Should I take a gap year for my masters application?
Hello!
I’m a 3rd year computer engineering student in India. Academics was never my strong point and my grades were average at best for the last 3 years. After doing an internship, I realised my skills are no where near the industry standard and decided I want to get into a top university in either the US or in the EU.
I come from a fairly low ranked college so this time I don’t want any regrets. And so, I’m aiming for only the highest universities. After doing a lot of research, I realised there’s no way any of them will accept me looking at my grades, low work experience and no research work.
I graduate in June 2027 and was planning to start applying this year so i can start the fall session in 2027 but considering my standards this time around, I don’t think I will be able to achieve them.
I thought I could try to get my GPA up but there’s simply not enough time to get even a decent grade by the time applications roll around.
I will be doing another better internship this June but I can’t imagine that will be nearly enough to achieve my goals. So, I realised that maybe I could take a gap year and work in core technical and research fields to further strengthen my skills. This would also help in ignoring my low GPA from my bachelors degree (maybe).
However, I’m still confused on whether I should continue to aim to get into university in 2027, or take it easy and increase my chances for a top university in 2028.
Your insights will be wonderful!