<p>As an international my dream school would be Columbia, Brown, or Georgetown, but although I am VAL out of 550 students I have practically given up on getting in this year.</p>
<p>I basically decided to apply for US unis too late and so the quality of my SATs (no practice, embarrassing low) and overall presentation did not turn out as good as it could. So, what if I don't get in anywhere I feel I would like to attend this year and take a gap year. Provided that I do something valuable with it + raise my SATs, get higher grades than predicted, and better essays etc. Will ADcoms look down upon me for reapplying a.k.a auto-reject me, or do I get a fresh review with equal chances?</p>
<p>I can just go to my home country's top school, but much rather wait a year provided a shot at above schools. I know I?m pessimistic, but rather that and a pleasant unexpected surprise on Thursday, than the opposite. </p>
<p>Also, if, I will be 21! when I start as freshman, how much of a problem would that be considering that most of you are 18?</p>
<p>That's what I did, and after getting about 14 rejections in my senior year, I got in next year ED at my first choice school, Brown. And I'll be 20 when I start freshman year. And another friend of mine was the exact same situation, he also got in ED at Brown.</p>
<p>So my advice would be work extra hard on the SATs, do lots of stuff, like take college courses, get a job, find a dream school, then spend all year reading about it, so you have a killer "why here" essay, and apply ED. If you do this, I guarantee you'll have a higher chance than most high-school seniors.</p>
<p>Here is what I would recommend. First wait and see where you get accepted. You might find that you are accepted to the schools you were hoping for. One thing you might want to do is contact top premier boarding pre schools like Choate, Andover ect and ask them if they would take you for a post secondary school year. A lot of students especially interntaional ones do this. This would give you a chance to work on your SAT scores and get some help with how to present yourself in your application. There are a lot of international students at these schools. The very selective colleges might be more likely to accept you if have had an academic program they are famliar with, and also since you are an International student you would not have to worry about where to live. I dont know how hard it is go get accepted for a post secondary school year but you might think about it.
As for your age, a lot depends on whether you are male or female. For a guy starting college at 21 is probably easier socially then a girl.</p>