Why is CC in love with gap year?

Parents Forum
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<p>And the problem with that would be ...?
The Gap wouldn't be my first choice as the place of employment - roofing or ditchdigging or the nursing home (see below), but I think working for a year might be a very good course for a lot of kids. I know of kids who worked retail at Walmart and Target, who worked in a nursing home as an aide, who answered phones and did secretarial work - all finished their tenure knowing that they wanted more opportunities, perhaps understanding a little more about the value of money.</p>

<p>My view is skewed because I see a LOT of upper middle class (doc and lawyer kids) who go off to college spend a semester or two, and come home for what we call Walmart therapy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, usually depending on the amount of perseverance and tough love the parents are willing to dish out. Somehow, I think it would be better for many of these kids to do their gap year and maturation year first, rather than in the middle.</p>

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<p>My sense is that something like Americorps is planned, and not a response to a string of rejections. I can see why that would work well in that case, but my concern is a bit different.</p>

<p>I can list dozens of my friends who suffered because they didn't go off to college immediately after HS. These are NOT CC types ("got a 2310, should I take over lol?"); these are students who would have been attending, say, Southwest Missouri State. Their version of a "gap year" is getting a job, then buying a car, then dropping out of community college, then never finishing college, or scraping through a DeVry or Phoenix program. These are people who earned good grades at a good high school, but who fell off the regular track and never got back on. </p>

<p>At my 20th HS reunion there was a stark contrast between those who went off to college - anywhere - and those who commuted, attended community coll, and/or dropped out. I can't think of one kid who attending a residential college who didn't get a degree, but know of dozens in the other category.</p>

<p>Perhaps before we suggest a gap year, we should ask qualifiers such as: what will s/he do with it? Can your family support him/her? Will s/he be anxious to get back to school or glad to be free of it? It's only after that that I'd be able to even suggest getting off the normal path.</p>

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<p>I wrote post 22 before I read 20 and 21, but, yeah, I have a problem with a good student wasting a year at the Gap. I've seen it end up badly too many times (including my best friend, still not a college grad at 44 but smarter than I am; still regrets his decision to work and commute, and then drop out, and never experience the joy of learning and college residential life)</p>

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<p>MSUDad, my comments about the prevalence of Monday-morning QBing on CC were inspired by your choice of words: having "failed," the kids should "admit their mistake." Your words brought to the forefront of my mind something that I've noticed as a general trend here. I did not mean to imply that your post was a particularly strong example of it.</p>

<p>But since you ask, yeah, I think that when you say that someone has failed and needs to admit their mistake you are "blaming" them. I didn't see any suggestion that acceptance decisions can be wildly unpredictable. I saw the assumption that everyone ought to be able to tell exactly what is a safety and what isn't, and if they turn out to be wrong it's their fault. I happen to disagree. </p>

<p>To address the topic of the gap year, unlike many other people, I actually think that not getting into any school you really want to attend is a perfectly good reason for choosing to take a year, do something worthwhile, and reassess your situation and your desires. I think that running to any school that is willing to take you just for the sake of being in college might be viewed not as "sucking it up and making it happen," but as taking the path of least resistance.</p>

<p>I'm not into blaming kids who make either choice. It's not easy.</p>

<p>[Edit: having read your posts above I understand where you are coming from on this. And of course that's always the big fear, that the kid won't go back. I took a semester off in college, and my parents acted like I was dropping out. :) I've also seen a lot of kids go to college, and then come home and drift in the kind of "unplanned gap year" described by others. It's a complex issue.]</p>

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<p>My biggest regret looking back at college is that I didn't take a gap year. Having nothing to do with admissions, I think the OP is perpetuating a destructive societal myth that everybody should progress at the same pace.</p>

<p>I didn't know why I was in college - only that there was an extraordinary amount of pressure to be there (I went to a college prep school) and really didn't start to appreciate it until my last year / year and a half when I finally figured out why I was there.</p>

<p>In contrast, my girlfriend struggled somewhat in high school, took a year off, and is now extremely focused academically, loves learning, and feels like she's surrounded by immature kids who have no idea why they're there / don't want to be there.</p>

<p>Gap years are pretty standard in Australia / Europe. I woefully regret falling prey to the status quo in the US.</p>

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<p>Consolation, if I added such disclaimers and qualifiers to my posts, they'd be twice as long as they are, and they're already too long.</p>

<p>I think the safety issue is an excellent topic for another thread, and I don't necessarily disagree with you.</p>

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<p>I wonder sometimes about the students who are expected to go to college by their parents and social mileau but really should not go. A gap year for those people would take the pressure off of having to go to college because it is expected. For most the loss of momentum of attending school may not be best. As for the maturation, of course doing something else for a year would increase maturity- can you imagine the army or marines with experienced new recruits instead of young immature ones? Reminds me of the case for waiting to start kindergarten.</p>

<p>A gap year sounds so much better than deciding to not go to college, especially for the higher socioeconomic classes. Just admit it folks- not all offspring of college educated parents should go to college. Some are not ready and may be later, others never will be. Don't try to make it seem more acceptable by calling it a "gap year". Andi's son blew it and so needed something to fill the gap between HS and college- kudos to his mom for all of her instructive posts. Forcing natural students to interrupt their formal education with a noncollege year is not in their best interest. Maybe all the focus on a gap year is a wakeup call to make us realize that not all college capable students should go to college. It wasn't all that long ago when far fewer students did attend college (the increase is a huge benefit for those who should go but whose social circles would not have made it an option).</p>

<p>MSUDad- I get your point. Elitism is rampant amongst CC posters. I do think there are regional cultural differences in this country, I feel it as a midwest poster. Enough from me for now.</p>

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<p>MSUDad:</p>

<p>One example, from the recent lives of people I know, of a completely unproductive productive gap year.</p>

<p>Kid is very intellectual but un-self-confident. An excellent student, but increasingly erratic during the last years of high school, lots of absenteeism, got carried a lot by the private school that wanted to see him succeed. Some serious problems with self-destructive behavior, but never running off the rails entirely. Got into several good colleges, rejected at reachier ones. (He has a clear academic passion, which doubtless helped.) A few crises in the winter of senior year sent him into intensive therapy.</p>

<p>The choice wound up being, go to college a few blocks from home in order to continue with therapist (and in order for parents to feel comfortable he is OK), or take a year off and go to the college he wanted to attend. He took the year off. Lived in a crappy apartment a few miles from home. Marginal, stupid employment. Drugs, alchohol, sex. Hit bottom. Continued therapy. Got bored out of his skull.</p>

<p>Two years later, his issues haven't entirely gone away in college, but he's doing well there, and he appreciates it. The year after high school was going to be a lost one for him. If he had gone to college, he might have lost himself right out of college, or lost opportunities he would never have gotten back. As it was, he didn't lose anything but a little time.</p>

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<p>" can list dozens of my friends who suffered because they didn't go off to college immediately after HS. These are NOT CC types ("got a 2310, should I take over lol?"); these are students who would have been attending, say, Southwest Missouri State. Their version of a "gap year" is getting a job, then buying a car, then dropping out of community college, then never finishing college, or scraping through a DeVry or Phoenix program. These are people who earned good grades at a good high school, but who fell off the regular track and never got back on. "</p>

<p>What they did, however, isn't my idea of a productive gap year. I include in the concept of a productive gap year, a young person's being expected to be fiscally responsible, too. That means, if they are living at home, they would be expected to work full time or volunteer full time. If they are working fulltime, they'd be expected to pay rent (which is what we had S do when he was an Americorps volunteer). If they chose to move out of the home, they'd be expected to pay for their living arrangments, transportation and find their own living quarters.</p>

<p>If they wanted to spend their gap year traveling, they'd be expected to work to raise the money to do that. I have a friend who is now head of a foundation who did exactly that in the 1970s. She worked throughout high school, then used the money to live in Africa, where she traveled and also submitted her one college application (Middlebury, which accepted her, and where she eventually graduated from).</p>

<p>I also suspect that some of the students who party throughout their gap year and end up never going to college or delaying for many years their college entrance would have partied in college, too, and have been bounced out by the end of freshmen year, which is what older S did. A lot of people simply will never be ready for college even though they have the intelligence to be able to handle college. </p>

<p>Older S was a very bright student who underperformed academically just like his younger brother eventually did. Because older S said he wanted to go straight to college, and attributed his mediocre grades with hating the region that we'd moved to when he was in elementary school, I helped him out by organizing him so he submitted good apps to places that he'd enjoy attending.</p>

<p>So, right after h.s., that S went off to the college of his choice in the region of his choice with a virtually full ride merit aid package. He loved the college, particularly the fact that it had his favorite sports team. He didn't bother to go to class, and flunked out.</p>

<p>This is why I do say that if the only way that a student will submit their college apps is if their parents organize their time with an iron fist, that student isn't ready for college.</p>

<p>Younger S managed to miss the deadlines on all colleges that interested him. Immediately afterward, he managed to get an Americorps position created for him at a place a couple of miles away where he'd been a longtime very effective volunteer. </p>

<p>He had wanted to be "independent" by living away from home, and H and I told him to go ahead. When, however, S looked at the classifieds, he decided to live at home, pay rent (we charge $50 a week, plus gas money for the car we let him use) and follow house rules.</p>

<p>This meant that he still had to do his share of the weekly cleaning. We didn't impose a curfew, but asked for the same kind of politeness about his comings and goings that he'd be expected to do if he was a guest in someone's home.</p>

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<p>NSMom, I appreciate the insights.</p>

<p>Couple points: my drop out friends were NOT partiers. They didn't do anything wrong... they simply entered adulthood at 18 or 19, degree-less. They are not ignorant; they were B+ students at a high school that sent 50 kids a year to Berkeley.</p>

<p>They thought they were "taking a year off" or "taking it easy this term" or "talking only one class because of a big project at work" and then they ended up without a degree (we can all agree that's a bad thing, yes?), with limited career potential.</p>

<p>Here's what they missed (indeed, to this day they don't know it exists):</p>

<ul>
<li> Roethke taught by the LAC prof who still giggles at the lines, 20 years on -</li>
<li> A lecture on Korematsu v US -</li>
<li> Winning the Eistedfod in Wales with your college choir</li>
<li> Doing a work-study at Jaguar, designing the structure for the XK</li>
<li> "The Big Game" on a Saturday morning</li>
<li> Taking a class and changing your major - and your life - because of it.</li>
</ul>

<p>Those are all things my friends and I have done.</p>

<p>So, yeah, the others have jobs and cars and vacations, but, sorry, they missed out, and they don't even know what they missed.</p>

<p>We should recommend a gap year with lots of caution, is what I'm saying.</p>

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<p>MSU Dad I agree with you that gap years should be entered into with caution. IMO, the student needs to have planned activities that fill up most of the day.</p>

<p>If those activities would cost money (i.e. travel including community service-oriented travel), the student should be expected to earn the money to do those activities.</p>

<p>Unless the student is doing full time, unpaid volunteer work, the student should be expected to be taking on the majority of their financial responsibilities. They shouldn't be able to live at their parents' expense while spending their own money only on luxuries like designer clothes, entertainment, etc.</p>

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<p>MSUDad...for your friends, the ones you talk about, it sounds like the problem was that they never went back. It sounds like the gap year was an excuse to postpone college indefinitely. But that's not the way it has to be.</p>

<p>Where you go to college will have a major influence on your college experience. Your experiences, in turn, will have a major influence on your character, and thus, the course of your life. A kid might acclimate to whatever school s/he is at, but much like your friends, s/he will never know what s/he has missed. I would advise students to choose the colleges to which they apply wisely, including a safety that the student <em>would be happy to attend</em>, but I think it's better to take a gap year and try again than to find a college, any college, that will take you. At some point, of course, this changes...there comes a time when you need to go ahead, get your degree, and move on. But one gap year is not much of a delay, and can be very productive.</p>

<p>I would also recommend gap years to young students, who have skipped grades. I have a friend who graduated from high school at 16 and worked for a railroad company for two years before going to college, because he thought that he needed to grow up before he attended.</p>

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<p>The guidance counsellors at my D's HS want everyone to apply to two safeties. (They also say two matches and two reaches, for a total of six.)</p>

<p>My D visited her planned second safety and didn't like it, so we didn't take the counsellor's advice; she only applied to one safety, and it worked out fine. </p>

<p>I am starting to have more respect for our GC's the two safety schools guideline, though. Sometimes something really unexpected happens. Two safety schools should yield an offer of admissions almost all the time. This would prevent the stress of "I didn't get in anywhere I want to go; I have to take a year off and try again."</p>

<p>I know it can take some effort to find two safety schools that are appealing, but I think it is worth the effort, especially if the student's other colleges are high matches or reaches.</p>

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<p>Jessie, I understand that the issue was that they never went back, the point I was making was that a gap year has a way of turning into nothing meaningful. You put off college, get a job, then get bills, forget about college, and shortchange yourself. Of course, that's not what one intends, but I've seen it happen so much that I can't ignore the evidence.</p>

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<p>^ I agree. I have a distant relative who should have quit his job and gone back for a 4 year degree, but now has a wife, mortgage, 2 kids... It will never happen. I worked with quite a few guys who were working on their BS degrees part time. I never saw one of them finish.</p>

<p>I've always been struck by the stories of the quality of the returning WWII vets. They were very motivated students. My own husband dropped out after freshman year for a 4 year stint in the USAF, then returned on the GI Bill to finish his degree in 4 years total. But the financial support for those guys was much better then. It's more of a struggle now. Costs are much higher now.</p>

<p>What do you think of this list?
From best case to worst case, for kids who have the ability to do college level work:
1. kid is ready for college, knows what they want, and finishes in 4 years
2. kid is somewhat ready and finishes in 4-6 years
3. kid isn't ready, attends for 1-2 years, drops out, returns after 1-2 years and finishes
4. kid isn't ready, attends, drops out, never finishes
5. kid takes a gap year and takes a few classes but never finishes
6. kid takes a gap year and never goes to college</p>

<p>Scenarios 4-6 lead to non-degree situations. 5-6 involve a gap year.
So where do this scenario fit in?
- kid takes a "gap year" then finishes in 4 (or 4-6) years?</p>

<p>Is it better to attend, drop out, then finish? Better psychologically? Financially?</p>

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<p>^ Good list.
One reason I think it's better to attend immediately is because there's a chance (more likely a probability) that the student will enjoy attending the super-safety, last-minute school (along with the other students for whom that school was a first choice).
If they don't enjoy it, then transfer, no penalty.</p>

<p>I've seen almost universal positives reported here by students who have attended their safeties, negating the need for a "gap year."</p>

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<p>Yes, but as everyone except you has said, trying to better your safety is a silly reason to take a gap year. (Not having a safety to attend -- that's an OK reason, probably.)</p>

<p>Maybe it's a class thing. I haven't seen anyone take a gap year and never make it to college. In my corner of the socioeconomy, the kids go to college. The kids who take gap years go to college a year later. The problems come with the kids who go straight to college from high school and screw up there. They are the ones that often have a hard time getting back -- their track record of failure limits their options and spooks themselves.</p>

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<p>^^^^
I agree. I think this completely comes down to both class and personal motivation. The people MSUDad is speaking of clearly sound like they needed someone pushing them the whole way and had too many social influences to get stuck in a non-collegiate rut. I can assure you that, in my neck of the world, if you don't go to a really good college (not just college) there's a stigma coming your way that most want to avoid.</p>

<p>And there are negative impacts to just diving into college (you're making this all about safety schools for some reason). I recently applied to MIT and look at my freshman year transcript oh so long ago and worry that my lackluster performance way back when I was forced into college right out of high school will impact my chances now, even though I'm nothing like the person I was then. </p>

<p>I think pushing kids into any college is just too control-oriented of a reaction. They need the freedom to know whether it is best for them to go right in or to pull back or to (gasp!) never go. That might scare parents, but it's often best to allow the student's intuition guide them.</p>

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<p>"The guidance counsellors at my D's HS want everyone to apply to two safeties. (They also say two matches and two reaches, for a total of six.)"</p>

<p>I like the idea of having 2 safeties. That way, the student gets a choice about which college to go to instead of feeling stuck with only one option.</p>

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<p>Mathson had two safeties, because he'd never gotten around to visiting either of them. They were quite similar, but still had some significant differences that might have matter to him if it had come down to choosing between them. </p>

<p>I don't like the idea of taking time off in the middle of college, because I think you are apt to lose momentum and it means that you get off kilter with your classmates. At least where I attended college there's a fair amount of class cohesion. I think it's easier to spend four years in a row at college.</p>