<p>I've just been going over my list and realizing that not getting into college anywhere is a serious possibility at this point.
I have a ~3.7GPA UW and a 2130 SAT, and pretty good extracurriculars, which seems fine, but I've applied to schools that are either way out of reach (Bowdoin deferred ED, Columbia, William and Mary, Yale) or schools where there are several students, most better than me, applying from my high school (Barnard, BU, Franklin and Marshall, NYU). I know that there is no "quota" from each high school, but my school is a small one in Europe and we've never really had more than one student accepted to each university. I don't even have any real safeties!
Maybe I'm panicking a little early, but in the already-stressful waiting time, this realization is proving hard to handle. I guess I'm just curious about my options if I actually don't get into college anywhere. What could I do if the worst happens?</p>
<p>Are you an international student? Then there really aren’t any “safeties” for you here. Your “safeties” are in your own country.</p>
<p>If you are a US citizen abroad, and you don’t need a tremendous amount of financial aid, there are scads of rolling admissions colleges and universities that would be happy to take you. Sit down with your parents, look at your budget, and then run the college matching search engines to find places that have rolling and late admissions and meet your other criteria.</p>
<p>If those options don’t appeal, start planning now for a gap year. And find a couple real true safeties for your second go round.</p>
<p>Thanks!
I am a US citizen abroad, so I’ve started looking at some rolling admissions, and am planning a gap year if all else fails.</p>
<p>You seem very competitive for BU, F+M, and Barnard. But it doesn’t hurt to have a Plan B.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d consider BU a pretty safe bet for you, at the very least.
But yeah, seconding the gap year. That’s really all you can do if worst comes to worst, although it’s not that terrible of a prospect either. Don’t fret c:</p>
<p>Thanks guys!
My concern with BU, F&M, Barnard, etc is less that I have no chance of getting in because of my stats and more that quite a few equally competitive people applied from my small international high school 
but thanks for the advice!!</p>
<p>I find it unlikely that BU will fail to accept you. </p>
<p>If they do, you can always have a gap year which is rarely harmful for your chances.</p>
<p>Thanks!
I guess all I can do at this point is wait and see…</p>
<p>Good Luck Deblerg, I’m sure you will get into one of the colleges you applied for</p>
<p>Thanks! :-)</p>
<p>Good luck I think you’ll get at least one of the colleges you applied to. Gap year, online degrees, community college and transferring are all options.</p>
<p>Someone barely scraped through high school and had to go to community college (way worse off than you are). He later transferred to Stanford.</p>