<p>Hello! I already posted this thread in the "College Admissions" forum, but I decided to also post it here to get a few more opinions. I'm currently a graduating high school senior, and up until today I thought I would be attending either UC Berkeley or Columbia (waitlisted) in the fall. So I just got word of an amazing volunteer opportunity - in light of the recent disaster in Japan, my school has pledged to sponsor a Japanese school that was destroyed by the earthquake/tsunami, and will be directing its funds to that specific school as such. I recently found out that since everything is pretty much a huge mess right now, they have spots open for new teachers. I was approached by one of the faculty at school earlier today and was asked if I would be interested in serving as a foreign language teacher at this school for a year (I'm certifiably fluent in five languages, and I made it a point to emphasize my interest/talent in this area on my college applications). After thinking about it more closely, I realized that this would be a HUGE benefit to me and the kids I'd potentially be teaching. I'm already younger than most seniors to begin with (I'm graduating from high school at 16), so taking a year off would actually put me on equal footing with most other incoming college freshmen age-wise. Plus, I'd get to learn Japanese, have an AMAZING community service experience by participating in the disaster relief efforts, actually have a secure, paid job from the Japanese government, get to use my other language skills in a much more practical way, and potentially get to re-apply to colleges again next year. This last point brings me to my question. I know both Berkeley and Columbia are great schools, but my dilemma with Berkeley was that it would cost $50K in tuition per year for my family, and I highly doubt I will get off the waitlist at Columbia. In the interest of minimizing debt for myself, I entered the college admissions process hoping to get into a school that would offer me good financial aid as a non-U.S. citizen (namely HYP and a few others), but obviously that didn't work out. </p>
<p>I know many schools have encouraged taking a gap year, but that advice is generally only for students who were already accepted at the schools in question, and not for those who were re-applying. My purpose of potentially taking the next year off is not primarily to just wait around for another chance to re-apply; it's because this opportunity seems like a wonderful learning experience for me, and even if I were to be rejected by the Ivies a second time, I wouldn't want to give it up. I've already browsed this site and read a lot about how most people who re-apply after gap years still don't make the cut. So here's the question: will my situation be any different? I don't dare to think that this experience will give me a better chance at the Ivies since they are so unpredictable in their admissions, but I'm just trying to be realistic so I know roughly what to expect after re-applying. My objective academic stats were fairly solid (3.8 cumulative UW GPA, 2350 SAT I, 750/790/800/800/790 SAT IIs), so I don't think I was being totally unrealistic when I applied to the Ivies in the first place. </p>
<p>P.S. Another part of the reason why I'm seriously considering this is for health-related issues. I had a generally stressful experience in high school since I attended 3 different schools (and a number of other reasons which I won't go into too much detail here), and have recently been experiencing migraine headaches and dizziness on an increasingly frequent basis. I'm hoping that I can also use this year to recover, since I won't have as much academic-related stress.</p>