<p>My son has very rigorous junior classes, and he will take very demanding classes in his senior year.</p>
<p>We have no time for fun. </p>
<p>He is our only child and we want to have some fun together before he leaves. Also, we want him to take a break after his incredibly demanding high school years.</p>
<p>So, do you know any top school that does not allow gap year after admission?</p>
<p>Many top colleges such as Harvard actually encourage gap years. But I think that you should relax about this issue at this point. Most top students, once they KNOW where they WILL be going to college, and can relax, are bored and more than ready to leave for college by then end of the summer following graduation.</p>
<p>My son skipped a grade so he will be barely 17 by the time he graduates from the high school.</p>
<p>He is bright but he is ‘LITTLE’ bit immature.</p>
<p>As was mine. He was the youngest Sr boy at his very competitive private HS. Their personal growth in the next 2 years will astound you. So do try to relax. Very few kids take gap years because they are still burnt out 3 months after graduation.[ Every heard of Senior swoon? It happens to the best of kids. And it is a relief valve after working so hard.]</p>
<p>Most schools do allow for a gap year but you should check each individually as there are some that do not allow one, I can’t remember which but I do remember reading that on a website.</p>
<p>Some of what menloparkmom says is true, your son will stay behind while all his high school friends leave; without lots to keep him busy he will get bored and make everyone crazy. Two months might be sufficient!</p>
<p>Gap years are great - but they should have some kind of structure or purpose other than hanging out longer with mom and dad! Here are some ideas from our previous school’s counselor:</p>
<p>[International</a> Counselor - GAP Year](<a href=“http://www.internationalcounselor.org/archives/category/gap-year]International”>http://www.internationalcounselor.org/archives/category/gap-year)</p>
<p>I don’t know of any colleges that don’t allow gap years. I am sure there are some, but so what. There are hundreds of wonderful colleges and universities that do.</p>
<p>NIDad-What does your son want to do? Or is this your wish?
If he gets into his dream school is he on board “gapping” with the 'rents while his classmates move along to college?</p>
<p>I recommend checking the admissions policies of the schools in which he is interested by checking their Common Data Sets, which you can find easily through an internet search. Here is an example (Northwestern University–“Yes” was checked):</p>
<p>C18. Deferred admission: </p>
<p>Does your institution allow students to postpone enrollment after admission?
Yes No
If yes, maximum period of postponement: 1 year</p>
<p>Batllo: We worry about his age, and I guess we want to have him little bit longer.
He is little bit immature but he has been a wonderful child.
It is going to be very difficult for my wife when he leaves.</p>
<p>Schokolade: Thanks for your information.</p>
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<p>I truly know that feeling. Our D was also young (17 at graduation) and a little less mature than her peers. We thought for a long time that she would benefit from a gap year and she agreed. But somewhere between applying to schools in the fall of her senior year and getting the first few admits in Dec/Jan, she suddenly wanted to go straight to college and there was no holding her back.</p>
<p>She is now half way through her first year of college and is thriving. We do miss her a lot - we weren’t ready for her to go. But she was.</p>
<p>Unless my parents and I were taking an amazing, year long world tour, I’d opt to head out to college.
Don’t make your son feel bad about leaving the nest, you two need to psychologically prepare yourself now for his leaving.
A puppy, new hobby, home project, perhaps?
You don’t need to send a mature fully formed man off to school, he’ll ripen some more at college.
It’s so hard to raise parents these days.
Good Luck.</p>
<p>Batllo, yours is a very wise and funny post. I agree with you 100%. I was 16 when I went away to college–there is zero chance that I would have agreed to stick around with Mom and Dad! I do like your idea of a year-long world tour…but still, I would have rather done that without the parents.</p>
<p>Seriously, to the OP, a puppy is not a bad idea at all. Congratulate yourselves on a job well done, and joyfully embrace the new life to come. Batllo is right: don’t make your son feel bad about leaving the nest. </p>
<p>Our youngest is a senior, but she is away at boarding school for the first time. We’re still waiting to experience some kind of sad empty nest syndrome–so far it hasn’t happened at all. Actually, we do have a puppy, though we got him well before she left!</p>
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<p>I can see this happening…last fall, our whole family was fired up about the idea of a specific gap-year program for my now-second-semester-junior. But the deeper we get into the college search process–researching colleges, sending her on overnight visits, benchmarking her growing portfolio of statistics against the schools’ as her test scores roll in, etc–the enthusiasm on MY part begins to fade! I think she still wants to go, but will she feel the same way after attending “admitted students day” at her first-choice school and realizing these WON’T be her classmates? Will she have to decline offers of merit aid and be faced with difficult financial decisions between a pricey dream school and the too-big-for-her public?</p>
<p>I still believe a gap year would be great for her, in terms of gaining maturity and life skills and entering college ready to really hit the ground running. But I’m getting cold feet, and she’s only a junior.</p>
<p>We also are having trouble finding out about what happens to merit aid with a gap year at some schools!</p>
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<p>that’s exactly what happened to our D when she decided to forego the gap year. she had a couple of good friends going to the same college and I know she couldn’t even think about being a year behind them.</p>
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<p>I’m wondering if this gap year might turn into another demand on your son.</p>
<p>Like the OP, we are worried that our grade-skipped son needs more time to mature. However, for the moment at least, the son agrees - well, he agrees that he’s not ready to go away yet. Also, he has a good job that he’d like to continue on a more full-time basis for another year. We’ll see how he feels after admitted-students weekend. </p>
<p>I will admit that I don’t want him to go, but I also honestly think he needs more time. Maybe long enough so that he can find his shoes all by himself. But if he changes his mind between now and May first, I’ll just smile and wave goodbye. And put homing devices in his shoes.</p>
<p>If there was any hesitation on enjoying the benefits of a gap year based on what other HS classmates were doing or going? I’d say that’s not an argument worth discussing. Seriously… these HS classmates are not going to all graduate in four years and they will not necessarily always be ahead of you. Nor will you always be friends with them, which is something they may not want to hear but should definitely recognize as a very real possibility. It’s not worth succumbing to peer pressure. I would strongly encourage parents to tell their kids to live for themselves. That year of maturity and experience found in a gap year could be the difference between a successful freshman year and the waste of 50K.</p>
<p>It just happened through various circumstances that all of us (H, me, D, S) all went to college at 17, and we all thrived.</p>
<p>I think most of the boys seem clueless when they leave.</p>
<p>I concur with previous posters: if the idea is your son’s – more power to him. If it’s yours the message is: You’re not ready, which may not be the message you want to give.</p>
<p>My sympathies with your wife – it is hard to let them go for most of us.</p>
<p>My S was always very young in his grade – a full year younger than his best friends (and almost a half a foot taller, but they are very tall.) I worried about him on all those grounds but he looked at me like an alien from a distant planet when I ever said the words “gap year.”</p>
<p>He has done well, though at times I thought he could have benefited from some more time. He’s a second semester junior in college now scheduled to graduate on time.</p>
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<p>In D’s case they weren’t exactly HS friends, they were EC friends from out of state and she was really looking forward to sharing the beginning-of-college experience with them. They have remained friends, although not BFFs, at college - each has her own set of close friends. So for her, it wasn’t a case of peer pressure and it wasn’t the only factor that drove her decision not to do a gap year.</p>