<p>Question: Can doing a post-graduate year improve or decrease chances of admissions to a top tier or Ivy League college? Doing a Post-Graduate (PG) year will rarely hurt admission odds (unless the GPA goes down or the student gets suspended for bad behavior or lands in similar hot water). The PG year might raise Ivy […]</p>
<p>[View</a> the complete Q&A at CC’s Ask The Dean…](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/will-post-grad-high-school-year-boost-ivyelite-admission-odds.htm]View”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/will-post-grad-high-school-year-boost-ivyelite-admission-odds.htm)</p>
<p>I know a valedictorian who didn’t get Ivy admissions right out of high school and didn’t want to go to even the top state university. She spent the next year doing a variety of things including doing a small research project, getting a bit of mentoring from one of her Ivy interviewers and a classmate’s mom (me) and got into three Ivy’s the next year. She had to step out of the mode if basically doing everything the school told her to do well but not doing much else. Once she showed she could work independentl, showed some personality, and sold herself a little better, she was a shoo in.</p>
<p>Good anecdote, Journier. Thanks. But note that the person who sent the “Ask the Dean” question above was referring specifically to doing not a “gap year,” as your valedictorian did, but a “Post Grad” year, meaning that the student would enroll in an official “PG” program at a private high school.</p>