<p>Oh, and I’ll add: I had a horrible fight with my father and left home before senior year. It was August. Begged SB to let me in, and they did. I was barely 17.</p>
<p>I did fine academically, socially. Have a PhD and won honors in my dept. </p>
<p>Hm. If I’d had to stay home? Well, that’s a different story. You D obviously has a very loving mom.</p>
<p>I went to a large state school at age 17, had no trouble finding friends. My daughter is at a large state school and amassed quite a group of friends by her 18th birthday. </p>
<p>Large state schools are like large public high schools, there is a place for everyone to feel comfortable. Smaller schools have less people, and less alternatives. If you fit in with the people at a smaller school, then it works out great. If you don’t, you don’t have a back up. But then again, that’s why we visit schools to determine fit.</p>
<p>I’m with the go for it- go to college crowd. Son turned 18 in the fall of his second college year, his biggest problem freshman year was parents needing to cosign a housing contract (and we wouldn’t sign for an apt)- he wasn’t the youngest in an Honors course either, as 2 HS students were taking it through the state’s youth options program. Like others have said, the young person is used to the peer group she will graduate with. I think mothers worry about sons’ abilities to function - I have pm’d a mom whose son was a fall 18 year old, her son did well at a large public U. It is harder to find alternatives when a child is underage. Only consider a gap year if your child wants one, don’t undermine her self confidence by suggesting she won’t be ready for college one year from now when to date you have considered her ready for the present grade at the same relative age. As the parent of a younger child I always worried with each new school- middle, HS and college- but son went with his peer/grade group each time and did fine.</p>
<p>Ask her! I started college at 17 and I wished I had taken a year off. Not because of age, just because I am completely lost as to career goals and a year off could have been motivating. However I didn’t even realize taking a year off was an option. But I do well in my classes, and my best friend here is a full year older than me. But the decision should be your daughters.</p>
<p>S was home briefly yesterday with several chums, all at least one year older than he. With this thread in mind, I thought that it was a good thing that S who did not turn 18 until one week before classes ended in his freshman year, had been thrown together with those chums. Intellectually, he was always their equal. But they helped this socially immature kid grow up. As for thinking about a career, I think a lot of college graduates would benefit by taking a year or two off to work before heading back to grad school if they so choose.</p>
<p>We’ve been through the mill here with disappointed gap year attempts for 2 Fall birthday kids, a girl and boy. All I can advise is: do your research! </p>
<p>D very much wanted a gap year for personal/emotional growth but was accepted ED, then learned she couldn’t have both. She thought it over, and decided to keep her ED rather than continue applying all of senior year. Besides, she was excited about the ED school per se (that’s why it was right for her to try ED; a strong first-choice perfect fit for her). She did fine at college but now, as a college grad, insists she needs her gap year now. She’s somewhat living in-the-present rather than committing to any particular pathway. At the same time, she’s supporting herself in another city, keeping several temp jobs, and taking a pause. So that’s what she needs to do. My only concern is if it goes beyond one year. Objectively I recognize she needs to recover that year of emotional/age growth expressed as a need before she started college. </p>
<p>Did I know that an ED app would obviate a shot at a gap year? No. So, do your research.</p>
<p>S is another story, having been the oldest throughout public school BECAUSE he was born on Dec. 31 (Jan. l school deadline) and I refused to enrol him in Canada’s public “Jr. Kindergarten” at age 3. Somehow, I couldn’t see putting him onto a big yellow school bus at age…3. By hiding him from the school district, we forced them to take him on as the very oldest, not youngest, in his school year..by a day. This gave him plenty of social confidence throughout h.s. </p>
<p>THen he turned the deal on us. He figured out how to graduate h.s. a year early (he and Curmudgeon could have quite a chat) by skipping 11th grade. He did that to earn time so he’d have a chance at a gap year to spend in Israel on kibbutz, volunteer for their ambulance service, and hike. He raised his own funds for it and it was well in hand, mid-senior year. Meanwhile, we followed good advice and encouraged him to apply to college<br>
senior year. We avoided all colleges that denied gap years (expressed on the website) or if they were silent, phoned them to get the info.</p>
<p>The uber-competitive program that accepted him (in film) had reassured us the school accepts a gap year, so his app went in there. When he got accepted in April, after the cheering stopped, he went to affect the gap year.
TO his dismay, he learned he or I (can’t even remember who asked, with 8 colleges in the air and an original list much larger..) misunderstood the information from that particular school about gap years. The final word from the Admissions Department, which is authoritative, (do NOT ask at the major department), is that college does allow a gap year but only after you’ve spent one semester on the campus. Essentially, I suppose, this meant a leave-of-absence. One must put in a semester, and then go gap away. </p>
<p>At that point, he had to decide whether to throw away this hard-won college acceptance. His was a highly competitive major, with portfolio supplements and careful departmental review. A miracle to be accepted. He chose not to toss it away simply because there was no “place-holding” going to occur from that department. With no guarantee of acceptance there the following year, we had already absorbed and agreed that applying to many colleges from overseas is too difficult. So regretfully he turned back all the scholarship money raised for the gap year in Israel and said “yes” to the college that admitted him (at age l7). </p>
<p>In June, he had a pause moment to express concern about starting college at age 17. “Am I mature enough to go to college?” I said, “You were ready to go around the world to work on an ambulance without American programmatic supervision. After that, a college in America will seem a very easy orientation. There will be people waiting with pamphlets and “Hello, my name is…” stickers, pointing to which dorm room you should occupy. Yes, you are mature enough to go to a college.”</p>
<p>He had, in his own mind, overblown the difficulty of college because of hearing so
much about it academically from older sibs and his competitive h.s.
In fact, some gap years are MORE demanding emotionally than college. However, there are no academics so that’s an important break that some kids crave, especially forming the thought in their minds that they’ve only been in a school setting since age 4 and are curious about the “real world.”</p>
<p>So he went off to college, feeling somewhat rushed into college and deprived of a chance to do a wonderful gap year. Instead, now, he’s thriving at college and trying to figure out how to get some study time abroad during college. I’m encouraging him to think about getting funding to do some film work in Israel. </p>
<p>There’s always another chapter in every kid’s life. But my resounding advice to the OP is to do your research with great care. I feel as though there are many questions to ask about gap years, each college has different policies, and each kid is very different for why they want such an experience.</p>
<p>It could be argued that if a kid isn’t such a great planner, the college will be more of a support structure than many gap programs. (EDIT: the big difference is the gap year programs don’t generate grades or impact any transcript). Lots to think about for the OP. No easy answers. Best wishes, though!</p>
<p>DS1 is a November kid – he’ll turn 18 his freshman year. His preschool recommended we redshirt him for K, which we did, and then turned around and advocated for a skip the following year, which we also did. He is one of the youngest in his year, but there are kids a year and a half older and nine months younger than him – all seniors. </p>
<p>He is absolutely ready to go to college – though I was still questioning this well into HS. The turning point was the summer after soph year – he turned on the afterburners and just exploded in terms of social skills, leadership and maturity. I can’t imagine what we’d be dealing with if he were a junior (though we’d then have three years of two kids in college, which if we’d thought about FA 12 years ago, might have been the smarter move!).</p>