Hi all,
I am a student who’s beginning what I hope will be an incredible gap year. I have lots of stuff planned, with the goal being added life experience and extra time to pursue what I love (before college!). I am planning to apply to some pretty selective schools (Top LACs, maybe some Ivies) and I was hoping to do ED. The general consensus (here, and from talking to college counselors) is that ED does help your average, unhooked applicant. Last year I applied to several schools (including Williams, where I’d like to do ED) and was generally unlucky with admissions. I’ve deferred from one school, but I’d really like to give Williams another shot.
I’ve raised my scores considerably since last year, and I feel much better in general about my application this time around. I want to emphasize what I’ve been doing during my gap year, but I’m starting to worry that applying ED won’t give me enough time. Is it better to wait until RD, despite the decreased chances, and apply then, once more of my gap year has been lived? Or should I go ahead with ED, since it does (somewhat) help my chances?
Williams is my first choice, so ED makes sense in that respect. But strategically, as I’m in a somewhat strange position, will waiting until RD actually help my chances?
Thanks so much!
I say apply ED (first of all, you won’t lose anything - I’m sure the worst thing that could possibly happen is that you’d get deferred, but if you somehow get rejected, then I’m sure waiting RD wouldn’t have helped your cause, and second of all, if it really is your top choice, then apply early and demonstrate that Williams is the only school you wish to go to) and just highlight your plans for your gap year (tell them that you plan on helping those in need in Bangladesh, or whatever you plan on doing), but, the deadline isn’t until Nov. 1, so, unless you’re being lazy, I’m pretty sure that gives you two whole months to start doing what you want to do during your gap year and to give them a taste of what your year is going to be like; and if things do not turn out well for you, you can update them on recent events as the year goes by. From what I understand, those who have done what you’re doing (got rejected by school, take gap year off, do something amazing with their lives, apply ED) do have significantly better chances then they did the fall of their senior year. So, basically, I say do it.
What do you plan on doing with your gap year? (Especially these 2 months before ED deadline of Nov 1) If you would not have done anything significant between now and then then I think you should apply RD because you’ll basically be presenting the same app as last year if you haven’t got much by ED deadline time. Talking about what you’re ‘going to do’ probably won’t seem that outstanding in an app to the AdComs… 
All the best!