<p>Most students apply to college in senior year and take SAT/ACT by January. I have seen some posts here of students taking a gap year and re-testing. How does college admissions see that?
Some issues I see would be that the later test takers would have an extra 1/2-1 year of schooling, and would not be taking a full academic load compared to the senior year applicants.
On the other hand, if colleges are taking all stats into the same consideration, it would not matter when the applicant takes the tests.</p>
<p>Curious if anyone had information about this.</p>
<p>Having completed senior year should have zero bearing on SAT/ACT scores. Neither test has a focus on testing knowledge, so additional education does not provide a significant advantage. The math skills necessary for the tests should all have been covered by around sophomore year.</p>
<p>Not taking a full academic load also shouldn’t have much of an impact on a test taken over the course of four hours on a Saturday morning.</p>
<p>I agree that it should not change test scores much, but I was wondering if colleges take this into account when comparing applicants- thanks.</p>
<p>I do not know the answer to OPs question, but it is a good question i.e. how do adcoms view SATs taken by a year older applicant with one more year to prepare, compared to kids who are generally a year younger and had one less year to prepare for them? After all, we all know that PSAT scores do improve considerably from sophomore to junior year. So, why wouldn´t SAT scores do the same?</p>