Everyone is in praise of a gap year. I don’t see any point in it unless they need to take a break. Even then, I would think taking a 3-month break over the summer is sufficient. So why? A year is a long time and exciting college life is waiting for you. New friends to make and you get to explore what you can do away from parents’ watchful eyes. You and your peers may have more in common than your highschool classmates afterall you chose the same college, you are not as dependent on your parents. Needless to say, I had a great time in college. It was liberating to meet so many intelligent peers and be on my own. I wouldn’t want to put that off. If you are a premed, I can understand. It’s probably more structured than other majors, and you are somewhat limited to explore. People often cite maturity gained during the gap year. Why would anyone want to be more mature than their peers?
Why would anyone want to be more mature than the average 18-year-old entering college? Surely this is not a serious question, OP. Two words: frat parties.
How about this, as well - bringing a broader perspective with you, gaining some life skills and increased independence, better time management, an added year of decision-making experience, not to mention a further year of brain development.
Also, one’s peers in college are 18 to 22 and older, so that added year in age doesn’t put them outside the demographic.
Gap years started with UK students taking a year off to travel before university, but their programs are three years long, not four. I don’t think the practice of a gap year is going to gain many adherents in the US, but there are some situations where I’ve heard of it happening in the US:
- The student is accepted to college but has an opportunity to do some kind of desirable post-high-school program or internship, and therefore delays enrollment;
- The student's application strategy did not yield any acceptable choices (either academically or financially) so the student has to reapply for better results next year;
- The student is the daughter of the POTUS and doesn't want to start college in the fall being trailed by secret service agents everywhere she goes.
In either case “gap year” is defined by the expectation that college enrollment is virtually assured a year later. I don’t consider waiting to go to college in order to mature, etc. a true “gap year.” It’s just doing something else except college. 18-year-olds who do other things, including working, after high school besides going to college in Sept. are not all having “gap years.”
I think some parents may use the term “gap year” as a face-saving description of their kid’s life if college is not in the cards for the time being?
My D gained a third language in her Rotary year in S. America, and entered college with a drive to learn and less wide eyed about being out in the world. In terms of language acquisition, it was cheaper than taking those Spanish credits at a LAC, and the degree of fluency could not have been easily replicated on American soil. Her semester abroad was spent perfecting her French. Being used to living abroad, she took off on that semester, ready to engage with the culture.
This could have been replicated by my other D, interested in a host of things, though she didn’t go that route. A gap year is ideally spent exploring an area of interest. Which can then inform college majors and class choices, and make college hopefully less about the freedom (and attendant poor choices) and more about the learning experience.
It is a great way to learn more about the world and one’s self. For a kid that is unsure of what they want to study or the path they want to take, it can be a great life lesson. For a family that can afford to pay for a “gap year” program or to pay for their 18 yo to take an unpaid internship some place interesting or to travel the world, life lessons may well be gained. OTOH, it is not clear to me how living at home and working at a minimum wage job does much to provide perspective or life lessons, except perhaps for a kid that never had a job and is unsure about college. .
In some ways, taking time off after college graduation or doing an overseas program or internship for 4 months in the summer during college could provide similar benefits.
I took a gap year a million years ago to do a language immersion program. Thanks to that year I completed my college’s language requirement. I became fluent in the language allowing me to comfortable take literature courses in the language. I did my senior research (Low cost housing in England, France and Germany between the wars) using original sources. And I was given a competitive grant to do that research over the summer. I earned some money translated a book about indigenous housing in Senegal for one of my professors.
I had a particularly nice family placement. The father ran the local history museum. I learned a huge amount from them about architecture - the field I eventually went into.
I think maturity is a big one. Some kids are not ready to be on their own.
My D did a language immersion over the summer, became fluent, took lit courses and minored in it for no good reason other than she could. She is social and thrives among peers. I don’t see her taking herself out of peer interaction for a year to do anything. In the US, summer breaks are long, 4 months of no interruption. You can accomplish a lot over the summer. If the student has a pressing project that school gets in the way, I can see it. How many 18 year olds has a pressing project necessiating a gap year?
mathmom, I am guessing your inspiring family placement was no accident.
Aren’t freshmen housed together usually? Your matured kid through the gap year will be with a year younger kids most of whom who didn’t mature through a gap year. How does that help?
my oldest dd16 would think about a gap year. She is currently training 20 hours or more a week in ballet. She will apply to colleges that have a BFA or a BA in dance. Depending on where she is in 2 years, she may decide to take a year and audition for companies. If she were to receive a trainee or second company position, we may discuss a gap year. Quite a lot of her friends have pursued this strategy, while keeping a college acceptance in their pocket.
For younger dd14, we would think about a gap year for different reasons. She was a toddler when we adopted her from Eastern Europe. She spent her first years here recovering from an illness and years of attachment therapy, speech therapy, OT and PT. Some of those interventions went well in to middle school. She has ADHD, executive function disorder and short term memory issues. Thankfully, she is really bright and working through all of these issues. She may need an extra year to mature. Or, she may need to attend college near to home and commute.
I think it’s a terrific idea - for some kids. Both of mine were ready and eager for college and not interested in taking time off. I do not agree that every child " should" take time off any more than I think that every child should major in engineering or attend a small LAC.
Kids are different. Some need more time, some less. Some are ready to go to college, some are better off taking a break, working, volunteering, exploring a foreign country. It is foolish to assume that all kids mature at the same rate or that all kids benefit from the same structured educational schedule. One of the first things a college education usually teaches students is not to make sweeping generalizations or blanket assumptions.
It was fine. She was plenty able to relate to her freshman year peers. Being silly has never been a problem for her! It was about her personal drive, more than who she related to or not.
Gap years can have plenty of peer interaction. My D certainly had no lack of fun with friends in S. America, who were a more geographically diverse bunch than her college friends. Having worked in a language immersion camp, I know that high levels of fluency can be achieved in that setting. D had that in French, and expanded it to Spanish in her gap year, which is not to say that living and working in France later was not enormously beneficial. . If we are talking Middlebury or Concordia Language Villages, the cost of a month alone is close to the cost of a gap year, with far more exposure to culture and native speakers. For many, me included, those programs are unaffordable. My kids only went because I worked there.
Aside from pressing projects, it is also ok to just enjoy exploring the world. For the academically motivated, it can be a year of concentration on a subject, or a year to enjoy different horizons and de stress. That is the more traditional route in other countries. Being a well rounded citizen of the world, helps us as a society and helps the career track as well, for some.
It is not for everyone, and if your D is happy with going right to college, great!
@amom2girls Wise decisions! I have no doubt there are special circumstances where a gap year will serve very well and starting a year late is no big deal. I am just questioning the recent media hype, a gap year for all. European summer break is often just over a month. We have about a third of a year for summer break. If you take a gap year, you have about 16 months of unstructured time on your hand at a young age. I don’t see much benefit in it.
First of all, Most kids really only have 3 months between graduation and the start of college. It would only be 4 if the student graduated HS in May and started college late, sometime in September. My own D will have only 2 months, almost to the day, between HS and the start of college. So if a kid wants to do some travelling, study, project, etc. the summer may not be long enough.
And I second that need for some kids to need a year of growing up. My older D was one of those. For many reasons, she was not ready to be in college right after HS. A year of working in the real world not only gave her fuel for application essays, it gave her some perspective on priorities and exposure to kids who had not gone to college at all and their opportunities. AND it made her much more able to resist the party culture at her school. It didn’t matter if the other freshmen were less mature, SHE wasn’t interested in partying. I’m not sure she’d have been as sure of herself a year earlier.
And the kids are not living in a vacuum. They get to interact with people of ALL ages during that gap year, something that I think can only benefit young people who have been clustered with same-age peers for the previous 12 years of school.
But I wonder why it seems to bother you-if it’s not for you and your kid, fine. It works for others-so?
@igloo It’s a good conversation. I was just giving 2 different examples of why we may think about a gap year:)) I love reading about the different paths that students and families pursue on the way to college!
^As I said because of the recent media hype. They seem to advocate a gap year for all. I have no problem people taking a gap year for whatever reasons. I am sure everyone had good reasons. I just don’t see as a general rule taking a gap year.
I amend 4-month break to 3-month summer break. My D had a 4-month break at the end of HS. They gave the last month free to kids to do whatever they want. My kid chose language immersion for 4 months.
I’ve been reading more about gap years and wondering if my D should consider one as she’s got a certain amount of anxiety about the idea of going away. We live in an area with a late birthday cutoff and she’s always just about the youngest person in her class. If she goes straight to college, she wouldn’t turn 18 until November of her freshman year. I know there would be other kids in a similar situation, but most kids will be 18 turning 19, so a gap year would actually put her with the majority of her peers. I guess the question is what she would do with that time - but it’s not really even something I’d heard much about until I started reading here on CC.
It is just as absurd to make sweeping generalizations about the value of gap years based on what does or does not seem useful to one person as to promote gap years as the right solution for everyone. But if you believe in evidence-based research, there are reputable statistical studies showing clear benefits of gap years in later college performance, particularly for less academically motivated high school students.
“Aren’t freshmen housed together usually?”
Depends on the college. My freshman D was in a dorm with male & female freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors. She was also in classes, clubs, on an athletic team and in a sorority with students from all 4 years.