First of all, I’m a student that got waitlisted at Princeton, MIT, Yale, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, and a few more this year. I also didn’t apply to enough scholarships and messed up the financial aid applications for the schools that I did get in as well. And being an international student who wants to study in the United States, I began to plan for a gap year. During this gap year, I’m planning to research and hopefully publish a paper with a professor. I also plan to launch a non-profit organization that I’ve been working on for the past 14 months. So what do you guys think? Any advice/critique would be greatly appreciated.
Do you have a solid understanding of why you were wait listed and what the colleges would want to see to tip you into the “accept” category? If so, what is it?
Can you defer enrollment and straighten out your financial aid? If your strategy is tippy top private schools (which are the only ones offering full financial aid to international students) or nothing, then it would be very risky IMO, and you may end up wasting a gap year.
You can still apply this year while working out your finances.
Some colleges waitlist for many reasons. Often times, they set aside similar applicants who they think might later be a good fit for the school. Other times they just think you’re in the middle ground.
Your gap year should not be a huge issue for why they waitlisted you. It could be that they see you very competitive, but they see other outstanding applicants in front of you.
@milee30 I felt like application lacked that one big achievement leadership, or activity that most international students at these schools have. Also I felt like my essays were too reflective and didn’t show where I wanted to go.
@jzducol I’m hoping that I do end up getting into one of the “tippy top” private schools, but any other schools with a decent amount of scholarships/financial aid would be great as well.
@bumble3000 I’m about to take a gap year, because I was waitlisted/denied this admission cycle.
“I felt like application lacked that one big achievement leadership, or activity that most international students at these schools have.”
So your plan is to do a “big achievement, leadership, or activity” to round out the application? Without knowing what else is on your app, there’s no way to comment on whether this will round it out or not, but assuming it will - a big question would be logistics. It’s mid-July. Most SCEA, EA and ED apps will be due in approximately 3 months. RD apps will be due in a bit over 5 months.
Does that sound like enough time to complete a big achievement, even if you started immediately?
Beyond whether there’s time, a bigger issue may be that unless your achievement is enough of a showstopper that the achievement itself is enough to gain you admission (very, very rare - think Nobel prize type achievement), most of the colleges aren’t as interested in the end point of the achievement itself and more interested about what that work reveals about you. Why did you do it, how does it fit with your other activities and goals, what did you have to learn and how, did it change you as a person going forward, how will you use these things in college, what does it show about the type person you are and will be on campus, does it fill one of the campus needs, things like that.
The way you describe what you’re considering is that you’ll pick an impressive task and do it; when you check that box or fill in that task on your app the colleges will be impressed. But that’s only a small piece of what they’re looking for and I think you’re missing the bigger picture list of elements that they’ll want to see. So unless you have considered and can show the elements like the ones listed in the last sentence of the prior paragraph, you could spend a lot of time on this big achievement and have it still not help your admissions prospects.
I’m not recommending you do nothing, I’m recommending you think harder about what you want to do, why and how.