A gap year is now normalized. Not just Harvard. My son took one. I urged my daughter to, but she elected not to. My nephew is on a gap year before attending college in Canada. My niece on the other side of my family also did one, I think. My business partner’s three kids all did gap years. My son applied during his gap year. Some were admitted and deferred. Some were admitted under the condition they do a worthwhile gap year.
I think the extra maturation and experience can be valuable, either with an enrichment gap year or a financial gap year, especially for kids who might not be emotionally ready for college or are burned out a bit from HS.
I entered college at age 16, worked incredibly hard (strong academics, minor varsity sport, serious research experience, part-time employment writing software and then doing research) and got into the best grad school in the world in my field. But, I was really burned out by the time I got there and in hindsight, if gap years had been a thing, I would have been much better off taking one.
My D is on a gap year as are several of her friends. She had a paid job for a while to earn some money and is now abroad working on a farm through http://wwoof.net/ because she’s interested in environmental science.
Another of her friends is teaching English in Spain. Another good volunteer program is the Student Conservation Association.
It has been a great experience for my D so far. I’d recommend it highly and there are many opportunities besides the high priced programs.
In our community gap years are becoming more normalized. I know 5 people who recently took a gap year. We recommended to my daughter that she take one. We were worried that she wouldn’t accept it but she seems OK with it. She has a July birthday and missed a year of school for medical reasons and needs another year to mature and further develop the executive function area. We didn’t want her to crash and burn the first year of college. We’re planning it now - 12 weeks Spanish class in Barcelona with EF and then 4 months working on a permaculture farm/research center on a volcanic island in Nicaragua. She’s waiting to hear back from all her schools to decide where to attend and then ask for a deferral. I’ve been to a few gap year talks and one worry is the writing capabilities diminish that year. Also, she’s going into engineering so she will need to review calculus before starting school. I’m not worry about the other classes.
“Are you ready for Calculus I?” tests precalculus knowledge.
“Are you ready for Calculus II?” tests calculus 1 / calculus AB knowledge.
“Are you ready for Calculus III?” and “Are you ready for ordinary differential equations?” test calculus 2 / calculus BC knowledge.
It just occurred to me that HYPSM (and other Ivies/equivalents who do not fear losing a commit) would also be helping their admit rate by encouraging gap years. Gap year kids (who already have gotten in to an Ivy/equivalent) are near 100% yield the next year. In fact, Harvard and the U of C, at least, offer involuntary gap years (Z-list admissions).
A number of other universities, public and private, have involuntary gap semesters (spring admission), though sometimes they come with an offer of an optional special limited extension or study abroad program for the fall, or allowing the student to take courses at a community college in the fall without losing the spring admission.
“I’ve often wondered though how that works out for students planning on pursuing STEM degrees. Does a year out of school make first year math and science courses more difficult as much material from high school may have been forgotten in the interm?”
I was a math major, so definitely in the STEM area. I took two years off between dropping out of the wrong master’s program half way through and starting the correct master’s program. I didn’t have any trouble at all. I did retake 1 class because it was so central to what I was going to be studying and I was concerned that my knowledge might have become stale. Other than retaking that one class I was a much better student after my “gap”.
I might add that I have become a big fan of a gap year. I haven’t noticed any stigma at all regarding gap years. Of course a gap can be between high school and university or between undergrad and graduate school.
We live in Ontario and up until 2003, high school for us was 5 years. Though they eliminated grade 13, the end effect wasn’t quite what the government intended as up to 20% of high school students still return for a 5th year, colloquially known as a “victory lap”. While many students return for a full year, many others will register for 1 semester to upgrade marks or take some additional courses (if they changed their minds about what post-secondary programs they want to apply to but don’t have all the necessary prerequisite courses), and then work for their second semester. The government tried to cut down on the number of students doing this by putting a cap on the maximum number of credits a student can take fully funded which is equivalent to 4 years + 1 semester (34 credits), but it’s still pretty wide spread. For many Ontario parents who attended 5 years of high school, sending their 17-18 year old away to university can be quite daunting, though this has always been the practice in the other provinces except Quebec. A true gap year in the way students do it in the US where they are doing things other than still being in school is less common here. That’s why I wondered about “learning losses” in the interim.