College admissions officers are looking for students who will enrich their classrooms and campus, but more than anything that have the maturity and resilience to cope with the demands of higher education. They are finding that when young adults take time off and participate in a gap year, this gives them the skills necessary to not just get it into college, but to make it in college.
William Fitzsimmons et al. at Harvard University support taking a gap year either before college or during college, and go as far as to say that: “students are admitted to Harvard or other colleges in part because they accomplished something unusual during a year off” (https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/preparing-college/should-i-take-time) Earl Johnson, dean of admission at the University of Tulsa, explains that admission officers want to know what makes a student unique, and look for the following qualities: https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/get-in/applying-101/character-counts-what-are-colleges-looking-for
|
At The Bridge, we take full advantage of the fact that schools are looking at unique applicants with unusual yet wonderful stories of character as well as resume building. Most of our students are offered scholarships, even if their academic background is not stellar, because of what they believe our graduates can bring to their school.
A few examples of schools our graduates have been accepted to recently are:
|