Taking a "gap year" -- deferring enrollment for a year once you have been admitted to the school you plan to attend -- is a choice more and more colleges are encouraging. Bob Clagett is the former dean at Middlebury College, which provides the opportunity for students to pursue a semester off and enroll in February. He joins us today to talk about why a gap year can be a good idea, the opportunities that exist for students, and the outcomes -- students who take a gap year have higher grades!

Mr. Clagett has also agreed to answer reader's questions about a gap year. Please submit your question in the comment box below or email us at authors@collegeadmissionbook.com. We'll run Mr. Clagett's answers on the blog next week.

During almost 30 years of admissions work at Harvard and Middlebury, I saw plenty of students arrive on campus ready and eager to get started.  But every year I also saw a few who seemed unengaged, with a slightly dazed look in their eyes, as if they had just stepped off a wild roller coaster ride.

Thank you to Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa Endlich Heffernan of Grown and Flown for the shout-out for College Admission. Mary Dell is about to set out with her daughter on that rite of passage – the college road trip – and she’s sharing with readers the lessons she learned when she walked campuses in eight states five years ago with her son.  Our favorite message: It is an adventure. We believe that approached in the right way the college road trip can be a peak parenting experience -- it was for us.  Check out the rest of Mary Dell’s lessons learned here. And read more about college visits including how to prepare for hitting the road and questions for admission officers, tour guides and financial aid offices in Chapter 9, “College Visits,” in College Admission: From Application to Acceptance, Step by Step.

Financial aid offices are not set up like admission offices. They are often less well staffed, and they have the college’s existing student body to care for, as well as applicants and their families. What does this mean for you? You cannot ask a financial aid officer to hold your hand. You need to do as much as you can to master the process, and call on the aid officer with specific and informed questions. That is how you will obtain the best guidance.

The vast majority of aid officers do their jobs because they care about helping families afford higher education. Many were able to get through college themselves because of financial aid. They want to make this work for you as well— within the legal and institutional guidelines under which they operate. So treat your financial aid officers well.  And don’t forget to say thank you!

Students need to check the testing policy of each school to which they're applying and that includes "test-optional" schools.  While "test-optional" means a college is flexible about the submission of standardized test scores, that term may mean something different at each school. At some schools, students are no longer required to submit SAT or ACT scores at all. At others, it means students must submit the results of AP, IB, or SAT Subject Tests in lieu of SAT or ACT results. Eligibility to not submit test scores may be contingent on other factors -- for example, you might need to rank in the top 10 percent of your class or have a GPA of 3.5 or above. Sometimes, there are alternative admission requirements such as the submission of graded papers, additional recommendations or in-person interviews. Pay close attention to the policies and practices of each school in order to determine what your testing plan -- and ultimate college list -- should look like. BTW, a full list of schools with test-optional policies can be found here at FairTest.