<p>exlawyer, Harvard actually encourages students to take gap years. They suggest it in their acceptance letter. I took a gap year before attending Harvard over 30 years ago. It worked out very well for me. I also had a September birthday and was 16 my senior year. I spent the year living with a French family and studying French. The second half of the year I audited classes at the local university.</p>
<p>My son is taking at least a gap semester, if not a gap year, mainly for financial reasons. We still haven’t figured out how we will afford to send him to the school where he was accepted.</p>
<p>He will study music composition as an undergrad. For the fall, he is taking classes at the local community college – all of which will count for the non-music credits he will need at his college.</p>
<p>To make sure he keeps sharp musically, he is still taking cello lessons with the teacher he has had for five years; and piano and composition lessons from another teacher.</p>
<p>He also has an internship with a local symphony orchestra so he is rehearsing once a week with a multi-age group of musicians, and will have two concert performances this fall.</p>
<p>He also advertised his abilities as a cello teacher for beginning cello students, and has two students who he sees once a week each.</p>
<p>Plus, he’s constantly composing and hoping to get his pieces recorded which will help (hopefully) with scholarships (so far, we have no offers of money help, aside from loans).</p>
<p>Finally, he’s working as a bus boy a couple of days a week.</p>
<p>The fact that he is taking classes at a community college means that he’s now considered a transfer student at the college where he is accepted – or at another college, if it comes to that.</p>
<p>But . . . guess what . . . college is damn expensive . . .</p>
<p>Regarding Israel, I looked up Kibbutz Lotan in the Arava Valley, dedicated to desert ecology, sustainable agriculture and birding. I think it would be a fine fit for your daughter’s interest in ecology [Kibbutz</a> Lotan, Arava Valley, Israel](<a href=“http://www.kibbutzlotan.com/]Kibbutz”>http://www.kibbutzlotan.com/) </p>
<p>I scoured their website and did not see a requirement that their volunteers must be Jewish. And despite its title, this article indicates the presence of nonJews at a recent seder there. [Jews</a> Celebrate “Solar Seder” in the Arava Desert at Kibbutz Lotan | Green Prophet](<a href=“http://www.greenprophet.com/2009/04/kibbutz-lotan/]Jews”>http://www.greenprophet.com/2009/04/kibbutz-lotan/)</p>
<p>It’s the Birthright 10-day tours that require a student be Jewish, and that might be what you’re thinking when you say programs require her to be Jewish. To do volunteer work in Israel, folks come from around the world and from many backgrounds, not just Jewish.</p>
<p>There are other gap year programs in Israel that are specifically for Jewish kids–they have a religious component and/or are intended to provide leadership training for future leaders of various movements in Judaism. For example, the Nativ or Netzer programs, the Young Judaea Year Course or any number of other programs administered under the umbrella of the Jewish Agency for Israel. However, there may well be secular programs in Israel as well. I know there is a poster here whose daughter is a guest student at a university in Israel that has a special program for foreign students.</p>
<p>A job or internship in a professional field of interest - or foreign travel. You may want to dedicate some time to social service.</p>
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<p>Since D already has emotional maturity, it is quite possible that maturation through the passage of time is not going to fully resolve the specific issues that concern OP. I wonder, therefore, whether consideration should be given, now or as part of a gap year plan, to addressing these issues head on–through, say, assertiveness training, public speaking classes, social skills training, counseling.</p>
<p>My daughter is an introvert and on the spectrum- while she did have a circle of friends in high school, she really wasn’t great w social etiquette, partially my fault because I share her personality traits & am not very outgoing myself.</p>
<p>However, she loves to travel & throughly enjoys her time in very different cultures which has given her opportunities she wouldn’t have in the states. A family friend suggested that perhaps when she is abroad, people give her quirks a pass as " being American", so she is able to fit in better than she does when she is at home.
( but as those experiences are now part of her- she has changed somewhat)</p>
<p>While many people spend their gap in another part of the USA, after all it is a big place , but it also might be a reason to consider going to a more foreign environment.</p>
<p>Just want to second National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Google it and you will find a pretty amazing array of programs. They do have some financial aid, and sometimes, after the training, there are opportunities to work for NOLS in the future.</p>