Why is CC in love with gap year?

Parent Cafe
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<p>I am not a strong advocate of gap years. In fact, unless there is some specific reason to take off that year, I would not care for the idea for my kids. However, I can tell you that my sons’ school college counselors eho tend to be very much in tune with the smaller, selective colleges have made it pretty clear that they like gap years. They encourage gap years. The counselors also feel that kids who take that gap year are more ready and enthusiastic about going back into academics.</p>

<p>As far as taking a gap year because you don’t like any of the schools that accepted you, that is a whole different story. That really is not a gap year. A gap year is usually a year a kid takes AFTER being ACCEPTED to a school, committing to the school, but taking off the year before starting college. In fact, the gap year contracts tend to prohibit applying to other schools in lieu of them. I always urge kids to have a safety in their bunch so that they are not caught without a school option, and feel that the safeties are the real challenge in the college search. Anyone can just pick off the top name schools and say they want to go to them. Finding lesser known schools that can suit you is a whole different story. However, if a kid really fells at the end of his senior year that he does not like any of his college choices and wants to try again the following year, it isn’t something I would shrug off. Too much of a monetary commitment, too many kids who leave college for reasons that they hate it or can’t get motivated to do the work, for me to cavalierly say they need to just bite the bullet on this one. A year of alternative activities may well be what is needed. I also don’t think that unless a kid uses the year very well, he is going to get into more selective schools than he did the first go around. </p>

<p>There have been kids who have done well in deferring a year. One young lady we know had a bad freshman year and a mediocre sophomore year for a number of personal and family reasons. She decided that with stellar junior and senior year performances and taking some local college courses, some great summer internships and becoming fluent in an unusual foreign language and spending time in that country, she would be a candidate for a different class of colleges. Yes, she was. It was time well spent in her case.</p>

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<p>Our son deferred admission for a year and was able to keep his merit scholarships.</p>

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<p>Harvard actually seems to have a category of kids – the ones I know who are kids of alumni and professors but it may not be limited to them – to whom it guarantees admission if they take a gap year.</p>

<p>As I mentioned in an earlier post, my son was sick a fair bit in senior year and needed to use his energy to take courses and as well needed to work a little bit more on reading fluency. I suggested he postpone college applications until this year (we originally thought he might take 5 years to finish high school so that he could work on reading and writing, so the extra year was always a possibility). He’s got to take SATs and do college apps, but in addition, in the fall, he’s completing his novel, working on reading fluency at Tufts, was asked by the Tufts group who is helping him to work as a coauthor on a paper in which they are developing and testing an approach to improving reading fluency among adolescent dyslexics. He’s also becoming a regional manager (?) for the Obama campaign and is working in a fairly disciplined way on his drawing. More stuff, likely including surgery and Spanish immersion, in the spring.</p>

<p>We were concerned that because his friends were going off to school, he’d be lonely, and less of a structured existence (he was partially in public school and partially home-schooled), he might flounder. After a summer that was largely relaxation and a little SAT practice, all signs are positive thus far. Post-Labor Day, he’s been fairly disciplined about his work, has joined an illuminated Ultimate Frisbee League with lots of Boston-area college students, and volunteered for the Obama campaign. So far, it looks like time well-spent (except for SAT prep and college apps, but they may be nearly like death and taxes).</p>

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<p>Not every college allows this.
It is one of the questions on the “Common Data Set” for colleges, so it should be fairly easy to find this information for any school you are intersted in.
I know Ohio State does not allow deferral. An offer of admission from OSU is a “one time offer.” :)</p>

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<p>I’ve never heard of Harvard guaranteeing anyone admission due to a gap year. The way it usually works is that Harvard would allow someone who is admitted to defer admission to take a gap year. It makes sense that OsU would not allow deferral. With the large schools, the administrative work makes it difficult to track those kids. It is not a “one time” offer in that you can reapply and you probably will be admitted if you were a good candidate initially. My friend’s daughter did do this.</p>

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<p>Yes, I have heard of Harvard guaranteeing admission if a student takes a gap year. The person who told this was an alum interviewer whose S was guaranteed admission if he took a gap year.</p>

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<p>cptofthehouse, the offer in question was made to the child of a close friend, who is a Harvard professor, and to two children of a business colleague, who is a Harvard alumnus and probably a meaningful donor. In the first case, and I believe in the latter two, the kid was offered admission only on the condition if he/she took the gap year.</p>

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<p>We are actually sorta considering the option of a gap year for our youngest son (who is now a sophmore). </p>

<p>He is the youngest in his class (always has been), and while he keeps up quite well academically - he is somewhat “lacking” in self-discipline, focus, etc. This is a maturity issue, and one that could have been addressed if he had been “held back” in Kdg. Unfortunately, at that time, this was not the norm. Now, the pendulum seems to have swung the other way.</p>

<p>We lived overseas for many years and the kid has traveled the world, so a year spent traveling is NOT what I would permit, unless he was really working for some humanitarian organization or with a set “job” lined up. Instead, I would want him to try to get a 1 year internship in a field in which he was interested. This would allow him to gain a little extra maturity, a little experience, and a little money in the bank.</p>

<p>Will it happen? Who knows? But it is something we are thinking about.</p>

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<p>I have read with interest the posts on gap years. I can’t believe I am saying this, but I am all for them. This time last year had you suggested that I’d have laughed.</p>

<p>My 18 year old daughter is currently taking a gap year in China. She auditioned for and was cast by a huge multi-national entertainment firm, graduated HS in mid-March (first in the 30 years at her HS ever allowed to do so) and left for Hong Kong. She got on an airplane alone in March, landed in HK, and since then has learned more life lessons in 6 months than she could have packed into a full fours years at Wherever U. She lives alone, budgets, cooks, cleans, made friends, volunteers in her free time at a local orphange. She learned early on that while the legal drinking age is 18 in HK, its a big waste of time and calories. She’s learning Cantonese. Oh, and of course she works a fulltime, physically demanding job amongst ever nationality in the world, quite literally. </p>

<p>She’s always been extraordinarily motivated, she graduated with an A avg from a very academic private prep school, tons of EC, etc. But even so, she told me this summer had she known then what she knows now she never would have “half-a$$ed” her grades in HS, and she says she sure won’t make that mistake in college. Heck, that alone is worth the year off! </p>

<p>Also, the year away has apparently demonstrated to her that life without her family is a lot more lonely than she’d thought it would be. I think this year has adjusted her perspective on the importance of the care and keeping of friends and family. </p>

<p>Oh, and she’s alread saved almost $20,000 towards college. So that’s helpful.</p>

<p>Is it a solution for every kid? I don’t know, I guess it depends on the kid and also the gap year. I think leaving to live in HK for a year (or something similarly far from home, high on responsiblity, and lacking the “daddy’s credit card is paying for this” aspect is pretty different from taking a year off to work at your local grocery store and never quite getting back in the habit of school. </p>

<p>At least for my daughter its been a really outstanding experience. </p>

<p>Feel free to email me with questions or for details.</p>

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<p>Gapyearmom, your D’s gap year sounds wonderful. I am so glad that she is having the experience. Is she committed to a college for the next year, or is she applying (or reapplying)?</p>

<p>Thanks for the Harvard gap year info. Never heard of any schools making gap years required for admissions except when a kid was in trouble for something and had to sit out a term or two. Is this gap year requirement for H something that is offered to the general applying public or very special conditions?</p>

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<p>GRcxx3, I’m fortunate to work in many parts of the world and collect lots of frequent flyer miles. While my kids have never lived abroad, they have been to Europe several times, Australia, China, and Central America as well as Canada (they’re dual US/Canadian citizens and we have a house in the province of Quebec) and Mexico. When we discussed the possibility of a gap year with my son, one of our friends sent us an email about a program called Let There Be Dragons or something like that. I shared it with my son who said, “I don’t want an organized baby-sitting expedition” which is what LTBD seemed like to him. We don’t have any need for our son to make money (though I would never discourage it) but instead he’s piecing together a few things that are of interest. In addition to what I mentioned above, one of the judges who served as a judge of the HS Moot Court finals that my son competed in offered him an internship after the finals. He’s decided to do accept that offer. He’s also been canvassing in NH for Obama and has decided to get trained to be a regional director (manager/leader or something like that). While it is fragmented, I suspect that all of it is going to be useful. </p>

<p>He won’t suffer from the travel standpoint. In addition to various Northeast area colleges that we have yet to visit, he’ll probably take a Spanish immersion course in Central America, go to Israel on Project Birthright, and to France with us on a 25th anniversary bike trip (for visa reasons, we ended up changing our plans to bike in France for our honeymoon, to biking from San Francisco through the Napa/Sonoma/Anderson valleys to Mendocino and then down Highway back to SF and so for our 25th, we’re going to take the kids on the trip we would have taken). </p>

<p>cpt, my suspicion is admission conditional on taking a gap year would be offered to kids who are good enough to go to Harvard but don’t quite meet the cut in today’s hyper-competitive environment, but whose parents the school wants to treat well. But, I’m no expert so that is just an educated guess based upon a small number of data points.</p>

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<p>cptothehouse, her year has been incredible. She’s gone through all the normal “elation, deflation, homesick, pull-herself-out-of-it” cycles that usually happen in college so maybe she won’t spend a lot of time next year going through that all again. She is going back through the application process from scratch. Its a pretty difficult situation for her to reapply (and in fact brings up a lot of issues someone considering a gap year needs to think about). </p>

<p>First off, she does not have regular internet access at her apartment. This means she rides a public transport bus 45-60 minutes each way into downtown HK to use the internet if her area is down which it often is, being China. Also, a lot, a really LOT of sites are blocked in China. The censoring there is pretty incredible, and even some of the schools she is lookign at she can’t view their websites because apparently the government views them as “subversive”. Applying via the common app is not really possible for her, so she is having to fill out everything by hand and mail them over the states for us to then mail to colleges. </p>

<p>Also, interviews are tough for her. Most alums in HK are Asian and she is a little concerned that the interviews won’t be nearly as helpful to her as if a person of her own culture/paradigm interviewed and evaluated her, so she is buying her own plane ticket back for the express purpose of college vists and interviewing in Oct/Nov.</p>

<p>Also, another consideration all who are considering gap years ought to think about in advance is health insurance. While her company provides her full insurance while she is in HK, when she comes home in April until August she would not be covered. And if she lapses on our health insurance she couldn’t re-enroll until she was a full time student again (in Aug) </p>

<p>So, to work around that she enrolled FT in our local community college taking 12 semester hours of distance learning classes so she will maintain consistent coverage through us all the way through her gap year. (And yes, she really is taking the classes, and not just working the system, in fact has straight 100% in them all) Just getting her enrolled from 8,000 miles away has been a challenge in and of itself! Whew!</p>

<p>Other issues: absentee voting, getting American medicines over to her, the general worries over their food supply (she drinks the melamine-laced milk daily, and incidentally learned from ME on a call there was a problem. The local media has not reported the scandal at all.) and the fact that the college process in general really isn’t meant for American people going through it from another country. Americans in America applying, no problem. International people applying from their international country, there’s a track set up for that, too. But an American on a gap year? Not so much. As an example, I had to jump through hoops and beg to enable her to do an overnight visit during her trip since she is not technically a HS senior.</p>

<p>Ok, probably TMI haha</p>

<p>She is hoping the gap year experience will help her admissions process (although that’s not why she went; she was already in Asia when the acceptance letters were sent in April). I would be interested in any of your opinions on how the adcom will view it and if her experience will help her jump up a level in schools that her raw stats might not be a slam dunk for.</p>

<p>So, anyone with an opinion on the effects of a fully working, self-supporting gap year, 12 semester hours of 100%s (that she doesn’t intend to transfer to her eventual college), and learning Cantonese would be welcome. </p>

<p>SAT: 1390/1600; her writing score was 690 I believe.
UW HS GPA: 3.72
Senior year UW GPA: 4.0 (upward trending all 4 years)
HS does not rank
Highly competitive private prep school in the South</p>

<p>ECs are excellent, mostly focused performance and technical theatre and includes Equity summer stock work</p>

<p>Essays: well how can I judge? But her HS counselor (English major from Middlebury) said they were the best he’s ever read. (This in contrast to hers last year which were uninspired and dull.)</p>

<p>She is applying to Barnard, Wellesley, Harvard, Princeton, Byn Mawr, Smith, BU, Mt. Holyoke, and UNC Chapel Hill as well as a couple safeties.</p>

<p>Feel free to ask any other questions you may have about “non-babysitted” gap years!</p>

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<p>Do any of the applications ask if she has attended any other college? I was wondering about the impact (on freshman admission) of having to take community college classes in order to keep up health insurance.</p>

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<p>They do ask, and I was told by adcoms at all 8 of the schools (all ivies and selective LACs) I called to ask if it mattered since she is not degree seeking. They said no, since she is not degree seeking from this community college and is registered as a continuing education student and not a “freshman”, since she is not asking to transfer the credits to our school, and since the classes are being taken as personal enrichment during a gap year there is no issue, she’s still considered a first year applicatant. The transcripts will be sent of course, and a couple of the schools did ask what her grades were like. When I told them straight 100s each adcom who had asked said something to the effect of well, then that won’t hurt her.</p>

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<p>“most alums in HK are Asian…” - this is will be a surprise to the very active and international Harvard group there. Your D should have a good explanation prepared if she meets Admissions in Cambridge as to why she isn’t taking advantage of the alumni interveiwing network in HK - and please be aware that the reason you have given borders on the offensive. As to ECs, the technical theatre experience seems highly sought after in many colleges with active drama scenes where most students are interested in performing or directing and there is a shortage of technical expertise.</p>

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<p>gap years really depend on the individual
are they mature enough for college?
do they want to go?</p>

<p>aside from that…many schools accept people who then apply or request deferral…the 1st choice school people need to get over it</p>

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<p>

The above is very different from:

</p>

<p>The first quote is probably more realistic than the way I, at least, interpreted the second. I don’t think Harvard would guarantee admission to anyone. It may, however, say that a student can enter if he or she takes a gap year and does something interesting with it. The second quote probably comes after the application process and the first quoted scenario probably doesn’t happen. </p>

<p>Also, I would suggest doing the whole application process during the senior year and indicating on the application the interest in doing a gap year. Or, after being accepted, then indicate the gap year intentions. That way you can get it all out of the way and focus on the year. Having to do the application, testing, gathering of info, etc like the young lady in HK from such a distance must be a real challenge.</p>

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<p>franglish, I’m not quite sure what you are getting at, but I had direct descriptions from parents I know well, who are very familiar with the application and acceptance process, whose children had been offered admission the following year if they took a gap year. In each case, the conversation with the admissions folks took place after the application process and did indeed happen. In the case that was discussed in more detail with me, there was some kind of discussion with the admissions folks about what the student was going to do in the gap year. I’m sure there is some sort of explicit and implicit conditionality – they’d revoke the admission if the student took up bank robbing in the gap year. But, in all cases, the students applying in 200X were admitted for the 200X+1 on the condition that they take a (probably meaningful) gap year and were explicitly not admitted to 200X. </p>

<p>For many kids, I agree that going through the college application process with everyone else during one’s senior year will be easiest and I’d recommend it. I wonder how it would affect the evaluation of one’s application if one indicated an interesting in taking a gap year. Probably helpful in some cases and unhelpful in others. I can concur that for my son doing the testing and applying is slowing down from his other planned gap year activities, but is necessary because he was too sick last year to complete his work and apply to colleges. But, his is likely a special case.</p>

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<p>hi, samuck: thanks for the heads up. actually, as luck would have it, somehow, suprisingly, D already has connections with the Harvard alum group in HK and yes, that group is apparently very active (she’s already been invited to one of their mixers earlier this summer but had to decline). So interviewing with one of them is very possible and in fact that’s why we left off a Cambridge visit / interview when she comes home for her college visit in late Oct. She can do that one there.</p>

<p>I was referring more to the small liberal arts schools that have very, very limited if any interviewers (some of the Seven Sisters even post their reviewers’ names and cities, suprising to me) and those are the ones (with few or no interviewers) she’s interviewing here in the US. </p>

<p>And definately no offense meant, I’m not trying to be politically insensitive. Obviously D likes it in Asia, she’s agreed to stay an extra contract and is already making plans to return when she graduates. But you have to agreee, if you have lived in Asia, China particularly, the educational system, paradigms, world view, and the culture are wildly different there. She is an atypical student not easily defined by "the numbers (as you can see above) and if being interviewed by someone with a similar educational paradigm will help her be more articulate and make her back story a little more easily understood then that’s what’s best for her. She only gets one shot at this college admissions thing and we all, including her HS college counselor, feel its best to do as much evaluative interviewing here as possible. </p>

<p>So, I am only posting any of this because I happen to have experience as a Mom with a child who is deep into this self-funded gap year thing, and not that many American Moms do. If our lessons learned and experience can help someone out there as this becomes more popular, that’s who I am tryign to help. Certainly not offend anyone, definately not.</p>

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<p>I would like to warn about programs out there that are ONLY for kids right out of High School. D. is in one of this programs. If she decided to do a gap year than she would not be able to apply to these programs. That is in addition to the fact that we would not allow her any gap year because of our specific situation. We made sure that she is aware that there will be no gap year for her between UG and Grad. school either. D. did not get into her #1 program and is very happy being in her #2.</p>