What if your child does not get into college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone dealt with this? If a student needs to reapply, what's the best way to use the "gap" year. I'm talking about a high-achieving student who just gets unlucky in admissions, not one who is on the fence about college. Any suggestions?

My child went to a community college, which she needed for getting some maturity and learning how to study and deal with unstructured time. She is very happy with the opportunity it gave her, has provided a lot of confidence, and in the fall is going to a college that she is excited about attending. It may not be Harvard but it's HER Harvard. And getting requirements out of the way saved a substantial amount of money.

[Anonymous]

Community college is a good choice for kids who need maturity, but I'd recommend a gap year program for the kind of student you describe -- high grades and scores. A student can be unlikely one year and lucky the next.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It borders on urban legend. It can only happen to a high achieving student with a really skewed college list without "foundation" schools. That usually only happens because parents or students did not pay attention to the most basic advice on the application process. Typical high achievers leaven their high expectations with some reality. If a student were to have to take a gap year, rather than attending a local commuter school, then the focus should be on his/her personal growth, not how to frame an application for the schools that rejected him.

Not anymore. I know 2 relatively high-achieving students who didn't get into any colleges last year because neither applied to a true safety school (one in Virginia who was using W&M/UVA as safeties and one in California who used UCSD/UCLA as safeties). One kid is now going to a school which was still accepting applications in April and the other is taking a gap year.

I agree that it is a very poor planning. My kid did the same this year and I thought I am going to loose my mind in December. Night achiever, applied to 6 ivied, 4 very competitive schools in that field , like John Hopkins, CalTech. Only UVA and military academy as safety. Thanks god, got an early admission to UVA. But only in the end of December I realized how poor was the plan. I would never go this route with the next child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious why all the shade is right g thrown at community colleges. Why not do the two yea guaranteed admissions to W&M or UVA at NOVA?

1) Because "guaranteed admissions" doesn't actually mean that all students at NOVA are guaranteed to be admitted to W&M or UVA. It means that the stats that are needed for admissions to those schools, both in terms of GPA, and the precise sequence of courses, are transparent. But they are still hard to achieve for many students.

2) Because many families plan to use merit aid to pay for college, and many schools don't give merit aid to transfer students. So, the cost of 2 + 2 can be higher than the cost of 4 years at a school with merit aid.

3) Because going away to school is the right choice for many young people and their families.

[Anonymous]

Don't be so mean to OP. A kid can have a reasonable college application plan, endorsed by school counselors, with some reaches and some safeties, and just have colossally bad luck. It's all probabilities. A college application plan that seems 99.9% likely to result in at least on acceptance can still fail.

[Anonymous]

Exactly, there are plenty of kids who plan well. But, at the end of the day, you have to decide where you want to go to college. A kid with straight As and top SATs from a strong high school may not benefit much from going to a low-ranked college. It might be a better strategy to try again the following year. And, by low-ranked, I not just referring to schools outside the top 20. I really do mean schools where the average student is not going to be close to as well-prepared as the high achieving one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It borders on urban legend. It can only happen to a high achieving student with a really skewed college list without "foundation" schools. That usually only happens because parents or students did not pay attention to the most basic advice on the application process. Typical high achievers leaven their high expectations with some reality. If a student were to have to take a gap year, rather than attending a local commuter school, then the focus should be on his/her personal growth, not how to frame an application for the schools that rejected him.

Not anymore. I know 2 relatively high-achieving students who didn't get into any colleges last year because neither applied to a true safety school (one in Virginia who was using W&M/UVA as safeties and one in California who used UCSD/UCLA as safeties). One kid is now going to a school which was still accepting applications in April and the other is taking a gap year.

If the kids didn't get into UVA then they really weren't honest with themselves. They should not have applied to selective schools.

[Anonymous]

Apply to a school with rolling admissions or a later admission deadline so they can start right away in fall semester without having to take time off. Do freshman year there and then formulate your transfer strategy for sophomore year. Or maybe the student will like it there and not want to transfer!

https://blog.prepscholar.com/colleges-with-late-application-deadlines-complete-list

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It borders on urban legend. It can only happen to a high achieving student with a really skewed college list without "foundation" schools. That usually only happens because parents or students did not pay attention to the most basic advice on the application process. Typical high achievers leaven their high expectations with some reality. If a student were to have to take a gap year, rather than attending a local commuter school, then the focus should be on his/her personal growth, not how to frame an application for the schools that rejected him.

Not anymore. I know 2 relatively high-achieving students who didn't get into any colleges last year because neither applied to a true safety school (one in Virginia who was using W&M/UVA as safeties and one in California who used UCSD/UCLA as safeties). One kid is now going to a school which was still accepting applications in April and the other is taking a gap year.

Using UVA/W&M as a safety just seems so....I dunno....obnoxious.

[Anonymous]

The best plan for a high achiever is to take a gap year and do it all over again.

[Anonymous]

One of my best friends got waitlisted for school of his choice. He went to a local CC for 2 years, then transferred to the school, then went on to get his MBA.

It's about 20 years later now, and he is a high achiever working on Wall Street.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't it be better to just reapply the next year if you get waitlisted? Is community college really the best option at that point? If a kid is high achieving and just got unlucky in the admissions process, I think a gap year might be more appropriate.

[Anonymous]

Both the Army and Navy offer two year active enlistments (not the Air Force or Marines). Junior will grow up a lot in those two years.

[Anonymous]

Spend the year working on a campaign then volunteering somewhere.

[Anonymous]

When I was in HS my good friend, who very high achieving and everyone expected to to go Yale or Harvard, was in the AP highest Math, Science, Language, History and English classes and getting A grades in all of those plus winning awards for her art work, and living with her sister and Dad who had won custody from the drunk mother. The only place that accepted her was her safety, Boston University. Everywhere else rejected her, not even a WL.

I don't know what went wrong for her, but if she had not had that one safety she would have been forced to take a gap year and reapply.