I’m a current high school senior and I plan on taking a gap year after high school. For my gap year, I plan on spending the year abroad becoming fluent in the french language and learning about their culture. But I am very confused about college apps. I don’t know whether to apply my senior year then defer or just applying during my gap year?!
PLEASE HELP!
There are pros and cons to doing it either way. One thing you should do in either case is get your letters of recommendation completed this year by your teachers and GC so they have them available. (Make sure they know you are doing a gap year.) Get your testing done before you go too. You can also do school visits for those that matter to you (or for the schools that care about demonstrated interest, per the Common Data Set.)
If you apply now, you can ask for a deferral if you are admitted to a school you’d like to attend. Then you won’t have to spend time while you’re out of the country working on applications and coordinating the application process. But applying while doing a gap year does make you a more unusual and interesting candidate - so there is an advantage to waiting.
Do you have a list of schools you want to apply to already and is it pretty set? How likely is it to change based on new experiences? If you are very undecided, then waiting a year won’t hurt and might help.
Yeah I have a set list but I might add some more in the future. Schools i’m applying to are:
Best to apply as a SR, then ask for your enrollment to be deferred.
Otherwise you will have to do your all applications while overseas, and getting your HS College counselor and your old teachers to do the paperwork, sending transcripts, letters of recommendations, etc, etc when you arent present, may result in more tepid LOR’s .
One year from now they will be asked to write LORs by the NEXT years seniors- they may have forgotten who you were by then.
So do your applications this year, IF you have taken the classes that colleges expect of applicants and your GPA, and test scores are the best that you can achieve.
@menloparkmom that makes a ton of sense. I think deferring would be the best idea because I am certain of where I’m going and don’t have to go through the whole admissions hassle! Thank you 
my pleasure! good luck!