<p>I can’t figure out what I am missing…if a student graduates from HS in June and his/her gap year starts in September and they are applying to schools in October and auditioning shortly thereafter, how is that making them more marketable to colleges? How much extra training are they getting in that short amount of time?</p>
<p>A gap year can serve many functions:
- You are just not ready for college and just want to work to save money, or maybe travel.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You need more time to prepare for auditions/acting programs. If you apply to programs during your senior year, that means you have to spend your senior year applying to schools, maybe doing a pre-screen, setting up auditions, picking audition material, training, and the auditioning. It can be pretty overwhelming and doesn’t leave much time for anything else. It can be a lot of pressure, and some people may just not want to deal with all of it. If you take a gap year, then you can spend the summer after your senior year up until maybe Nov. of the next school year filling out all of the apps, preparing auditions, and getting some extra training without high school hanging over you.</p></li>
<li><p>You applied to theater programs during your senior year, but were not accepted to programs that you choose to attend. One option is to take a gap year and re-apply. Again it gives you more time to prepare and to improve your audition. It also allows you to re-evaluate your school list to determine if it is a realistic list, or if maybe you need to add some more choices or safeties.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>A lot of kids use the gap year to work, attend gap year programs and take gen ed courses. The idea is to make yourself more marketable and to gain experience and maturity. There is a lot of down time during the year. Technically, your gap years begins the day you graduate from high school. Auditions take up a very little amount of time compared to the months that are in a year. When you are in high school, it just seems like it consumes you, but in reality, auditions are confined to a few months. Plenty of time to work or get more experience.</p>
<p>Yes - you can be doing college auditions in February of the following year! If you decide on a gap year, it will probably be even sooner than graduation, since you will have said NO to any schools you got into by May 1. And if you didn’t get into any schools, you found out about that even earlier!! So at that point, you could be auditioning for late spring community theatre, while working on you monologues, etc. and just generally maturing a bit!</p>
<p>I will say that my D took a year off after her freshman year, and used it wisely (she is not a theatre kid) working and taking 6 gen ed courses that all transferred to her new school. And since she took those gen eds at our near-by state school, those credits were very affordable.</p>
<p>The “gap year” in regards to applications is really November to November. Kids applying and auditioning for 2014 only have a few more months to prepare. Their resumes will stop this Fall. Their last semester of grades won’t be added to their GPA. Their last standardized test must be taken in the next couple months. The gap year student applying for 2015 has a full year from NOW to prep for college auditions. Their resumes have a full year from NOW to grow. Their last semester grades can help their GPA. They could retake tests a year from now. Next summer can be part of the gap year child’s resume. That is the benefit of a gap year when it comes to applications… don’t look at the few months after graduation. Look at the full extra year you have between now and this time next year.</p>
<p>Of course, there are lots of reasons kids take a gap year as others have mentioned and the benefits of the full year after graduation are dependent on the reason you are waiting.</p>
<p>^^ great post, turtletime!</p>
<p>All these posts are great.</p>
<p>My son is taking a gap year because it is right for him, not because he is making himself more marketable for college. I’m sure you didn’t mean it this way, but it’s not a good idea for any student to decide to do anything in order to make him/herself more marketable. To my mind, a student should choose an activity, any activity, because it is right for him at that time and furthers his growth. Whether it makes him/her more ‘marketable’ is an offshoot of that choice. </p>
<p>If the student decides on a gap year, it has to stem from the student and has to be a positive choice rather than a consolation prize. A gap year is quite common in the UK, but in our area, very few students take gap years, so it’s important for the student to feel very confident in his/her choice. </p>
<p>My son is my third child to take a gap year. Each of my kids has done the gap year for different reasons, but mostly it’s to ‘re-set’ after the wild K-12 race (it can feel like a race!) and reassess their choices, make sure they are focused and ready to take on college. This is what’s right for my own kids. It is not right for everyone.</p>
<p>As far as what they do, that is up to them (and you). We live close to a city, so my theatre kids auditioned and took adult acting classes. They also worked in a ‘real’ job as well as taking some community college classes. For instance, my D is terrible at foreign languages, and it so happened ended up taking only one year in high school. She needed two years for most colleges, so she did that during the summer. That could have been done earlier, but everything is so much easier during the gap year. The pace is slower, so you can focus much more on what matters to you. Senior year is a lot easier in that you can focus on senior year. My D was also far, far less stressed about the auditions and applications than she would have been had she done it during her senior year. Mainly for her, it’s been a great choice. She started Freshmen year a year older, more relaxed, and more mature. For her, a challenge had been multitasking and organization, and she had one more year to improve that skill, and she did. Finally, the year in her ‘real job’ - a hostess at a diner, 20-30 hours a week - really, really matured her. </p>
<p>Again, all this is so individual. But the main thing is that a gap year should be a positive decision for the student. I definitely agree the ‘year’ starts in senior year. The benefits extend even more than a year.</p>
<p>I guess I was inquiring more about if a child applies and auditions for college and doesn’t get in, how does a gap year help prepare them for another round of applications and auditions. I do believe the added year of maturity might be helpful, just wondered how often a kid gets into a college they were rejected from the first time around after taking a gap year and reapplying.</p>
<p>There are several posts on CC of students taking a gap year because they didn’t get in to an audition program or one that they were excited about. We ran into 3 boys at several auditions that took the gap year and 2 of them did get into schools that they previously were rejected from. My D did not take a gap year but I think the biggest thing I noticed was my D’s list of schools changed a great deal from summer to February and luckily we casted a wide net because she was not set on urban, middle of nowhere, large or small campus in the beginning. The one thing she thought she was set on was the weather and at the last minute(during unifieds) she decided she should have had some schools on her list regardless of the weatherbecause she felt the program fit her. </p>
<p>I think that all the activities of a theatre kid their senior year plus the added stress/preparation for auditions can be quite nerve racking and they just don’t have the time to sit and reflect and evaluate what they really want out of their training and a gap year can really help with that…even if it is taken because once they got their acceptances they didn’t feel the fit.</p>
<p>I think if she would have ended up taking a gap year her list would have been more refined and she would have known more what she wanted out of a program. We didn’t consider this in the beginning of the process because she was ready to go to school. She did not want to wait a year to start on the next part of her journey. In the end if she did not find a fit with the schools she was accepted to she would have taken a gap year.</p>
<p>The more I read this thread, the more I think a gap year may be a good idea for my daughter. I feel less stressed about her being accepted into a college now!</p>
<p>notactingmom, I think a gap year is a gift to the child, if they are willing to take it. I would have happily had both of my BFA kids take one but neither wanted it. If your daughter is open to this possibility, it is a good thing.</p>
<p>bisouu, in the UK it is very common for theatre kids to both take a gap year and audition two or sometimes three years in a row for the same program. But it isn’t common here. </p>
<p>As far as your specific question–if your son/daughter decides to take a gap year because they didn’t get into any program and/or didn’t get into the program they wanted, what I’m saying is that it’s really important for them to feel it is a <em>positive</em> decision rather than a consolation prize or purely a way to build their resume. My oldest D actually decided on her gap year <em>after</em> she’d gotten into art schools; after she got in, she realized that maybe this wasn’t what she wanted. She took deferral for her top choice, then took the gap year. In her case it was a positive decision and she embraced it, using her year to do a lot of self-exploration. </p>
<p>As far as actually building your acting resume, as I’ve said, my D used the year to audition for semi-pro and community theatre, and to take adult acting classes. She loved it. And tHis definitely built her resume, plus she then got two letters of reference from theatre professionals. We don’t have a lot of money, but if money is less of an issue, you can also take classes in top conservatories or spend the summer or semester in an acting program. There are several very well regarded ones both here and abroad.</p>
<p>Thank you connections…this makes more sense to me now.</p>
<p>There are several CC theatre posters who are students who chose to take Gap years after not being happy with their admits or lack of admits or just weren’t ready to head to college, and were extremely successful the second time around. Most got involved with some interesting theatre opportunities as well as worked. Anyone interested in this issue should spend some time scanning the posts, they don’t always use the word Gap year, but many of these stories are quite heartwarming. Not everyone plans this. There is an old CC story several years back of a very accomplished young man who should have gotten into a fine program, I do not recall if it was theatre or not, but had an extremely short list, one which everyone was so sure he’d have his choices, but much to everyone’s surprise was rejected from all. His Gap year actually taught him a lot about life. I think he may have taken a few years off and redirected himself and then was very successful in his next application season but in a slightly different direction. That is the byproduct of the maturation process of a productive Gap Year or two.</p>
<p>You will indeed have one more year of maturity.</p>
<p>You will have one more year to get more training and experience, which will improve both the quality of your audition and the quality of your resume.</p>
<p>The next time you go through the auditions you will know exactly what to expect. So you will be more confident, less frightened and so on. You will better able to tailor your audition and interview to what it is they are looking for.</p>
<p>The people you were competing with the first year–that got your spot–won’t be there the next year. You may well not have the bad luck two years in a row of having too many auditioners of your same “type”.</p>
<p>It gives you another chance of doing what you really want and need, instead of settling for something you don’t really want. Think of this, if you had a choice to either marry the perfect spouse, but you had to wait a year, or else get married right away to a “safety” spouse, which would you pick?</p>
<p>well said KEVP</p>