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When to apply for college when a gap year is being planned?


northcoast
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I am sure this has been discussed:  when your student is planning to do a gap year, when should you apply to college?  The fall of the senior high school year?  During the fall of the gap year?  Can someone point me to a thread that discusses this?  I tried to do a search per instructions above & didn't get hardly anything.  Thank you!

Also how does when one apply affect scholarships?

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1 hour ago, northcoast said:

I am sure this has been discussed:  when your student is planning to do a gap year, when should you apply to college?  The fall of the senior high school year?  During the fall of the gap year?  Can someone point me to a thread that discusses this? 

Fall of 12th grade. That puts your student on track with applying and being accepted, and being offered scholarships, and ensures that DD does not miss out on being offered any scholarships. While in the midst of the application process, contact the schools to discuss their policies about "deferment" (both of admission and for financial aid packages) for a gap year. Do realize that some schools may not hold scholarships or admission spots for gap year students, but by applying in advance, you stand the best chance of acceptances and scholarships. 

Here are some past threads on gap years -- not sure if they will have the info you are looking for:

You might also try some of the articles at Gap Year websites:

1 hour ago, northcoast said:

Also how does when one apply affect scholarships?

Across the board, whether doing a gap year or not, the earlier you apply, the more money there is for the school to offer a student. So fall of 12th grade is ideal. As far as a gap year and how when you apply affects scholarships -- I have read that some colleges don't offer scholarships if applying for admission AFTER coming back from a gap year. And when applying BEFORE the gap year happens, you want to be sure to get it in writing in advance of the gap year that the student WILL still be accepted AND will still come in as a freshman AND that the school will "hold" the scholarship(s) for the student.

And, not that you mentioned this, BUT... Very important red flag here: your student can NOT take even ONE college or community college class (for some schools, can't even AUDIT) after high school graduation/during the gap year, or the student will no longer be considered a freshman, but is now a "transfer" student. And that automatically loses the student any freshman scholarship award. And the largest amount of awards go to freshmen. Transfer student scholarships tend to be much smaller, and are more frequently 1-time awards, rather than renewable (good for 4 years) like freshman scholarships.

Good luck in your planning of a Gap Year! Warmest regards, Lori D.

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8 minutes ago, northcoast said:

I haven't figured out how to navigate everything in the new forum...

I know. I'm really disliking the new forum, and searches seem to be virtually impossible to me now. I'm mostly drawing from lists of threads that I saved on my computer. sigh.

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My son applied in the fall of his gap year, rather than fall of 12th grade. It was not an issue with any of the colleges he was interested in, either for admission or scholarships, but that's something you'd want to look into once your student has a list of potential colleges. DS used 12th grade to take DE classes and prep for the ACT, as well as continuing to raise his ranking in his sport, all of which he felt would increase his scholarship potential. It worked out well: he was admitted to his first choice college, as an incoming freshman, with significant scholarships. However, as Lori mentioned, he was also told that he could not take ANY college classes at all during his gap year — even just auditing a single course for no credit would have jeopardized his freshman status and his scholarships. So I would definitely avoid that if you want to keep your options open.

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It depends -- are you applying only to schools that will defer acceptances, or do some grant few/no deferrals? Do you want to write essays and retest during your gap year, or would that be difficult/impossible? 

If you’re traveling the world during a gap year, it may be easiest to lock down your acceptance before you leave. On the other hand, if you’re using the gap year to explore possibilities, it may make sense to apply after you’ve gotten a clearer idea of what you want to do.

As others have noted, you cannot defer school A and enroll for credit at school B in most cases. Generally, if you enroll for college credit somewhere, you are a college student, not a young person on a gap year.

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