<p>If I am not accepted to any of my top schools, (which are UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, etc.) would it be a good idea to take a gap year? :Maybe spend a year in a foreign country, get a job, study for the SATs, and then reapply for the next year. What do you guys think? Has anybody here done this?</p>
<p>anybody…</p>
<p>People do this, but we don’t know enough about you to advise. Once you graduate, you won’t have access to your teachers and counselors, so you have to keep that in mind with regards to college applications. If you are abroad in a foreign country, you may not have access to the internet like you do now, so you have to think about that as well. If you do this, you really only get an add’l 6 months of time to improve your application. Is that really worth it? There are plenty of good schools … you don’t just have to go to a UC to make it in the world. However, if you have a burning desire to see another country and you can make it interesting, then by all means do it if you can afford it.</p>