I’m an international student who applied to last year’s application cycle and got rejected or waitlisted from every school. I want to take a gap year and try applying to the United States one more time.
My question is: should I write a new personal statement for the next application cycle? I think my last year’s personal statement was fine. It may not have been the best, but it probably wasn’t the reason I got rejected. Some of my friends and my English teacher reviewed it, and they liked it. Also, I asked for a review here, and @compmom reviewed it and said it was good.
My concern is, even if it was the best essay ever written, wouldn’t it still look bad to not change it during the gap year? Let’s say if the admissions officer reads it and thinks, “Huh, I’ve read it somewhere,” checks my last year’s essay, and it is exactly the same. Wouldn’t that be a red flag? On top of that, I am not that good of a writer, so I don’t think if I write a new essay it will be any better than my last year’s.
So right now, I think I have three options:
1.Leave my essay as it is (maybe make slight changes).
2.Leave the topic and structure the same but try to rewrite and make it better.
3.Write a completely new essay.
I think it is unlikely that your essay is the reason for not getting in. If you take a gap year and your new experiences move you to write something, fine, but otherwise I think your essays were fine.
I have heard from several international students whose applications and essays seemed stellar to me, many with challenges due to violence and war- who did not get in to desired schools. It is important to know that most schools are non need-blind and financial need may affect admissions. Not always of course.
Need blind schools are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Amherst and in 2025 Brown- to the best of my knowledge. Of course international students get into other schools and receive aid. it’s just more competitive.
Did you apply to safety schools? You might also research scholarship programs that fit your situation, some of which are offered by universities.
IMO that’s a different issue than OP re-applying to a school that denied them the previous year with the same essay.
I do think as OP referenced that some AOs would see using the same essay as lazy and/or not see any meaningful difference between the new app and the app that led to the denial.
I agree that it probably wasn’t the essay. But yes, write a new one.
Unless you do something pretty substantial and meaningful in your gap year, reapplying to the same colleges is unlikely to lead to admission. They will know you applied before. They may or may not look at the previous application, but you’re going to want something new to add because the old app was not compelling enough to admit you.
As a gap year applicant, you will have plenty of free time on your hands. Obviously a job is always good, but if you applied to highly selective schools, a job alone probably isn’t going to move the needle without involvement in something that is important to you. It should make you stand out in a notable way.
Are you planning to apply to the same schools again? I would suggest that you revise your college application list. Sure, include some favorite from round one…but craft mostly a different set of colleges when you apply again. If you do this, the adcoms won’t have seen your first essay.
Still…hopefully you will be doing something worthwhile during you gap year…and this possibly could make a re-write a good thing!
Presumably you have gained new experience and grown a little during the gap year and will have new things to share, it absolutely be best for you to write about the gap year experience.
@Mwfan1921@compmom@Lindagaf@thumper1@cy7878
Sorry for the late reply. To answer some questions, I’ll just comment on this thread and mention all of you instead of replying separately, lol.
Thank you for your responses. I think what I’ll do is apply to the same schools using the Coalition Application and new schools using Common App (or vice-versa). I’ll write a new essay and see how good it is. If it’s better than my old essay, I’ll, of course, send it to all of the colleges. And if I like the old essay more, maybe what I’ll do is send that old essay to new colleges through Common App and send the new essay to the schools I applied to last year using the Coalition Application.
My gap year has started great. I got two internships and a research assistant role, and I also started a news media website, which I’ll hopefully grow to impressive numbers by the application deadlines. That’s probably it for the gap year ECs. If some new opportunity comes up, I’ll definitely take it, but I’d rather really focus on my current ECs and raise the quality of each one of them. I’m also thinking about whether or not I should retake my 1500 SAT score and hopefully raise it to 1530+.
EC’s sound great. Depth is good, quality vs quantity tc. I don’t think there is much difference between 1500 and 1530 so wouldn’t stress over that. Enjoy!
Hopefully, your gap year experiences can be used for new essays. You said your old ones weren’t the best anyway. That being the case, why use them again??
I’m going to suggest you read the thread I’m about to link. This was a u.s. citizen with top grades, NMF status, great essays and LOR, great ECs. Like you, he didn’t get accepted anywhere his first round of applications…and really no one could figure that out. He took a great gap year applying to mostly different colleges. He did re-apply to one school and was rejected for the second time. His second application list was a much broader one in terms of selectivity.
Regardless the application vehicle you choose, schools where you applied before will have your previous app. Please write a new essay…you should have lots of interesting things to write about as your gap year sounds like you will be busy. Also…make sure to apply to schools you hadn’t applied to before. I also would not spend any more time on the SAT…as a HS grad a marginally higher score really won’t move the needle.
Yes, of course! You should be doing something this year that would significantly improve your applications, or you are very likely to see the same results. And your essay should reflect that new something that you’re doing. So definitely, a new essay that reflects the things you’ve done to make yourself a more impressive applicant.
I personally think you should aim for a higher SAT score. You’ll be applying again, it seems, to very selective colleges. You have time to improve your score and no good reason not too, frankly. Whether it’s fair or not, it does seem that top schools are once again turning back in favor of submitting test scores. 1500 is not competitive enough for top schools unless you are hooked in some way, speaking generally.
Have you talked to somebody to look through your application material to see if they can spot a obvious reason you got rejected?
Sometimes a reason is so glairing, but you don’t see it. It may be helpful to ask someone to review your material so you can be better prepared this Fall.
I had a classmate that for year wonder how he got rejected from Stanford Med: perfect grades, excellent EC, great rec letter and awesome interview which interviewer almost verbally guaranteed his acceptance. He was shocked when he got rejected. Turned out earlier the day, he was screaming at the secretary for not having breakfast ready for him. True story.
I think my old essay was good, just not one of those stellar essays you read online, like the ‘Letter S’ essay, for example. But yeah, I will definitely write a new essay during the gap year.
Thanks for linking the thread, It was an interesting read. However, I don’t think it doesn’t applies to me. For example, the concept of some students not applying to targets—there aren’t any targets for internationals needing financial aid. I even applied to schools with higher than 50% acceptance rates that still give financial aid, but no luck. Also, students only applying to specific schools that are strong in the applicant’s interest, like math and music as mentioned in the thread—I applied to 20 schools, and there was obviously a variety of schools in my list that are geared towards different fields and niches.