<p>I'm writing a book on the "gap year" and I'm wondering what you all think about it. Also, if you or anyone you know has taken a gap year and would like to tell me about it, please PM me.</p>
<p>The gap year is a year off between high school and college. In most cases, the students get accepted at a college, defer but hold the spot for next year, and go off on some exciting programs. You can save the sea turtles, work with orphans in Africa, and learn spanish in costa rica, or do all three. The trend is most popular at top tier colleges, with about 5% of the incoming freshman class taking a gap year. Harvard recommends it in its acceptance letter, and Princeton has annouced it will fund 10% of its freshmen to go on a gap year. Hotchkiss hired a full time gap year coordinator since there is so much interest in the gap year right now.</p>
<p>So what do you think? Would you go? What are your concerns or hesitations?</p>
<p>i used to be completely against gap year. like i thought it was a procrastinator's way of well, procrastinating before they had to deal with college.
but the reason i thought that was because i thought these were people who chose not to go to a college, period. like maybe they'd enroll in a community college or something later on, but for the time being had no set place to go to after the gap year. it seemed kind of reckless to me, seeing as most of these people probably had a college that would love for them to enroll, or some really nice scholarship school that would pay for their tuition, etc.</p>
<p>but seeing as many students defer admissions so they can enroll the year after, it doesn't seem very reckless now. if there's some kind of plan or even a tiny hint of a plan for what to do the year after that gives the prospect of more success than if one had technically "graduated" but not really to anywhere remotely productive, im all for it.</p>
<p>and why not? we all love turtles (:</p>