<p>I'm currently a junior, and plan on applying to colleges next year. However, I've also always wanted to take a gap year. So this is my plan: Apply to some reach schools during my senior year, and if I'm lucky enough to be accepted to any of them, I will go. However, if not, I will take a gap year, and re-apply next year, after completing my senior year (hopefully with good grades) and not only apply to reach schools, but also safety schools and other schools. I just want to know, if I were to be rejected by one of my reach schools, and re-apply the following year, will my previous rejection be held against me?</p>
<p>No I don’t think it will be seen negatively. I think reapplying will demonstrate tenacity & courage.</p>
<p>They will not, but you need to do something significant during that time to push yourself from the denied to accepted category.</p>
<p>In complete agreement with Erin’s Dad.</p>
<p>Applying to only reach schools… doesn’t exactly seem like the best idea…</p>
<p>Most likely not, but as they stated above, you should be doing something significant during that gap year.
My brother’s friend at Harvard took a gap year after senior year and went to Europe to study for a year, that’s an example. Or you can do some international service program</p>
<p>This that only applying to reach schools is a terrible idea.</p>
<p>I do agree that applying only to reaches, and then taking a gap year if it doesn’t work out, isn’t a great idea.</p>
<p>For one thing, it’s harder to apply to college from a gap year than it is from high school. This is especially true if your gap year takes you abroad. My daughter is now on a gap year abroad. Every program she investigated gave basically this advice: get into college now, and defer your enrollment for a year. If you want to apply to college from your gap year, we’ll do the best we can to help you, but it isn’t easy. You may be several time zones away from the colleges you’re applying to. You may have unreliable internet access. Our staff can write you letters, but you may have trouble dealing with your high school for other letters of recommendation, transcripts, etc. These things are just much easier to take care of when you’re in the same building as your teachers and guidance counselor 5 days a week.</p>
<p>For another thing, they way you frame the question kind of makes “gap year” sound like a second-rate back-up. That’s dangerous, IMO. If it feels like your back-up, how are you going to make it into the fabulously enriching experience you’ll need to get into the fancy colleges that didn’t accept you the first time? How will you get enough out of it, and how will you make sure those colleges don’t get the impression that it was your second-choice back-up plan. Which it was! And more than that, how will you make all that happen between August or September, when you embark on your gap year, and January 1, when the applications are due?</p>
<p>I think there’s a reason why almost everybody applies to a range of safeties, matches and sometimes reaches while they’re in high school, and almost nobody plans to do it the way you’re describing. I think your way is excessively and needlessly risky. But, hey, it’s a free country. Good luck with whatever route you choose.</p>
<p>*This that was clearly an error. haha, but yeah… totally agree with the poster above.</p>
<p>I believe most applications ask you whether you applied previously. That suggests to me that it does intensify their scrutiny of you, so doing something significant during a gap year would probably be necessary.</p>