I know that college decisions haven’t come out yet, but just in case I get rejected from all my top choices, I was wondering if taking a gap year, and then reapplying to them, is a good idea? I would use the gap year very wisely (I have a lot of plans) and will possibly have some new major awards this year (like USAMO) that will be too late for admissions.
oh also I should mention that I was planning on taking a gap year anyways (even if I get into one of my top choices), and did not plan to take a gap year for the sole purpose of reapplying
In most cases applying to the same colleges won’t do much good. Do a CC search on Andison who was rejected from all his schools (with outstanding credentials), took a gap year with interesting activities and still didn’t get into any of those but did some other top schools.
I’ve never seen any statistics on reapplying after a Gap Year. Frankly its uncommon enough that I’m not sure there is good data on outcomes. Your GPA could be significantly higher, for example, if your Sr. grades improved a lot and were now factored into your overall GPA. You would have time to retake the SAT. And of course, your ECs might be significantly different, along with your essays. You might even have different letters of rec from grade 12 teachers. So I’m not convinced without more data that reapplying to the same schools wouldn’t be worthwhile. Resubmitting the same package a before would probably be a waste of time - but you weren’t planning to do that anyway, I assume. And after your time off, you may discover that the schools you are interested in have changed too.