Has anyone taken a Gap Year?

musicprnt
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 15:22:26 +0000

My S didn’t do this, but I have known several music students who did this, to be able to work towards auditioning or reauditioning to programs they wanted to get into.

With the nature of auditions, a student wanting to get into a particular program/teacher who doesn’t audition there or doesn’t get in, may want to take the time to bring up their skill level to be able to get in the next year rather than accepting what to them is a poorer alternate school. The question with success is how motivated the kid is, if they have the ability to focus and work on their music during that time, or will they drift? Will just focusing on practicing cause them to drift?

The one myth is that taking a gap year will somehow hurt the student at the school, and I call it a myth because of what I know of auditions, there isn’t any real institutional memory that someone may have auditioned there and failed, isn’t going to happen. It is not all that uncommon, and again it won’t hurt them, and if they really feel that teacher X/School Y is what they want to shoot for, it may be the way to go. It is what my S would do if he had not gotten in where he did, he was prepared to do it and already had his plans set, with teacher, and also music programs to do as well during the year.