<p>Unfortunately, I was rejected by yale this last admission season. All my stuff was very strong, but I blew it on the essays.</p>
<p>So right now I am considering taking a gap year and reapplying. Does anyone know any success stories on that and the best way to approach it? Will the admissions people look at my biased because I already applied?</p>
<p>My other option is to apply as a transfer. Not only are the odds not great, but I also understand a lot of transfers are from community colleges. Is this true? What would you put on odd of a transfer into yale with a proposed math major?</p>
<p>I saw it but I think I may be in a little different situation. I am a pretty strong student [USAMO qualifier and a physics semifinalist and top standardized test scores], but i messed up really badly on my essays when it is otherwise pretty clear that I would have gotten into some better fit schools from my counselor. Even though my essays were really bad, I still got into a top school because of other connections and the fact that I am a good math student when they are trying to beef up their math dept. My problem is is that this great school isnt a great fit for me, so I am wondering if i take a gap year I could redo the application and find a better fit.</p>
<p>If you do a gap year, you’ll need to redo more than just your essays. If the gap year itself isn’t impressive, then it’s going to hurt you. You also don’t know that with great essays you would have been accepted at Yale. </p>
<p>As for transfers, yes, there are people coming from community colleges, but based on my time and Yale, people I’ve met, and what I’ve seen on this board, most transfers come from top 15 LACs, top 25 universities, and the service academies.</p>
<p>No, quite the opposite, it is much more as Admis Addict says:</p>
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<p>There was 1 CC transfer two years ago, 0 or 1 last fall and not sure how many this coming fall. </p>
<p>You should read the Yale Transfer thread on this forum and the one on the Transfer Students forum if you want to learn more about transferring to Y.</p>
<p>Do an advanced search on CC using the search term “andison” to read the story of a highly accomplished student who took a forced gap year after being denied by all the schools he applied to. (He had no safety.) The story ends well – he winded up at MIT, a school he did not apply to as a high school senior. But the second time around, each of the colleges (including Yale) that denied him the first time also denied him the second time. </p>
<p>You are much better off going to the good school that accepted you. Excel there and, if you’re not happy, you’ll likely be in a better position to apply to transfer than you would be by taking a gap year.</p>
<p>So even though andi was rejected by Yale again, does anyone know any examples where a reapplication worked?</p>
<p>I know it is still not good odds, but I don’t think that andi and I are similar applicants given my concentration in math. I may have missed it in andi’s article, but did an admissions officer ever say why he recieved the result he did from that school, because more than a few adcoms told my counselor that they never felt like they got to know me because of my essays.</p>
<p>collegebound–Your essays may not have been the real problem. Admissions officers are loathe to get into the nitty-gritty of why a particular applicant was rejected (and in some cases there is no good reason other than institutional needs and the high quality of the overall applicant pool). My understanding is that admissions officers tend to give vague answers and not too much serious detail when they get asked why an applicant was not admitted. As for “more than a few” admissions officers giving the same explanation, how did your counselor get so lucky as to get in touch with the people on the panel who reviewed your application? Not all admissions officers see all applications, so it sounds a little fishy that multiple admissions officers on your particular panel were identified. How was any admissions officer on your panel identified beyond your regional rep? I’m just saying that your counselor may be overstating what was reported to him/her and may not have realized a gentle brush-off for what it was.</p>
<p>Finally, the andison saga should be viewed more broadly than you’re viewing it. You’re not necessarily a different case because you had a different intended major. The story’s point was that andison was not admitted to ANY college he reapplied to not to compare the merits of his application with any other applicant’s.</p>
<p>As I said in the other thread, over the decades the only reapplications I’ve seen work are those of recruited athletes who needed to take a post-graduate year to improve their academic component (say they had mediocre freshman and sophomore years and the upward trend didn’t start until junior year and the admissions office needed to feel more confident about their academic abilities) or they needed one more year to turn themselves into highly recruited athletes because they started their game late, got big and bulky late, etc.</p>
<p>I just reread what I wrote and it sounds harsh. I’m trying to provide information, not be mean. Please take my words as intended!</p>
<p>admissionsaddict: no offense taken. I always prefer the “straight talk” rather than vague false encouragement. </p>
<p>so more than not being accepted to yale, I was not accepted into many schools where I was “overqualified” (which I do not mean in a derogatory sense to any school, only that my sat scores and outside activities and awards were significantly beyond their normal applicant pool), including my two safety schools. I applied to 13 schools (which was probably unlucky), and only got 2 acceptances from each of my parents’ alma matters.</p>
<p>as for more than a few admissions officers, I meant that every admissions officer (mostly local reps, but some higher ups) that my counselor or I called said the exact same thing about my essays. I just listed my accomplishments in the activities I did and shortly wrote what I learned from each one. It was hard for me to write my essay because no one can really explain why the things that I have done are connected but me, and listing all the things that I have done and explain why they are difficult made for an arrogant essay. I was worried about that, but my counselor said that I had to explain because so few people will understand how difficult it is for a teenager to do some of the things I have done (I am being purposely vague, sorry).</p>
<p>also, I have not read enough of your other posts to know if you are an admissions officer. are you one?</p>
<p>Not an admissions officer. It sounds like your problem was not that you wrote an arrogant essay (although you may have) but that you misunderstood the purpose and approach to an essay. Many people don’t write about an extracurricular at all–explaining extracurriculars is not the purpose of the essay. Also, at least a the most elite colleges, they’ve seen crazy accomplishments and don’t need the explanations.</p>
<p>If you take a gap year, seek some guidance on essay writing on CC or get recommendations for good essay writing books.</p>
<p>Again, you can’t just take a gap year and write new essays. You need to do something special with the gap year itself to make be competitive at the super elite colleges. You should also apply to new schools like andison did that may be better fits.</p>
<p>“I just listed my accomplishments in the activities I did and shortly wrote what I learned from each one.”
Well, it sounds like you were reluctant to let colleges know what made you tick or show that you were not just the sum of your accomplishments. A list of accomplishments can usually be noted elsewhere on a college application[ under additional information for instance] and is not the same thing as writing an essay. Essays are the way to round out an application, and give insight into you as a person. Given that, you need to know that you in all probability would be wasting your time trying to reapply to Yale even with lots of additional, new information[ like achieving a 4.0 GPA in college courses AND letters of recommendations from college professors at the college that accepted you for a start. Yale also requires that you resubmit your HS Transcript, as well as the HS counselors recommendation forms again]. You need to understand that as hard as it is it get accepted at a college like Yale as a freshman, it is twice as hard statistically, at a minimum, to get accepted as a transfer student, because the only openings occurs as students drop out of Yale, and that doesn’t happen very often[ a handful each year].
Andison’s experience is very similar to your situation- he was HIGHLY accomplished, with ski hi stats and unbelievable EC’s. The mistake he and his parents made was to think he was a “shoe-in” at the colleges he applied to, including the Ivy’s, because of his accomplishments, and he forgot to “show the love” to all the colleges he was applying to. He was accepted NO WHERE, not even to his safeties. And he was rejected again by those same top colleges that turned him down the first time.
Your situation may be slightly different than Andi’s, but the likelihood that Yale will change it’s mind once it has already said 'No" is Nil.</p>
<p>I think that the AA’s post hit the nail on the head in terms of what happened. Does anyone have any gap year ideas?</p>
<p>The thing is is that my accomplishments ARE very impressive and people who are in my field of interests (again, purposely vague) completely understand how difficult my achievements for anyone under 30, not just under 20. I had co-workers right a rec and it was great, but it didn’t talk about my personality.</p>
<p>Does being a math major not really help that much?</p>
<p>There is no major “per se”, that will help you get into a college such as Yale, because 1- many, if not most students change their major once they are in college, and the colleges know this, and 2- there is no shortage of highly qualified students with exceptional math skills from around the world that apply to Yale.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about the college situation but I think you’re doing the best thing you could do by taking a gap year! A good option for travelling, if you want to make your CV look good, is to do some meaningful travel or volunteering. </p>
<p>OP–If you truly are amazing in an extracurricular area, then continue that activity to the highest degree possible during a gap year. That would be the most coherent addition to your resume and, presumably, you’d be spending a worthwhile year doing something you really love.</p>
<p>You need to plan your gap year NOW and get it started ASAP. Again, the andison thread is helpful for how to do a gap year properly. If you dink around all summer, then you have less to show on your application (due Dec 31/Jan 1ish) than if you had been pursuing an activity all summer. You do not have time to spare to figure this out if this is the route you are taking.</p>
<p>Look at gap year threads on CC, particularly the parents forum. Specifically look at posts that concern gap years and elite colleges, if those are your focus. The type of travel gapgirl suggests will NOT impress the elites. Again, learn from the andison post and figure out new colleges to apply to and better safeties/matches in addition a couple of the ones you applied to this year.</p>
<p>Finally, math as a stated major is not a big boost at Yale.</p>
<p>I think you should listen to the advice of wjb and admissionsaddict. Why waste a year just for a very slim (ie: none at all) chance that the school who rejected you this year would take you next year. Unless you do something absolutely spectacular like disprove string theory during your gap year, you are doing yourself a disservice. Go to the school that accepted you and if you’re not happy, try to transfer somewhere else.</p>
<p>thanks everyone. been on away for the last few weeks.</p>
<p>I thought about it and I am not going to take the gap year. I think I will really like it at Penn CAS. </p>
<p>However, people told me that if I am even considering transferring I really need to get on building a new “profile” for a good decision to be made, regardless of whether it is to yale or not. Is this true? At this point, I am going to see how it goes and only transfer to any college as a last resort.</p>
<p>Hi, I’m an international student. I didn’t apply to any US colleges during my senior year at High school, I intended to take a gap year to gain more experience this summer. </p>
<p>I really dream of becoming a Yale admit and I think that my academic accomplishments here in my country, compared to my peers, are quite good :). I just don’t know if Yale has ever admitted a gap year student like me before? Is there any chance I can get into Yale if I apply when I’m not in high school any more? I ask that because my friends say that getting into an Ivy (Yale included) when you take a gap year is quite difficult.</p>