<p>I was just curious what people would do to have a "respectable" gap year that would leave them ready to be in a good position for college. Would you get a job? Something different?</p>
<p>Thanks all! :)</p>
<p>Hmmmm...CC parents have an aversion to lining up activities to impress adcoms, me included. I get your drift, though.</p>
<p>Any activity which develops a keen interest is worthwhile; job, course, travel. Some amount of volunteer time will speak to adcoms sense of service.</p>
<p>Oh! I didn't mean that I wanted to do the whole "impress the adcom routine". I guess I was just wondering what people did during a gap year, since I didn't really know they even existed until I got on this board. </p>
<p>Thanks for your reply!</p>
<p>Whitney:</p>
<p>My S has a schoolmate who was accepted to an Ivy. Because she was grade-skipped and thus young, she has taken a gap year. She did an internship for the first semester in a lab; she is now engaged in an artistic pursuit and working to earn some money. I believe that she keeps her college informed of her plans every time she switches activities. Another student audited classes at a local college and practiced music. Others have done volunteer work or traveled; some have worked full time to earn some money for college. European students often spend a year working abroad as an au pair to perfect their grasp of a foreign language.</p>
<p>Whitneylm- I did a gap year, but I did this after I was admitted at my university and I simply deferred my admission for a year (so I didn't have to reapply, etc, and was simply tossed in with the incoming applicants of the following year). It has been a great experience and I highly recommend it. I'm not sure how one would handle it if the year is being taken off with the idea of looking better to colleges when you apply (or reapply) as cheers seems to be discussing, but I'm not sure if that's what you were referring to in your question. </p>
<p>In my opinion, a gap year would be easiest on the person if he/she were already set to go to a certain college and just deferred for a year like I did. Otherwise, it might feel a little unstable and be a little scary as you really do feel detached from the normal sequence of study (high school, then college, etc); you're kind of dangling in between two big portions of your life and it's far more stabilizing to already know where you are headed after that year. Please feel free to e-mail me or send me a PM for more about my experience. Best of luck to you!</p>
<p>Regarding my post: I'm sorry. I had intended to post three hours ago but somehow it didn't get posted until I relogged onto the site so I hadn't yet read your reply. I now see that my message was somewhat irrelevant.</p>
<p>Gap Years are very common in the UK and Europe as kids often wait until they get their exam results before applying to college. Gap Years are still fairly rare in the US, but most colleges do respect them, even encourage them, as long as the time is used productively. </p>
<p>You can approach it two ways -- 1. Get admitted first, then defer for a year (most colleges accept this) or 2. Put off your application process until after your Gap Year. The former is certainly easier, but doesn't allow you to use the Gap Year experience to enhance your profile. The problem with the latter is that unless you end up taking two years off, the time at which you'd be applying to colleges is only half way through the Gap Year and it's hard to apply to college if you're teaching English in the Andes.</p>
<p>The best way to "manage" a Gap Year is to divide it into sectors that involve different focuses. One boy I know spent four months in Beijing learning Chinese (like Cheers' son), four months at home working as an intern for a local newspaper, and four months at the Olympics as a volunteer. Another girl spent 1/3 backpacking in Australia, 1/3 in a low level retail job at home, 1/3 studying dance in Bali. What you want to achieve good balance of learning, travel, language, community service -- and fun, of course. Let your personal interests be your guide.</p>
<p>There are many companies which, for a fee, will structure your Gap Year. If you have the money they're worth considering as they can quickly put you in touch with organizations that are set up to place Gap Year kids. Doing it on your own is definitely possible but takes more initiative. In fact, I'd say that a successful Gap Year in general takes a lot of initiative and can be lonely especially when all your friends are heading off to college. Your also have to consider the expense as even in third world countries volunteers are responsible for their own room and board, plus transportation costs.</p>
<p>Gap Years that include some foreign travel, volunteering or offbeat study opportunities (or all three!) can be extremely awarding.</p>
<p>My S did a Gap Year.</p>
<p>3 months in Africa--half construction volunteer/half safari <a href="http://www.madventurers.com%5B/url%5D">www.madventurers.com</a> a UK based outfit</p>
<p>3 months in London studying digital animation at Ridley Scott's Studio <a href="http://www.escapestudios.co.uk%5B/url%5D">www.escapestudios.co.uk</a></p>
<p>3 months in Beijing learning Mandarin--two college semesters worth. <a href="http://www.cetacademicprograms.com%5B/url%5D">www.cetacademicprograms.com</a></p>
<p>They were all great programs. He left for Gap Year after the apps were sent.</p>
<p>cheers,
Are you saying that your son applied after he graduated, or did he defer enrollment?</p>
<p>A long time ago I took a year off after high school. In my case, I loaded 40 ft refridgerated trailers with 60 lbs crates of celery. It's a good way to decide that you'd rather work with your head than your back. Not sure how the Ivies would react to that, though. :D</p>
<p>He graduated in November and found out which school accepted him in April--while he was on Gap Year.</p>
<p>cheers, how did his experience with Madventures go? I'm considering doing a placement with them next year. Did you all look at other placement organizations, and if so, what made you choose Mad over the others?
Thanks!</p>
<p>madventurers is sooooooo awesome. The qaulity of UK kid is unbelievable. Some of the kids stopped in here at the tail end of their GAP years and I could have adopted all of them. They will be life long friends of Ss.</p>
<p>Cannot say enough good things about them. Younger S will go in 2007.</p>
<p>Chose them because the other outfitter in Africa does not accpet American citizens and we were shy of having our second passports.</p>
<p>Mad was a fraction of the cost.</p>
<p>My s who was home schooled in high school only used the year to re-apply to some selective schools. He did some professional illustrating, volunteered for a week at the RNC at MSG in NY and received an internship at the Met. November and December was used for the common app, and the Brown and Columbia apps. This is not for everyone , but it work out OK for him. My feelings are that senior year does not give one the proper time to package a great application while still taking classes and working part time.
Taking a few months reading CC's great posting parents and students will also give you a heads up on the application process.</p>
<p>In thinking about taking a gap year, I realized that it has the potential to dramatically change me as a person and/or change what I want to do in life. I have applied to colleges and will be sending a deposit to a school (though I don't yet know which one) at the end of this month, but I was wondering if it is wrong/unethical to re-apply next year if I decide after 5 months volunteering in Africa (or something similar) that the school I deferred admission to is no longer where I want to go?? I hope that doesn't happen, because my worst nightmare is having to go through the college application process again, but I thought I'd ask...</p>
<p>Hmmmmm...as long as you let them know that you have applied to other schools; ie you allow them to reassess you; then I don't see the problem.</p>
<p>im really interested in gap year too. ive been dealing with alot of issues and i kind of want the year to "find myself" if you will. i want to go to india and take classes at a college there. still not sure though as i am a junior, because i plan to double major and i think that will take 5 years to graduate. so that would put me with this year's freshmen. also, i am planning on majoring in pre med and english, would that seem too unusual to do pre med after taking a gap year? i just really need to get myself straightened out, and i feel liek taking a year off learning more about other cultures would help. any advice would be appreciated, but you all provided much information</p>
<p>Someone PMed me asking for more details about my gap year so I decided to post some of my response here in case it might interest others. </p>
<p>I decided to take a gap year for miriad reasons, the first of which was a family issue which is somewhat personal. Other reasons included the following:
2) I am one of those overachieving students who was taking 4 APs every year and getting good grades at a competitive private college prep school while also pursuing a strong interest in voice (opera). Basically, I had many weeks when I would get a total of 6 hours of sleep (for an entire WEEK, not just per night) or sometimes less. I was handling it and somehow my performance never faltered, but it was starting to effect my health. At Tufts, I will be a dual degree student with NEC, so I'll have a significantly heavier load than even the more high-achieving Tufts students. I was somewhat worried about going straight into that kind of environment for fear that I would exhaust myself so much over the sum of my high school and college years that I would end up either very sick or in the hospital.
3) I wanted to have more time to focus on my singing, without the distractions of a full course load.
4) I wanted to spend more time with my family here in LA before moving across the country to Boston.
5) I'm sure there were other reasons, but they escape me at the moment.</p>
<p>This is what I've been doing:
June-July- Singing program and some auditions. Also a trip to Denmark where a close friend of mine lives.
August-October- I lived in Moscow, Russia where I spent some quality time with my dad and visited every museum/cultural landmark I could get to. I also visited St. Petersburg.
Late Oct-Dec - I studied Italian and French (first time studying both; I was already fluent in Russian, English, and Spanish) along with having 3 voice lessons a week (the norm is 1 so this was very great to be able to do). I also participated in several singing competitions, auditioned and was accepted at an Opera program in Italy that I will be participating in in July 2005, and did other similar things.
Jan-April- I decided to stop studying French because it was too confusing learning both it and Italian at the same time and stuck with the Italian. I also started intensively studying Music Theory and preparing for my solo voice recital which will be in May. </p>
<p>So that has been my year so far. I feel wonderful about it, in retrospect. I have gotten so many things accomplished and I am sure that I'm in a far better position now to do well at Tufts and NEC without sacrificing my health. It has also really given me a chance to get to know myself better. Sometimes when you are constantly busy to the degree that I was, where every minute of every day is planned out, you don't have time to really reflect on your life and to see if the course you are following is still really the one best suited to you. I wouldn't say I've changed my plans or goals very much. But I would have to say that I have changed my approach to them and to life as a whole. </p>
<p>That said, I would recommend taking a gap year only if you are very secure with yourself. Please realize that it can be very lonely at times and you might feel like you are not moving forward at the same rate as you were before -- kind of like you are frozen in time, even though you're doing things. I think that this feeling comes out of our having an internal life map that has been placed within us by society, which dictates that after high school, one goes directly to college, from where he/she goes to grad school, etc. But life does not work that way. There are no general rules in life. And it's not even like you're taking a year to think about going to college or not. You have a plan; you know that you are going to take a year to accomplish whatever it is that you aim to accomplish and then, no matter what, you will resume with your education at the institution where you deferred. It is important, too, to have a very specific list of goals that you want to accomplish within that year. They can be as specific as learning a language and they can be as seemingly silly as getting a minimum of a certain number of hours of sleep per night. If you are a kid and convincing your parents is a concern (as it was for the person who contacted me), you can discuss these goals with your parents and agree on some way to assess your progress if that makes them feel better. You are also welcome to share any of what I wrote with your parents and/or tell them to e-mail me at <a href="mailto:JuliaTorgo@yahoo.com">JuliaTorgo@yahoo.com</a>.</p>
<p>Feel free to ask further questions on any of the above. Realize, though, that no matter what you do, if you have a plan and you stick to it, you will not regret taking the gap year. Life isn't all that short and taking one year to better embark on the next part of your life is an investment well worth the time.</p>
<p>Best of luck to all!</p>