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

“Take a Gap Year” – what exactly are you even talking about?? There is no traveling if COVID isn’t under control. There are no internships. There are no jobs. What do you think these tens of thousands of kids are going to be doing on their “gap year”?

There is just WAY too much we don’t know at this point to draw any hard conclusions about what this means for current juniors applying to college next fall.

Personally I think this benefits them. Please remember, everyone is in the same boat!! Everyone has not been able to take the SAT – either ever, or the number of times they want. It will be fine.

The ones I would be concerned for are the families who’ve lost their jobs and now suddenly cannot afford college at all, at a time when the colleges are struggling and so almost certainly doing things like cutting back on merit aid and financial aid. Worry about those kids.