<p>But, Fickle, the OP didn’t really express much of a plan for his gap year–except for trying to beautify his applications so he could get into some other university.</p>
<p>I’m a proponent of gap years–my oldest comes back from hers about 48 hours from now!–but I’d contend that taking a gap year so you could go to Cornell instead of UCLA might actually be wasting a year.</p>