If many students take a gap year, what happens to all those kids set to graduate in 2021 and start college in the fall of 2021. Would admissions next year be more competitive? Also, how many gap students could a college, say NYU, handle?
^^^this I think is worrisome for colleges. Maybe they will limit for this year like first come first served?
I contacted a UMich admissions officer and he said that students can request a gap year because of the virus and will be pretty much guaranteed to be granted.
Last night (April 21, 2020), I attended an Applerouth tutoring webinar in which they had three admissions directors from well-known schools talking about the Covid impact. One mentioned that typically they get about 1-1/2% of admitted students that request a gap year. They anticipate a higher percent if fall classes start on line.
A percentage around 1-1/2% seems reasonable and manageable financially from the university’s standpoint. I’ll be interested in seeing how schools manage this gap year if 20% of their 1st years decide to gap because they don’t want to be on-line, and only pay a deposit of a couple thousand to hold their space. A school’s costs do not go down 20% for that year when the “gappers are missing.” Most importantly, in the following year do you reduce applicants for 2021 to keep from over-crowding dorms, classrooms etc.? With stretched state budgets due to Covid, we’ll see how it plays out for public schools.
Schools will replace with “gappers” with students from their waitlist—Who are excited to attend a school that was higher on their list and are willing to take the online hit. And, AO’s will make sure that is clear when the offers are made. Will you come even if we’re online? Now, if you had trouble filling your class to begin with—a school has problems.
I would take this further and guess that the more prestigious schools will not allow admitted students to take gap years for the sole reason of not wanting to start online. Far too easy to say no and then replace those who then don’t enroll with kids who would love to start online if it means they get to attend their dream reach school in-person just one semester later. If I were an admissions officer, I’d conclude that those admitted students who can’t roll with the punches (that everyone else on the planet is going through too) and adapt by dealing with one online semester must not have been all that interested in the school to begin with. They are easily replaceable with kids on the waitlist who will jump at the chance to enroll at the school, online or not.
Well Michigan is doing something now that I have not seen in over 5 years or ever. They, yesterday just started removing students off their waitlist. Be careful what you wish for since you will be replaced.
@JanieWalker wanting to take a gap year is nothing about not being “adaptable”. It’s about wanting the full experience that was expected when applying to college. It’s also about paying a ton of money for a lesser experience as colleges are not likely to charge less for an online version of fall.
And @Knowsstuff whoa…I already thought something was up at Michigan this year because there seem to be a lot more kids from our high school accepted. I’ll be curious to see Naviance when it comes out to see if kids with lower grades or scores got in this year or if they just took a larger percent of the high achieving kids when they usually only take a few.
The scores are listed on the Michigan waitlist site on CC. . Seems like high achieving kids with some lower scores. This wave seemed to be mostly OOS but of course CC is just a microcosm of the real world anyway. Totally unexpected though. I really thought they might take less students to thin the herd out on campus. Wonder if they are taking OOS to get full pay to help make up for their losses? Hmm…
That’s exactly what being adaptable is - not saying “well just forget it then” when you don’t get what you want in the exact way you want it. NO ONE wanted this situation. Colleges are having to jump through hoops to try to figure out the best possible scenario for not only students, but the professors and employees and research projects and commitments to everyone else etc etc etc.
Students WANT the ideal college experience. Colleges WANT everything to be as it usually is. No one WANTS this situation.
Yet here we are. And no one is going to pay the same if things are online, by the way. There will be no room and board costs. Maybe there won’t be a discount for online instruction, but online for some subjects does not mean a “lesser experience.” Online does NOT automatically mean “less than” - there are a lot of people in online gifted high schools and who have taken fantastic, well-run, excellent online courses who can attest to that. It all depends on how the course is organized and taught.
Students who don’t want to attend a prestigious institution if it’s online for fall can be easily replaced with students who can adapt and deal with not getting exactly what they want for one semester while the world at large tries their best to adapt to a global pandemic.
This is to me is the bigger issue. So many people think the instruction will be less than. It’s the same professors with the same pedigree and excellence you choose the school for in the first place. Much harder decision if my kids were incoming freshman but from the families I talked to with them they all seem to be sending their kids to school. This is just their new normal.
College, imo, is more than just the coursework. And even in the classes, it’s more than just info imparted by a prof. Online can work but I still think it is “less than”, at least for the type of (expensive) education I sought for my children - small, intimate classes not big lecture halls.
If my kids were rising college first years now, I’d be very open to a Gap Year (both mine did take one BTW) if they could find something constructive to do with that time in terms of experiential learning. Obviously it won’t be international travel right now but it could be volunteering or for the kid of mine so inclined, organic farm work, or for the other kid of mine so inclined, delving into fine arts pursuits. Or whatever floats your boat while allowing for personal growth.
Then you present such plans to the school in a well laid out fashion, just like requesting a one year deferral for any other gap year request back in a non-pandemic year. What you don’t do is ask for a semester or year off because you “don’t want to pay a ton of money for online learning”.
@JanieWalker I’m not $75k flexible. Sorry. Not willing to have S19 roll with the punches. He’s highly adaptable. Just because he didn’t take online classes as a high schooler does not mean he cannot adapt to them. They are not as good. Period. They are less than. Every student I know thinks they are less than. Would you pay $7000 for one course? That’s over $100 per hour.
We are paying a premium for him to be with friends, with his professors, and on his own. Not in his chlidhood bedroom. It is a legitimate reason for a gap year. Many families made decisions to be full pay based on what was offered by the college. Those same families have kids who got merit at other colleges that they chose to pass up to go to the college that best fit them. Lots of full pay kids considering a leave of absence because they love their school and want eight full semesters of experiencing their school in its full glory.
I get that we are “all in this together” but it’s not about stamping our feet and being brats. It’s about getting what we are paying for. It’s no one’s fault but it is what it is.
Editing quickly to say S19’s online classes are likely as good as an online class gets. Small, virtual classes. The professors did a great job moving to online. He’s learning a ton. Rigor is the same. He just wants to be in school with all that brings. College is way more than class.
xxx
If you are thinking about a gap year, make sure your scholarships allow one. Benacquisto in Florida does not. U of Wyoming’s Brown and gold (was Rocky Mtn Scholars) does not. A lot of those big merit scholarships are just for freshmen entering immediately after high school graduation unless going on a religious retreat or military service.
@homerdog, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
FWIW, we are a full pay family too, with mostly full pay family friends. The full pay families I know with seniors aren’t having their kids consider gap years because they realize that if fall is online, then that is just one semester out of eight, and that this is absolutely a case of everyone being in this together. It’s not like a college is arbitrarily deciding to put everything online and pull a fast one on their students. It’s a global pandemic. Everyone wants this that and the other but right now colleges are doing the best they can under very trying circumstances. My friends with seniors recognize this and feel that during that first semester their kid can take gen ed requirements or the kinds of courses that don’t really matter if its online or not. The money they save on room and board for that first semester is going into grad school/post-college funds for their seniors (which those kids appreciate). The seniors don’t lose time and will enter in person with a cohort that never skipped a beat and who now have something additional to bond over. The full pay families I know with kids already in college aren’t going to have their kids take a semester off in the fall because those “kids” do love their school and are understanding about the massive efforts being made to do everything to give students the best education possible under these exceptional circumstances.
It’s a matter of perspective, and it’s obvious we are not going to agree. Good luck to you and your son this fall.
Has anyone talked about if you take a gap year, I think you lose the 6 month grace period after graduation. Don’t you have to start paying back the loans right after graduation?
@JanieWalker “Gen Ed requirements” aren’t throw away classes that have to be taken lightly. Gen ed requirements are there to expand the students’ horizons and aren’t something to just be checked off. Kids shouldn’t be taking to get them “out of the way”.
Everyone has to make their own decisions. I just don’t think it’s fair to say that kids who might take a break are “inflexible” or don’t love their school enough to accept online classes again. I think you would have a different view if you had a current college student who was having one type of experience and now is home having another. It’s hard to imagine when your oldest is in high school. Please don’t judge the kids considering gap years or leave of absences. There are a LOT of them.
No need to lecture on what Gen Ed requirements are. I know what they are, thanks. Have been through them myself. Never said they were to be taken lightly. And there are many that can be done very well online. Many of my friends who have had the benefit of doing both in-person and (well-planned) online college classes agree. Most of my friends who have kids in college right now agree.
Yes, everyone will make their own decisions. I think my statements are quite fair - you don’t agree with them and that is your privilege. I don’t think it’s fair of you to make blanket statements about all online classes being less than or to assume that my opinion is wrong because it’s not the same as yours, or that I couldn’t possibly understand, etc. You have a perspective that most of my friends with kids in (extremely selective) colleges and kids with high school seniors do not share at all, but, again, that’s your privilege. There are a LOT of kids NOT wanting gap years and who would never request one just because their college might have to offer a semester online during what is an international tragedy. At least a few college admissions offices (and likely many more as the weeks go on) also don’t seem to agree with kids taking gap years just to try to avoid what MIGHT be an online semester. Other colleges are 100% fine with that kind of gap year request, and that’s great. Opinions on this differ all around. I have friends with kids in college right now who have very different views on this than you do, and their opinions are just as valid as yours.
In other words, you are not “right.” Neither am I. We each have our strong opinions based on our own experiences and the experiences of our friends and family, etc.
As I said, we are going to have to agree to disagree.
I don’t think further discussion can be had with you about this without a dead horse being very badly beaten, so adios, and best of luck to your son.
There’s an assumption here that it’s just “a first semester” and then – what? Ideally, a vaccine, of course, but also there are lots of people suggesting that the virus comes back in the worst way in the winter, and we really don’t know what we’re looking at. The next year could really be a mess. (An expensive mess, in many cases.) There’s no indication in this country (or anywhere, except maybe, say, New Zealand) that things will be all straightened out any time soon.
Wesleyan apparently offered a late date for deciding on a gap year – I heard this secondhand – and seems amenable to students taking one if they wish. I hope more schools follow suit.