<p>I have seen many people talk about taking a gap year. How exactly does that work as far as getting accepted to colleges, and how would it affect financial aid/merit aid?
i would think it might be harder to get accepted into colleges if you have been out of school for a year before applying. Can you go ahead and apply in your senior year, get accepted, and then take a year off and begin attending the following year?</p>
<p>You can take an unofficial type gap year by just applying for college a year after graduating from high school, but that makes it difficult to get accepted. Most people who take gap years get accepted, then request to defer enrollment for a gap year. If the college approves it, you get the year to do something productive (it’s almost certainly going to have to be productive if the college will approve of it) and then enroll with the next class of students. As for how it affects financial aid and merit, I’m afraid I don’t know.</p>
<p>my son is taking a gap year to do service work. most of the colleges he has been accepted to will allow a deferral and will hold any scholarship $$ for him. financial aid is something one has to re-apply for each year anyway, of course.</p>
<p>Many times when gap year is suggested around these forums, it is suggested as an emergency option when the student gets shut out of all applied-to colleges, and does not want to go to community college and transfer. There will probably be more threads in April.</p>
<p>You should definitely apply to colleges first, and then look to defer enrollment by presenting your plan for a gap year. Most universities aren’t only going to allow this, they encourage it. This article by the Dean of Admissions highlights why schools are coming to value students that take a meaningful and productive gap year before entering university. [Harvard</a> College Admissions § Applying: Taking Time Off](<a href=“http://admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/time_off/index.html]Harvard”>http://admissions.college.harvard.edu/apply/time_off/index.html)</p>
<p>As for why you might want to take a gap year, the reasons are really limitless. Ultimately, the question that might best give you direction when thinking about this is what it is that you want to gain before you enter university, and then identifying what to do on your gap year to go out and get those skills, experiences, etc. </p>
<p>Full disclosure, I work for a great gap year organization, so I’ll point you to the specific page on our site about “Why take a gap year?” which has some more really useful links. [Why</a> Take A Gap Year? - Info From The Experts](<a href=“http://thinkingbeyondborders.org/why-gap-year/]Why”>http://thinkingbeyondborders.org/why-gap-year/)</p>
<p>But, I’m not going to try to tell you that my organization is the best choice for you. I’m interested in people finding the right gap year, because I really feel that it is the right choice for many students out there. So I’ll point you to usagapyearfairs.org, where you’ll find a whole lot of great gap year choices. Good luck!</p>
<p>I have a daughter who’s now a freshman in college, after a gap year abroad. Here’s what she did, and what we learned.</p>
<p>She asked every college and university that she considered applying to what their specific policy on gap years is. This is important, because schools do have their own policies. But some general statements follow.</p>
<p>Most, but not all, American colleges and universities will allow an admitted student to defer enrollment for a year (sometimes two). Frequently, they will want to know what you plan to do with your gap year, but as long as you have some kind of plan (and it’s a better plan than just beer and gaming), they’ll approve.</p>
<p>If you’re offered merit aid, many, but again not all, colleges and universities will defer your merit award along with your enrollment. When my daughter was college-shopping, the exception on her list was Brandeis, but since then, Brandeis has pretty much done away with merit aid anyway, so that’s really moot. But this is a question you really do need to ask each college and university.</p>
<p>Need-based aid is a different matter. As kelijake said above, you have to reapply for need-based aid every year (not because you have to compete for it, but because if your family’s circumstances have changed–for better or for worse–your need-based award should change, too). So you or your parents would have to reapply for need-based aid during your gap year, but you’d be reapplying at that time even if you went straight to college.</p>
<p>As Scotttbb7 said above, all of the gap-year programs that my daughter considered strongly encouraged applicants to apply to college while they were still in high school, before their gap year. There’s a lot of administration in applying to college–getting the transcripts, getting the letters of recommendation, etc.–and it’s just plain easier to take care of that stuff when you’re still in the same building as your guidance counselor and your teachers every weekday. The gap-year programs did all say that they’d do their best to help students who opted to apply to college during their gap year, but they didn’t encourage going that way.</p>
<p>To return to what my daughter did: she applied to college during her senior year. She asked about gap-year policies when she was researching colleges, but she didn’t tell the colleges that she was planning a gap year while she was applying. While she was applying to colleges, she also did the application for her gap-year program. After she got her acceptances and selected a university, she returned her paperwork and paid the enrollment deposit. Then she contacted the admissions office at the university she’d chosen to defer her enrollment. There was a deadline for this. It wasn’t too burdensome–mid-June, or maybe even July 1, maybe? I forget–but you shouldn’t dawdle.</p>
<p>Because she was abroad during her gap year, she did leave us access to her university portal while she was away, and she did set up a Gmail account that we had access to so that we could help manage her college stuff, banking stuff, etc., in her absence. She was originally reluctant to do this, but it turned out to be a huge help. Sometimes she had good internet access while she was away, but sometimes she didn’t. And even when she did, there was a seven-hour time difference to contend with. And things didn’t always go smoothly with the university while she was away. Because she had originally been admitted with the Class of 2015, they didn’t always include her in mailings for the freshman class entering in 2012. So if you do defer enrollment for a gap year, keep tabs on what’s going on at the college you plan to attend! You don’t want to miss housing deadlines, registration for classes, etc.</p>
<p>Finally, I’ll echo what scotttbb7 said. Our daughter’s gap year was a very good experience for her, and the colleges she asked ranged from “willing” to “eager” for her to go.</p>
<p>Wow, this is long. Sorry.</p>
<p>I’m doing a gap year. It’s extremely beneficial in ways you’d never imagine. I would recommend it to anyone.</p>
<p>thank you! This is great information. A Gap year is just not something I had ever considered as a possibility to plan for…definitely something to consider.</p>
<p>Can you do gap years between years in college (like a gap year after freshman year in college, or after sophomore year in college, etc.)?</p>
<p>Many colleges have withdrawal and readmission policies that make it easy to take a leave of absence from school and then return to school after a semester or few off. Commonly, this is done by engineering students for a co-op job (a summer plus a semester or quarter in length), whether or not a formalized co-op program exists at the school.</p>
<p>Often there are limitations on how long you can be off of school, and if the requirements for the school or major change while you are away, you may have to meet the new requirements. Changes in courses and curricula while you are away may also be an issue. Look for each school’s withdrawal and readmission policy on its web site.</p>
<p>For example, here is University of Pennsylvania’s College of Arts and Sciences policy:
<a href=“http://www.college.upenn.edu/leave-of-absence[/url]”>http://www.college.upenn.edu/leave-of-absence</a></p>
<p>SinkOrSwim, often you can. You just take a leave of absence from the college or university. Most schools will do this, but you should certainly find out the relevant policies at the college you attend.</p>
<p>There are many organized gap-year programs–some of them are for a year abroad like my daughter’s program, and some of them are domestic public-service programs like City Year–aimed at students between high school and college, and fewer aimed at current undergrads. But for all I know there are some. People I knew who took a leave when I was in college, about 100 years ago, often did things like travel or work or volunteer for a political cause or campaign, but they often did it in a way that was a little less structured than many pre-college gap-year programs are.</p>
<p>(x-posted with ucbalum)</p>
<p>Kudos to everyone on this thread - I’m impressed with the real understanding that everyone has here so I no need for me to restate.</p>