To save money. Writing on the explanation of a gap year in commonapp's additional info section.

Hello everyone, Thank you to anyone reading this. I omitted some names for privacy issue. Also, I have already written about how the gap year and learning English affected me on my personal essay. So in this explanation, I tried more to shed a light on why I took a gap year and what I accomplished and get benefits. As such, I'm not too confident about my explanation's content, style, tone, and grammar.

Starting from here------> Additional Information on a gap year

I took the gap year AFTER graduating high school.

Graduating my high school in ____, I was then accepted in (finance school in my country). At the edge of seventeen, however, I had no idea what I want to do in rest of my life. Getting into finance school seemed as if I got in because my parents value the economists as a substantial money earner. So I decided to take a gap year in order to get the increased ownership for my own life-direction. Had been trying to "good" student my whole life, I wanted to make my own decision and build my own life. Also, even though my parents were willing to pay my finance school's tuition, they were actually stretched financially by working tirelessly to fund my siblings' education cost-XYZ studying in A university and XYZ studying Master degree in B university at the moment. Putting my college degree aside for a moment, I thought, I could be of great assistance in supporting my family's financial burden.

From the start, I wanted my gap year to facilitate growth and progress on myself instead of to harness life skills such as working and saving money or experience adventure such as traveling. I thought my journey to inside me would help me not just improve myself but also more successful in my future careers.

I set a goal to master English that I couldn't make it enough during the gap year. As my skills increased gradually, then I was exposed more to the new world filled with an abundance of information and opportunities. For example, attending the conference of the former USA school alumni talking about how they studied at their school, I discovered my new desire to pursue my undergraduate degree in the USA to experience liberal education.

The gap year also gave me many opportunities that I'd have never experienced if I stayed in the school. As soccer enthusiast, I spent three months participating in the conditioning program at ____ with professional players under professional English manager_____. I have also created my own club the Spectator, a mutual improvement club for students who are passionate about being Versatilist but in my country, they couldn't make it because of the inflexible school system. I also volunteered in ________ and met with many new people come from different background. All these experiences have helped me to grow as an outgoing person who has found his voice, appreciated teamwork, understood different perspectives, and welcomed high-level responsibilities.

Please see my essay to know more about how my gap year experience affected me.

Other gap year benefits

ˇ Gained immersed linguistic experience.
ˇ Go to college with a purpose, not arbitrarily because it is what society recommends.
ˇ Identified and eliminated interests to best direct a major study that results in a deeply invested college-to-career future.
ˇ Evaluated personal values and identified my own 'best' way of living.
ˇ Explored comfort zones and myself by doing something challenging. Pushing comfort zones allowed me to better understand myself and truly know what I am capable of.

ˇ Creative problem solving as a form of taking any challenging situation and turning it into an opportunity
ˇ a profound contribution to my personal development.
ˇ Owned the increased responsibility for my deeds
ˇ Highly motivated, self-driven new friends and acquaintances

@Nuverte0452
You did really good addressing the reason of why you took a gap year. I think you should mention which country you are coming from and why you want to go to the US more with more personal examples, to do more of a showing in your essay rather than telling.

All of your examples are good, but I would like to focus on one example and talk it more detail. You can tell more about your Soccer experience.

Tkay, can you provide me with the complete information regarding the gap year essay? I would like to confirm that your essay is on the right track here because it doesn't contain the expected content of a gap year essay. Normally, a gap year is spent on more substantial self growth either through seeking and gaining full employment during the year and taking fiscal responsibility for yourself, or stories of traveling the world and learning from the living abroad experience wherein you were totally responsible for yourself from the mundane to the serious aspects of life. The gap year is normally taken in order to come to full maturity before you enter college. I don't really get that complete sense in what you have written.

Your essay makes it seem like you did not really take a gap year but rather, took the year to follow other interests that still related to your education, although in an informal setting. That is not usually the kind of information that a gap year summary contains. So I am lost as to how this gap year essay covers your prompt requirement. By the way, is the bullet list at the end still part of the essay or did you mean that for us as the reviewer of your work?

If there is no formal representation of the prompt because this is an open topic supplemental essay, then all of the points of improvement that can be added or changed in your essay is already contained in the previous paragraph. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll help you better understand the instructions I provided.

Again, the essay seems fine. I need to read the formal prompt to confirm that. It lacks some vital representation in my opinion, but again, that will be either confirmed or disproved by the prompt requirements. Rest assured that I can deliver a more focused set of advice regarding the improvement of your essay once I know what the gap year essay requirements are.

@Holt
Thank you so much, Holt. This is actually not really essay and there is no formal prompt. It is more like explaining why I took a gap year. I wrote a separate essay on my personal statement about how gap year affected me as a person, but I didn't mention why I took a gap year. So I am explaining the reasons in additional information section on the common app (Do you wish to provide details of circumstance) After reading and revising again, I made this following change. What do you think? I think as you mentioned, the first and second paragraph are what I am trying to say. That bulleted list is additional information about what other things I get benefitted from my gap years. Do you think last bulleted part is a redundancy?

Anyway, this is a new version.

Additional Information on gap years

I took the gap year AFTER graduating my high school.

Graduating my high school _____, I was then accepted in _________. At the edge of seventeen, however, I had no idea what I want to do in rest of my life. Getting into finance school seemed as if I got in because my parents value the economists as a substantial money earner. So I decided to take a gap year in order to get the increased ownership for my own life-direction. Had been trying to "good" student my whole life, I wanted to make my own decision and build my own life. In addition, at that moment, my parents were stretched financially by working tirelessly to fund my siblings' education cost - ______ studying in ________ and __________ studying her master degree in _______ Putting my college degree aside for a moment, I thought, I could also be of great assistance in supporting my family's financial burden.

From the start, I wanted my gap year to facilitate growth and progress on myself instead of to harness life skills such as working and saving money. I thought my journey to inside me would help me not just to improve myself but also to be more successful in my future careers.

Please see my essay to know more about how gap year helped me to grow as a person.

Other gap year benefits
...

Don't use the bullet points list in the essay Tkay. Never use bullet points in your essay unless you are writing a cover letter. In truth, you should just use the additional information in the current essay by developing these into paragraphs that can clearly add information about your gap year. Whatever you do, never tell the reviewer to refer to a previous essay for more information. That will irritate him because it creates the impression that you want him to waste his time going back and forth between your application documents. Just identify that this essay is a supplement to your essay about your gap year in the opening statement. He will know what to do from there. If the bullet points are only a recap of information you included in your actual gap year essay, then there is no need to mention that information again. Always present fresh and vital information in every essay, even if it is meant to only support a previous essay. The strength of the essay lies in the way you present new, relevant information in each essay that you develop.

@Holt
Thanks! I really appreciate your advice. You helped me a lot. I get rid of those unnecessary parts. And I made this revision. I wish I could contact you personally. There are so many questions to ask.

This is a supplement to my personal statement. Graduating my high school _____, I was then accepted ______. At the edge of seventeen, however, I had no idea what I want to do in rest of my life. Getting into finance school seemed as if I got in because my parents value the economists as a substantial money earner. So I decided to take a gap year in order to get the increased ownership for my own life-direction. From the start, I wanted my gap year to facilitate growth and progress on myself instead of to harness life skills such as working and saving money. I thought my journey to inside me would help me not just to improve myself but also to be more successful in my future careers. In addition, at that moment, my parents were stretched financially by working tirelessly to fund my siblings' education cost -_____ studying in ______ and _______ studying her master degree ________Putting my college degree aside for a moment, I thought, I could also be of great assistance in supporting my family's financial burden.

Tkay, the revision seems sound. It actually works. However, there are a number of crucial grammatical issues that need to be addressed. Let me post the corrected versions below. Make sure to apply these changes because it will help create lexical accuracy in your essay.

At the AGE of ...
... increased ownership of MY life...
... I thought my journey OF SELF DISCOVERY would help me ...
... in my future CAREER.

It is not important at all to your essay for you to mention what your siblings are studying and where. Just inform the reviewer that your parents are still paying for the advanced or higher education of an older sibling which is why your finances are strained at the moment. There are some personal points that you should keep to yourself because that is considered too much information already for the reviewer to know about. Protect your privacy in instances when sharing the information can be avoided in the essay since it is not required data for the reviewer.

@Holt
your advice is exactly on point. thank you so much. I made this revision again. What do you think?

This is a supplement to my personal statement. Graduating my high school ____, I was then accepted in (finance school). At the age of seventeen, however, I had no idea what I want to do in rest of my life. (...)

Tkay, say something about whether you were able to help ease the financial burden on your parents or not. Remember, the gap year is all about taking charge of your life and reaching a sense of maturity, either in terms of moral conditions or financial abilities. Explain how you were able to help ease the burden and what the end result of the financial contribution you made was. If this is to be an exceptional gap year essay, we need to reflect on those points as well. When you say that you hoped this would help you with your future career, I feel like the essay suddenly ends. It is abrupt. Can you please try to develop a new final, closing statement so that the essay will not seem to end on an open ended note? The essay badly requires a good and strong closing statement.

@Holt I reflected all your advice. What would you say now?

This is a supplement to my personal statement. Graduating my high school ____, I was then accepted in Institute of Finance and Economics in _______. At the age of seventeen, however, I had no idea what I want to do in rest of my life. Getting into the finance school seemed as if I enrolled in because our tradition values the economists as a substantial money earner. So I decided to quit my school and take a gap year in order to get increased ownership of my life. The decision was further reflected with my family's financial situation because my parents were working hard to fund my siblings' education costs. Putting my college degree aside for a moment, therefore, I was giving my siblings a time to finish their education. From the start, I wanted my gap year to facilitate growth and progress on myself instead of to harness life skills such as working and saving money. To support my family, nevertheless, I have earned my living expenses by working as a freelance writer for the translation agencies. In other times, I primarily focused on mastering English and identified and eliminated interests to best direct a major study that results in a deeply invested college-to-career future. For all the time, I have tried my best to improve myself, knowing that I am responsible for my life. As my siblings graduated this year, my family financial burden is now relieved and able to fund my education with our full potential.

Excellent. The message is clear and it makes your gap year sound really productive. You show a considerate side that helped you use the gap year to further develop your personality, which in turn, helped you to learn more about yourself. The essay definitely displays the sentiment of a desire to improve oneself by becoming financially responsible first, for his family and siblings, and then himself. You have managed to turn around the essay to the point where it is actually usable and, even though it has some grammatical issues, actually delivers on the additional information about how your life became better after your gap year. I will not change the grammar issues in your essay because it fits in with the overall "sound" of the written interview. As such, changing it by perfecting the grammar will result in the voice being changed. So go ahead and submit this essay in its current form. This is the final and complete form that you can use for the prompt.

@Holt
Yes! thank you so much. I don't know what to say. But you really helped. Millions of thanks! ooh it is relief!!!