immigration status and your financial support.</p>
<p>The universities that have admitted you were good enough to be on your list when you applied. If you hadn’t liked them at all (for whatever reason), you would not have applied to them. They all are perfectly respectable. Depending on your specific career interests, they may actually be better choices than the schools that rejected your applications. You can get a very fine education at any one of them.</p>
<p>If I’m in admissions and I looked at an application from someone that took a gap year; I want that gap year to be more substantial than any prior year of that applicant’s life (thus showing a positive trend much like student grades). If it won’t be, don’t do it.</p>
<p>dko,
I advise you to take a year off, even if you would want to go to NYU (as some of the comments here might have convinced you) just to figure out what you really want to do with your life…do a little volunteer work here and there…a couple of internships in diffrent fields…travel and see america, the country you’ve just arrived at a year or so back…you say?..experience life away from school for a while…it’s gunna be the first time in quite a long time in which you would have that kind of freedom…
enjoy your free time…and fill it up with alot of productive activites.
think about all the things you’ve always wanted to do with ur life…and try them in those 12 free months you’ll have.
And somewhere in the middle, higher your SAT score.
usually taking a gap year would
a)make you seem more mature to universities…because usually gap yr students take up responsibilites above and beyond that of a highschool student…like a full-time job or something
b)after having 6-7 months of unique experiences u shud be able to boost ur app by writing a much more deep and well-thought essay than someone who spends 8 hours a day on a desk solving maths formulas.</p>
<p>Bottom line: Gap year is a VERY good idea, as long as you plan ahead
oh and this time. make sure you apply to safety school you would actually want to go to.</p>
<p>As a mother of an international student who has just applied to colleges, I congratulate you for having made it into Rose Hulman… It’s a great engineering school . And while you may not have the same level of English as some of your classmates, you have had many more hurdles to cross & that determination will help you towards your goal more than anything else.
Now go for it !</p>