<p>I figured parents would be the most knowledgeable on this subject, so...</p>
<p>I'm a high school year considering taking a gap year before college. I'd like to do this for a combination of reasons, which probably sound very idealistic: I feel like I've been stunted in high school (putting my interests and desires on hold to package myself into a college application etc), and want a year of freedom to learn about myself and let myself grow. I also feel like I don't really appreciate my education anymore and think/hope a year off might change that. I guess I just want to experience something new, and then reassess things.</p>
<p>The problem is, I cannot imagine living at home during this year. I love my family, but being at home stresses and depresses me, and I honestly don't think I could accomplish anything meaningful in this year if I had to stay home. So I want to travel, and this creates the problem of money. </p>
<p>I'm looking for suggestions on what I can do. Maybe a community service program that will give me a place to stay while I do it, or maybe just someplace that is cheap enough that I could work a minimum-wage job and support myself. I really have no idea where to start, so anything helps. Seriously, any information at all about gap years is appreciated.</p>
<p>If it matters, I'm deciding between Vassar, McGill, NYU, and Hampshire. And also I have ~5000 dollars saved up from part-time work to help finance this year off, though of course I prefer to spend as little as possible. Also, my parents fully support this year off.</p>
<p>I’m really starting to like the idea of a gap year (though not to travel and have lots of fun), so I’m interested in hearing comments on your idea.</p>
<p>A co-worker’s daughter is going to take a year off to be a nanny in Munich. Sounds like an interesting time - she’s interested in German and one or two other languages.</p>
<p>I think it’s a great idea and students who do this often end up doing much better when they do go to college. Have you considered Americorps? If you serve for 10-12 months, you’ll receive $4725 for college expenses, which could help refuel your savings. I think some positions do offer a stipend for living expenses as well.</p>
<p>my daughter is taking a gap year- she didn’t have any money saved, so she worked two jobs to save as much money as possible since her summer job ( camp counselor) doesn’t pay much.
She had to live at home for six months- but she is spending almost the next four months volunteering & traveling. ( india and england)</p>
<p>Yes, my friend’s D is spending a year living abroad with foreign exchange thru Rotary in Italy. It’s competitive & there are deadlines, but it’s good to inquire. Some colleges will allow you to defer enrollment after accepting you if you explain what you are planning to do in your gap year.</p>
<p>In your gap year, have your parents check on your health insurance coverage. Some insurers only provide coverage while you’re a full-time student while others just require you to be dependent. If you do AmeriCorp, see if they will provide benefits such as insurance or whether you may need to have your parents get COBRA or other coverage.</p>
<p>I liked the idea of Americorps, but the deadline for registration for the residential program was April 1st, so that won’t work, and I don’t want to do a program that would force me to stay at home. If I’m missing something, please let me know, but it doesn’t look like Americorps will happen for me…</p>
<p>thanks for the tip on Rotary, it looks interesting and I would LOVE to spend some time abroad during this year (if not the entire year!). I will definitely look into it further. But I’m not sure if I want to be in school, even if it is abroad, during this time, so I don’t know if the student exchange program is for me.</p>
<p>and thanks for the tip about health insurance, one of those things I never would have thought of!</p>
<p>Another thing I was considering, though I’m not sure that it is realistic, is working a crappy job and renting the cheapest place I can find someplace away from home for a while. I think it would definitely make me more independent and ready for college in that sense, give me time to myself read and make art and whatever else I’d like to explore, and hopefully a crappy job would make me appreciate school more. Any thoughts on this idea?</p>
<p>Community service opportunities abroad are something that I would love to look into, but I can’t find too many of them…so any info about that would be awesome too.</p>
<p>My D is doing a gap year with Global Volunteer Network. She spent the fall semester in Honduras building sustainable housing, living with a host family. She is spending this semester in New Zealand working with an environmental conservation and habitat restoration project. She loved livingin Honduras and working on her Spanish. She loves the NZ project because of the type of work she is doing. BTW, she went against conventional wisdom and re-applied to two schools she was not accepted to last year, Rice and Pitzer, and got into both this year. I’d like to think the gap year helped. But, beware, Santa Clara considered her a transfer student this year because she already had a high school diploma and had received dual enrollment credits during her Jr. and Sr. year of HS. I also ran into trouble with the instate schools not including her automatically in the consideration for merit scholarships. I worked it out satisfactorily with the instate schools. I am still fighting with SCU. There are lots of opportunities out there for GAP years. CNN published a top ten list of international volunteer organizations you might want to check out.</p>
<p>It would make you more independent, but I wouldn’t assume that you’d have that much more time to read and make art. I worked a part-time-ish job during my gap year (teaching… officially it was 6 hours per day, but of course about twice a week it was closer to 9 hours, plus all the additional preparation that you have to put in). I’d thought that with a relatively high-paying job with a knock-off time of 2 PM I’d have plenty of time to make short films like I wanted, but it turned out that I simply didn’t have time between falling sick, feeling stressed out, preparing teaching materials, marking, and fulfilling prior volunteering commitments. I didn’t get going on my film work until I left my job.</p>
<p>You won’t have your pick of jobs or of rental places so you may find that you end up having to work longer hours, with less time to do what you meant to do during your gap year, and that can be quite unfulfilling. Despite my negative experience, I definitely think it’s possible to make it work, but make sure you know what you’re getting into if you go this route.</p>