Thinking of Taking Senior year again in the US

So what I am hearing is a PG year is useless for an academically and extra-curricular strong candidate? so that means that all PG candidates are those that have weak academic records and would need a PG year to increase their grades? but the PG year would be more rigorous that ordinary H.S. so basically they are screwed as well since they couldn’t get high grades in senior high how can they get better grades at PG? why go to PG year if you are not going to focus in athletics to get in the universities of your choice?

@Depressed01 – I am sure that others will chime in with their experiences… I attended a boarding school that had PG students. Almost all were potential college athletes, taking a year to grow, develop, and in some cases raise their academic profile. I do think we may also have had some international students who were taking a year to study in US post the completion of their own HS academic studies, but I am not 100% sure. I know it was much more likely that we had international students come for their sophomore or junior year to study abroad.

It might help if here, or on a new thread, you listed the colleges to which your child applied last admissions cycle. It may just be that those are schools that are reach admits for all students. As others have said, it may be that a college admissions counselor who can help build a more balanced list is the way to go. This does not mean to NOT apply to some schools which are reaches for everyone (Ivies, MIT, etc…), it just means to develop a balanced list of schools with reaches, matches, and safeties. With his undergraduate record he should have no trouble crafting a list of strong colleges.

If the reason for a PG year is to acclaimate to US, take a year to explore, etc… that might be worth while.

I’m not sure what you’re hearing, but I think people are not telling you what you want to hear.

Fundamentally, a PG year is intended for a kid who needs another year of high school. Not the optics of another year of high school, but the content.

I think what everyone is saying is that a kid with an IBD certainly doesn’t need it for academic reasons. If he’s not an athlete (often one already tapped by a coach), he doesn’t need it to get bigger and stronger. He doesn’t need it for language proficiency.

In short, the PG year exists to give a student something he still needs from a high school experience.

In your case, your kid has everything he needs from the high school experience. You are trying to remedy a bad application strategy. You might be able to tweak the apps if you applied again from a PG program but what you really need to do is have a more balanced list. A good private counselor could help make sure the application is pulled together right. (A cc at a prep school would do this as well.) But it sounds, OP, like you believe that the same app, coming from a different high school will have different outcomes. What you are hearing here is that that is unlikely to be so, and your son, clearly ready for college, may not love being in high school for another year.

Most of us here are suggesting that your son could change his app more with a gap year and that you really need a different list of schools. Alternatively, he can start someplace less competitive and transfer. Kids definitely do the latter!

Not necessarily useless, but not a magic bullet, and with some inherent tradeoffs.

As far as we know, your son has no option for college in September- is that correct? Or, is there an option but it is not one that you find acceptable? One element that has been entirely absent from this whole thread is what your son wants, either short term or long term.

If the only satisfactory outcome for you/both of you is a super-famous university, then you need to be prepared for the reality that you there is almost nothing* that can be done to make that likely. A PG year can get your son a letter of recommendation that is more like what US colleges look for- but you are tweaking the edges of the statistics, not moving the needle strongly. Having him do a gap year in something that is genuinely meaningful to him (and that requires more than showing up for a packaged program) and hiring a high-end admission counselor might be productive- especially if that something starts essentially immediately (so that he has been doing it for 4 or 5 months before a letter of rec would need to be written) and it fits with his larger story. But again, it will not substantially change the odds of success.

Frankly, if any of his teachers at his old school was a big supporter of your son’s and was willing, getting them some information on how to write a recommendation for US colleges, and providing the teacher with some reminders of (true) specifics (which is common practice in the US), and having him get an actual normal paid job for the year would likely make as much of a difference as either of those options.

On the other hand, if you are both genuinely open to a much wider range of names then either of those paths can be good options, because they give your son a structure and a focus for the intervening year. Choosing colleges that are good fits for him and his interests, at a range of acceptance rates will result in good choices next April (or sooner). In that case, choosing a PG program that will be interesting and challenging for a strong student is important- a bored 18 year old is rarely a good plan!

*a strong eight or nine digit donation could do the trick, but it is getting late even for that

I thought a gap year is when a student has already been accepted to a college and he wants to do something before he goes to college, if a student does not have a college yet, what does the gap year do to him?

A PG year will yield 1) a list of colleges with 2 safeties and several matches 2) good overall guidance 3) recommendations 4) perhaps a chance to work in a ‘makerspace’ or an ‘idea lab’ or on some research, or perhaps 5) participate in science contests 6) if relevant improve sport 7) acclimate to the US.
It’s not going going to make acceptance to top 20 universities/NESCAC automatic.
A PG year is only worth it if OP’s son wants 1-7 and useless if all he wants is a surefire way to get into Harvard, Williams, or MIT.

A school where the college advising Dept is so clueless that none of the students who applied either to the UK or US got an acceptance is not going to provide usable recommendations from either teacher nor guidance counselor. For a strong applicant that can be the kiss of death.

At boarding schools, it’s variable but roughly 40-60% PG Students will be athletes, 30-40% internationals, the rest boarding school students who need to improve their record.

Well, in Dayo Adetu’s case she also had no offers and her gap year got her into Penn, but no-one seems to know what she actually did in it. Of course not every gap year ends like that. People do take “forced” gap years - no offer, or their accepted place gets rescinded and they no longer have other options, etc. In your son’s case, as others have already suggested, if he finds something he is passionate about and interested in, especially if it has a community service angle, it could well add a roundedness to his application to make him more attractive to schools. But again, crucially, he needs the right college list. There is no magic bullet to suddenly get him into a top school.

It’s already been asked a few times but not answered: what does your son actually want to do over the next year?

I know kids who have taken a gap year prior to applying to figure out their motivation.

The benefit of applying senior year, getting accepted, and taking a gap year is that you don’t have to spend any part of that year on applications. It is indeed easier to apply when you are at school as the school has it’s part to do. But in your case, that ship has sailed.

So yes, he can take a gap year and do something interesting as well as apply to college.

If you are still looking at a PG year, I would highly recommend Worcester Academy. I know that they are still accepting applicants and have FA available if you need it.

They had a very good reputation through the 2000s but fell off a bit around 2010 due to some poor administration that they have cleaned up at this point. It is a school that is now back on the rise, and has really become a bit of a hidden gem in Central Massachusetts. The last few years have had great college matriculation, comparable to places like Blair and Mercersburg. Guidance and counseling services are phenomenal.