The Student Room Group

Reapplying after Gap Year

Hi there,

So I originally planned to attend University in the 16/17 cycle however due to personal circumstances I decided to withdraw quite late on.

As such I am now on a gap year where I am hoping to get some work experience before I reapply next year.

I was wondering what aspects of my application will change since I'm reapplying.

For example:
- Should I completely rewrite my personal statement or just amend areas with new information?
- How would my applications to universities that I've previously applied to be affected (especially if they rejected me last year?)
- How much topping up in my subjects should I be doing? (I'm hoping to study Computer Science with Mathematics btw)
- I will be applying to some quite prestigious universities (Imperial, UCL), how much will they mind that I've taken a gap year?

Any information you can give me would be really helpful since I'm pretty in the dark about the whole thing and spend quite a bit of time worrying about what I don't know.

Thanks for your help.
Reply 1
Original post by atja
Hi there,

So I originally planned to attend University in the 16/17 cycle however due to personal circumstances I decided to withdraw quite late on.

As such I am now on a gap year where I am hoping to get some work experience before I reapply next year.

I was wondering what aspects of my application will change since I'm reapplying.

For example:
- Should I completely rewrite my personal statement or just amend areas with new information?
- How would my applications to universities that I've previously applied to be affected (especially if they rejected me last year?)
- How much topping up in my subjects should I be doing? (I'm hoping to study Computer Science with Mathematics btw)
- I will be applying to some quite prestigious universities (Imperial, UCL), how much will they mind that I've taken a gap year?

Any information you can give me would be really helpful since I'm pretty in the dark about the whole thing and spend quite a bit of time worrying about what I don't know.

Thanks for your help.


- you don't have to completely rewrite it, but refreshing it with any gap year experiences, etc is a good idea.
- they don't mind. Universities dont bear a grudge...
- depends. Are you currently meeting their typical requirements?
- they don't usually mind and it can be a positive thing. Check with specific universities to be sure.

And review this thread:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1749934
The gap year and reapplying questions thread


Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 2
Original post by jneill
- you don't have to completely rewrite it, but refreshing it with any gap year experiences, etc is a good idea.
- they don't mind. Universities dont bear a grudge...
- depends. Are you currently meeting their typical requirements?
- they don't usually mind and it can be a positive thing. Check with specific universities to be sure.

And review this thread:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1749934
The gap year and reapplying questions thread


Posted from TSR Mobile


Thanks for the quick reply, this helps a lot.

I do meet the requirements for the universities I wish to apply for however I've heard that with maths sometimes universities will get worried if you've taken a gap year since they think that you'll loose a lot of your maths that's why I was asking.

I have read that thread and it was useful I just wanted a bit of clarification on these areas.
Reply 3
Original post by atja
Thanks for the quick reply, this helps a lot.

I do meet the requirements for the universities I wish to apply for however I've heard that with maths sometimes universities will get worried if you've taken a gap year since they think that you'll loose a lot of your maths that's why I was asking.

I have read that thread and it was useful I just wanted a bit of clarification on these areas.


As I said, check the universities own views. You are considering CS *with* Maths, so the maths gap-year "concern" is not necessarily so significant. But doing a bit of maths during your gap year can certainly be "a good thing".
Reply 4
Original post by jneill
As I said, check the universities own views. You are considering CS *with* Maths, so the maths gap-year "concern" is not necessarily so significant. But doing a bit of maths during your gap year can certainly be "a good thing".


Thanks for your help, I'll be sure to do that.

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