<p>Hello! I'm currently a senior in high school. Unfortunately, for personal reasons, I was unable to take any standardized tests during my junior year. Therefore, I'm not applying to colleges this year. :*(</p>
<p>I wanted to ask the CC community how they think colleges will view me as an applicant, applying in the fall after high school graduation (I'll be graduating in June '10)?</p>
<p>When I apply in fall '10, I will have taken the SAT I, SAT IIs, ACT, and 7 APs (I took 3 my junior year). Additionally, my current unweighted GPA is 4.0. Nonetheless, I conclude that I am a strong applicant.</p>
<p>They’ll be very interested in what you did during your gap year. If you basically became a couch potato, that will count against you. If you did full time volunteer work, worked a full time job of any kind, spent most of your hours during research, traveled extensively --preferably on your own dime, not by being sent off to exotic locations by rich parents – those things will bolster your applications.</p>
<p>My viewpoint is that of a Harvard grad and alum interviewer whose S applied to colleges during a gap year after college as an Americorps volunteer having the main responsibility for his program’s regional youth volunteer corps. </p>
<p>He was a low gpa, high SAT student, so wasn’t applying to places like Harvard, but instead was applying to second tiers. He got merit aid that he probably wouldn’t have gotten without his gap year achievements. The gap year may have boosted him into first tier colleges, but he didn’t apply to any.</p>
<p>Warning: If you plan to take college courses during your gap year, check with colleges that you plan to apply to to make sure that you don’t take so many college courses now that you’d have to apply to colleges as a transfer student.</p>