Gaming the System in a Gap Year

Parents Forum
1

<p>I tried posting this in the College Admissions forum but people weren’t responsive so I thought parents might get an actual conversation going.</p>

<p>"THE MOST CENTRAL STRUCTURE IN BILL DAY’S LIFE right about now might well have been Thomas Jefferson’s rotunda at the University of Virginia. Instead, it’s the Schwan Super Rink, 148,000 square feet of ice in the Minneapolis suburb of Blaine. Housed in a sprawling rust-red brick complex, the Super Rink emerges from the prairie like a temple to youth ice hockey.</p>

<p>On a weekend in mid-November, college scouts, parents and teenagers are pouring into the hockey center for the Junior Jamboree, an all-star game showcasing the country’s top pre-college players organized by USA Hockey, the governing body for amateur hockey. One of those talents is Bill Day, 18, a 2006 graduate of George Marshall High School in Fairfax County and a defenseman with the Washington Junior Nationals, a high-level USA Hockey junior league team. Bill has just flown in as one of the junior league’s all-stars – an elite group of players hoping to impress the dozens of college scouts.</p>

<p>Down in the rink’s locker room, as loogies are hocked and barbs are traded, Bill, a stony-faced, 5-foot-9, 175-pounder, is silent and jittery. Unlike most other players in the room, he has already been admitted to a university. But right now, this game is more important to him than college. Since U-Va. only has a club hockey team – and not a competitive Division I program – Bill has decided to take a “gap year” and defer his college enrollment so he can continue playing in the junior league, which he hopes will enable him to land a hockey scholarship at an equally prestigious university. He’s playing the system, in other words, rigging it so that he gets to keep U-Va. in his back pocket and use his year off to court schools he prefers."</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080101716.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080101716.html&lt;/a&gt;
and another article at:
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080400632.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080400632.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Fascinating articles in the Washington Post this weekend about gap years. Interesting how some kids are using it to game the system. All of them seem to be highly motivated and smart kids but I’m just out of high school and I definitely wasn’t thinking this strategically in senior fall!</p>

<p>What do you guys think?</p>

2

<p>I think it’s a great idea.</p>

<p>The D.C. area, where this kid comes from, is not exactly the center of the universe when it comes to ice hockey. It would be very hard for a kid from this area to develop a significant reputation in this particular sport. I hope his strategy works, and even if it doesn’t, UVa is certainly an excellent school to have in one’s back pocket.</p>

3

<p>But right now, this game is more important to him than college.</p>

<p>That sentence says it all.
He isn’t ready for college- and if he can find a way to do what is important to him, while he has more time to process what he wants to do re: college, he will be more successful when he gets there.</p>

4

<p>I think you can also view it that he is using his talent as leverage to obtain financing for college, in an environment that will also develop his athletic skills. It is actually not uncommon for HS athletes competing for the full ride scholarships to take a prep year after high school, or fifth year, to hone their athletic (mostly) and academic skills so they are ready to compete at a high level in college. Perhaps it sounds bad to verbally acknowledge the sport before the education, but when the starting salaries of college graduates is so much less than that of pro-athletes, who can blame the athletes for being focused on their sport while they are young and able?</p>

5

<p>This situation seems unusual only to those whose children are not serious athletes. Ahtletes have a separate but parallel hierarchy of colleges, with Division I at the top and club sports at the bottom. For a child who is fairly talented in both, the choice can be difficult.</p>

6

<p>There’s nothing wrong with a kid pursuing his interest in hockey and trying to get a hockey scholarship. There may be something wrong with a kid accepting an offer of admission to College A, requesting to defer entrance for a year, and using that year to try to get a better offer from some other college.</p>

<p>I have no idea what the rules and regulations are for deferred entrance at UVa (or anywhere else). So maybe it’s no problem at all; maybe this is completely OK. On the other hand, I can imagine a college getting pretty ticked off at being “kept in the back pocket” like this, and rescinding admission.</p>

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<p>EMM1 is absolutely right. My S - who is about to go off to play his sport at a DIII (no athletic scholarship) school had a college search exactly as she described - parallel universes of academics and sports. Only after visiting several programs did his preferences become clear to him. If you are an academically strong athlete who wants to play in college, you need extra time and effort for your college search - but you will also have more options than most!</p>

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<p>For many years…even before the current obsession with elite college admissions…many athletes attended prep school for a year after graduating from a public HS. For some sports, it allowed greater exposure to college scouts (especially for something like an ice hockey player from Virginia!) </p>

<p>It also allowed some students, who were questionable college material, to mature and prove themselves in a more rigorous academic environment than their home high school.</p>

<p>Some of these students also attended (and still attend) junior colleges with good athletic feeder programs.</p>

<p>Unlike the subject of the story referenced by the OP, these were not students who had deferred admissions to a college…but they were trying to get an edge on getting into a better school or obtaining an athletic scholarship.</p>

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<p>I don’t really think he’s gaming the system that much. He deferred UVA - that’s completely acceptable. He got in and they allowed him to defer. UVA is a elite university so to speak but he was also IS. His class of '06, about 25 kids got into UVA. There is a point where people are on the fence, but there are some basically guaranteed admits IS. UVa is a state school for us. That’s just the way it is. </p>

<p>But he wants to play hockey and he’s living the dream. I’ve seen kids do it before. At what point do you give up on the dream? This has nothing to do with UVa, this is his life. If they don’t want it this way they shouldn’t allow people to defer. They allot for those spaces. The spin on the article makes it seem like he is rigging the system somehow but if UVa accepts his request to defer, they’re essentially playing the same game he is by keeping a good student in their back pocket rather than cutting him loose, so if his plan doesn’t pan out they have him. And if he does gain some measure of success but not enough or decides not to pursue it, they get to boast whatever accomplishments. This is why colleges allow deferrals for kids to pursue stuff. UVa controls their own admissions, they can offer or rescind admission to anyone at any time. If they choose to extend offers and he chooses to take them, there’s nothing unacceptable there to me.</p>

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<p>Don’t Exeter and Andover still do the prep school postgrad year that 2boysima talked about?</p>

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<p>Many/most of the prep schools offer a post-grad (PG) year.</p>

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<p>This is not “gaming” the system at all, as it is quite common for hockey players to play juniors after high school. In fact, it is very rare these days for college hockey players, especially at the D-I level, to proceed directly to college from h.s. without at least one year (sometimes two) of junior hockey experience. There are a lot of 20 year old freshman out there on college hockey rosters, for sure. This is a fairly recent development in the U.S. (the last 10-15 years) but Canadians have done it for years - playing juniors for a few years, hoping to be drafted, then using college as a “fall back” option. This guy just happens to have an acceptance in hand ahead of time that he can use if desired. Also, as someone noted above, Virginia is pretty weak in hockey, so playing juniors is virtually a necessity for the recruting exposure.</p>

<p>Hockey is somewhat unique in this regard, though their are certainly some athletes in other sports that do a post-grad year at prep school.</p>

13

<p>

Well put.</p>

<p>When a student defers, most schools simply ask that they not enroll as a degree-seeking candidate at another university. If they want to work, play a sport, try to earn enough money to pay for school (very common), and even take a couple classes at the local CC, that’s fine. </p>

<p>Many schools try to curtail the number of students playing the field by requiring hefty deposits from defered students. Someone suggested that UVa do this after this article came out on Sunday. I don’t really thing that’s in our future, especially since some students defer so they can find money for school.</p>