Should this year's high school juniors plan for applying DURING a gap year?

parentologist
Sun, 19 Apr 2020 16:17:27 +0000

Am I just totally off base here? Some 20-25% of accepted students are reportedly seriously considering gap years, as opposed to the usual 5%. The competitive colleges are not increasing their class size for the class that would enter in Fall 2021 (this year’s high school juniors). That means that the available seats for applicants to the class entering in Fall 2021 would be reduced by a little over 15-20%, making it an incredibly competitive year. And considering that many students who are more qualified than God don’t get into ANY highly competitive schools unless they have a particular “hook”, it seems unwise to apply this year, if other options exist. If a student were to apply for admission to the class entering in Fall 2021, and be rejected everywhere they wanted to go, and then decide to take a gap year and reapply to those same schools, they would be seen by those schools as damaged goods, and have very little chance of admission to those schools, applying the second time around. But if they simply applied for Fall 2022, and planned for a meaningful gap year (and yes, it is VERY possible to plan for a meaningful gap year even in the time of coronavirus, especially when speaking of summer 2021-summer 2022), it seems to me that they would have a much better chance of admission to a top school, what with only the usual 5% having deferred, if even that many.