<p>After college, instead of working or grad school, take an entire year off for travel in Europe or Asia, then apply when you get back. Shrewd or bad idea?</p>
<p>A lot of law school admission is based on whether you can be a productive lawyer or not. Grades and LSATs are primary for applicants just out of school. So you'll probably be judged on that whether you apply to law school now or wait a year. Some other things they consider are proficiency in another language, or if you've worked, what field you worked in, a law related field looks good, but sometimes there is a lot of demand for lawyers who have worked as engineers or nurses because they have a unique understanding of certain specialties. </p>
<p>Anyway, if you want to and can afford to travel for a year, do it! I don't see how it can hurt you if your grades and LSATs are good.</p>
<p>If you're in a position where you can do this, I wouldn't worry about it - take advantage of it now or it will probably never get done. I have dealt with numerous resumes that reflected time taken for travel, and it doesn't seem to have hurt. They got into great schools and got great jobs.</p>
<p>If you can, apply to law school senior year and then, if you get into a law school you'd like to attend, defer for a year. I know someone who did that and spent a year working on a yacht as crew--got to see a lot of the world for free. (Different law schools have different deferral policies, but you can check before applying.) </p>
<p>I don't think it will hurt your chances to wait, just that it's hard to do the detail stuff for applications while traveling.</p>
<p>I don't know that taking a year off to travel could be considered a "shrewd" idea, in that it likely would have little or no effect on the evaluation of one's application to law school. I don't think that taking a year off to travel would hurt one's application either.</p>