Why did I take a Gap Year?
Hello, Reader!
I hope you’re doing well! I’m still settling in in Madrid, but I’m trying to view this as a new adventure and an exciting opportunity. Speaking of… today’s post is about the adventure that started all the other ones - deciding to take a gap year! I see my gap year as an adventure because I never thought that I’d take one! I’m very academic (no, really?) and I definitely saw myself going straight to university and then probably onto some other studies… and yet I’m on a break. From my other posts, you can tell I’m not taking a break from studying or learning, but still, it feels strange.
The reason I’m writing about this again is that I’m having a really tough time adjusting to being in a new country all alone and I figured it will help to remember how I ended up here in the first place! I wrote a post about my gap year a while back on Instagram, but I want to go into a bit more depth about it here in case anyone is going through something similar or worried about being in a similar situation in the future - I’m here to reveal all the secrets.
It all started in September 2017 when I chose the universities I wanted to apply to. I was extremely self-confident and sure in my academic abilities, so I didn’t even consider universities outside of the top 20. So I took my predicted A*A*A*A and applied to St Andrews, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Imperial College London and Warwick, all of which I had no doubts I could get into. I sent my application off in October, before the Oxbridge deadline and I waited. Soon, my first offer came from Warwick, which only fed into my cockiness - the offer was A*A*AA which I thought was achievable, no problem, especially that at this time I didn’t like the University that much and didn’t really want to go there. I decided that I wanted to go to Cambridge or St Andrews the most, the first because of the reputation, the second because I fell in love with it during the open day.
My first rejection came from Imperial College London. I was a bit disappointed because I was sure that I could get an offer from all of the unis I applied to - which obviously didn’t happen. However, I wasn’t really upset because I knew that I didn’t want to go there anyway, it was at the bottom of my list and I was still buzzing about my Cambridge interview so I didn’t care about a little rejection from Imperial…. But the next rejection absolutely broke my heart. January came along and brought a rejection from the University of Cambridge. I was in form time and I got an email from the University instead of UCAS and for a second I struggled to find in the email whether I received an offer or not. When my heart stopped beating so fast and I managed to read the email, I started balling my eyes out realising I wasn’t offered a place. Straight away, I went to speak to my teachers for comfort and advice and I simply had to take time to process and come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t meant to be. I took that rejection extremely personally and really beat myself up over my performance during the interview. How did I make myself feel better? By telling myself that my heart was in St Andrews anyway. I mean, it worked at the time but soon enough I also received a rejection from St Andrews.
The only answer I didn’t receive at this point was from Edinburgh and I knew that if I didn’t receive this offer I would “be stuck” with Warwick. I even told my Head of Year that I might start planning my gap year if I don’t receive an offer from Edinburgh because I didn’t want to go to Uni of Warwick. As you can probably already guess, Edinburgh also rejected me... but this isn’t when I started planning my gap year - I still was sure I was going to a university that year. I booked an open day at Warwick and some other universities, just in case I had to go through clearing. After the open day, I actually found that I loved Warwick and I did want to study there after all. This is what kept me working so hard - I really wanted to meet that A*A*AA offer.
Fast forward to results day, huh? I don’t like sharing my grades but if we’re doing details, here are the details: I opened that envelope and found A*ABB. I was disappointed and angry at myself. My first thoughts were that I didn’t work hard enough, that I disappointed everyone and that I didn’t get into my uni. There was no time for this kind of thing on results day - I had to get on UCAS and have a look through clearing. (Now get ready for the most embarrassing story ever, I’ve only told about three people about this.) With the help of one of my teachers, I found clearing spaces in Uni of Bristol, I was elated - my grades matched the requirements, it was a high ranking university and they offered me a place as soon as I asked. I decided to head over there straight away to see the university, they had a clearing open day the next morning. I booked a coach for the same afternoon and headed over. Here’s the absolute joke; when I got to the coach station, it was time to put the clearing offer into UCAS. You won’t believe what I realised. It wasn’t the University of Bristol - it was Bristol, University of West England. Obviously, I went into panic mode, (but still went to Bristol.) On the coach ride, I started calling up different universities asking about clearing spaces, but there were no good ones left, of course, because it was the afternoon of results day. So that evening, I made the decision (the only good one at this point) to take a gap year and I began researching things to do and ways to spend it. And now here I am!
So here’s the extensive story of how I ended up on a gap year including the exclusive, embarrassing story of results day. Moral of this is you probably shouldn’t make important decisions when your brain is mush and also check carefully which university you’re looking at.
At the end of the day, I’m where I’m meant to be and without this mishap, I would miss out on so many amazing opportunities so I’m not mad at myself for it!
Hope everything goes well for you,
Love, Agnes xo
I hope you’re doing well! I’m still settling in in Madrid, but I’m trying to view this as a new adventure and an exciting opportunity. Speaking of… today’s post is about the adventure that started all the other ones - deciding to take a gap year! I see my gap year as an adventure because I never thought that I’d take one! I’m very academic (no, really?) and I definitely saw myself going straight to university and then probably onto some other studies… and yet I’m on a break. From my other posts, you can tell I’m not taking a break from studying or learning, but still, it feels strange.
The reason I’m writing about this again is that I’m having a really tough time adjusting to being in a new country all alone and I figured it will help to remember how I ended up here in the first place! I wrote a post about my gap year a while back on Instagram, but I want to go into a bit more depth about it here in case anyone is going through something similar or worried about being in a similar situation in the future - I’m here to reveal all the secrets.
It all started in September 2017 when I chose the universities I wanted to apply to. I was extremely self-confident and sure in my academic abilities, so I didn’t even consider universities outside of the top 20. So I took my predicted A*A*A*A and applied to St Andrews, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Imperial College London and Warwick, all of which I had no doubts I could get into. I sent my application off in October, before the Oxbridge deadline and I waited. Soon, my first offer came from Warwick, which only fed into my cockiness - the offer was A*A*AA which I thought was achievable, no problem, especially that at this time I didn’t like the University that much and didn’t really want to go there. I decided that I wanted to go to Cambridge or St Andrews the most, the first because of the reputation, the second because I fell in love with it during the open day.
My first rejection came from Imperial College London. I was a bit disappointed because I was sure that I could get an offer from all of the unis I applied to - which obviously didn’t happen. However, I wasn’t really upset because I knew that I didn’t want to go there anyway, it was at the bottom of my list and I was still buzzing about my Cambridge interview so I didn’t care about a little rejection from Imperial…. But the next rejection absolutely broke my heart. January came along and brought a rejection from the University of Cambridge. I was in form time and I got an email from the University instead of UCAS and for a second I struggled to find in the email whether I received an offer or not. When my heart stopped beating so fast and I managed to read the email, I started balling my eyes out realising I wasn’t offered a place. Straight away, I went to speak to my teachers for comfort and advice and I simply had to take time to process and come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t meant to be. I took that rejection extremely personally and really beat myself up over my performance during the interview. How did I make myself feel better? By telling myself that my heart was in St Andrews anyway. I mean, it worked at the time but soon enough I also received a rejection from St Andrews.
The only answer I didn’t receive at this point was from Edinburgh and I knew that if I didn’t receive this offer I would “be stuck” with Warwick. I even told my Head of Year that I might start planning my gap year if I don’t receive an offer from Edinburgh because I didn’t want to go to Uni of Warwick. As you can probably already guess, Edinburgh also rejected me... but this isn’t when I started planning my gap year - I still was sure I was going to a university that year. I booked an open day at Warwick and some other universities, just in case I had to go through clearing. After the open day, I actually found that I loved Warwick and I did want to study there after all. This is what kept me working so hard - I really wanted to meet that A*A*AA offer.
Fast forward to results day, huh? I don’t like sharing my grades but if we’re doing details, here are the details: I opened that envelope and found A*ABB. I was disappointed and angry at myself. My first thoughts were that I didn’t work hard enough, that I disappointed everyone and that I didn’t get into my uni. There was no time for this kind of thing on results day - I had to get on UCAS and have a look through clearing. (Now get ready for the most embarrassing story ever, I’ve only told about three people about this.) With the help of one of my teachers, I found clearing spaces in Uni of Bristol, I was elated - my grades matched the requirements, it was a high ranking university and they offered me a place as soon as I asked. I decided to head over there straight away to see the university, they had a clearing open day the next morning. I booked a coach for the same afternoon and headed over. Here’s the absolute joke; when I got to the coach station, it was time to put the clearing offer into UCAS. You won’t believe what I realised. It wasn’t the University of Bristol - it was Bristol, University of West England. Obviously, I went into panic mode, (but still went to Bristol.) On the coach ride, I started calling up different universities asking about clearing spaces, but there were no good ones left, of course, because it was the afternoon of results day. So that evening, I made the decision (the only good one at this point) to take a gap year and I began researching things to do and ways to spend it. And now here I am!
So here’s the extensive story of how I ended up on a gap year including the exclusive, embarrassing story of results day. Moral of this is you probably shouldn’t make important decisions when your brain is mush and also check carefully which university you’re looking at.
At the end of the day, I’m where I’m meant to be and without this mishap, I would miss out on so many amazing opportunities so I’m not mad at myself for it!
Hope everything goes well for you,
Love, Agnes xo
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