To the parents of freshman right now

[Anonymous]

To all the parents who have their first born in college this Fall. How responsible do you think your kid is about managing academics and life ? How many truly think their kid should have taken a gap year to mature before entering college and being on their own. Please just be honest no bragging!

[Anonymous]

Do you have a freshman this year, OP?

[Anonymous]

If I’m honest you’ll accuse me of bragging

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I’m honest you’ll accuse me of bragging

Same

[Anonymous]

I have a freshman son at an Ivy. I think he is fine, seems to be doing laundry, attending classes, studying, getting involved in lots of extracurriculars and partying. Probably getting less sleep than he needs. I don't think a gap year would have been beneficial

[Anonymous]

My kid has autism and ADHD. A gap year would not have helped. I disagree with your premise that a gap year is useful. For a minuscule subset of young people, perhaps? But not for any I know. Usually it's more helpful to ascertain the cause of the dysfunction and address it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I’m honest you’ll accuse me of bragging

It’s fine brag away

[Anonymous]

Every student is a. Individual OP no one can answer this fid you

For my kids no gap year but that duesbt mea. It’s not for someone else

Biggest failure is parents not setting their kid up with life skills before sending them

Or listening to the student before sending them

Or sending a kid who they did all the teaching out for tutors for their kid before sending them or the parents that did the college app those kids should not be attending

There are other reasons did gao years OP again no one can tell you your kid is ready or not they need to

[Anonymous]

Definitely would not have benefited my freshman. So far, he's handling it all very well and very responsibly (knock on wood!). I think it's a result of his personality and the great prep he got from his rigorous private high school. It's just so kid specific.

[Anonymous]

Oh, that’s so sad. I would be happy for my child to have a gap year. But not because I don’t think I prepared her well enough for college.

[Anonymous]

Kids will be fine. Stop worrying about it. They will manage. My first born was ultra lazy. Never did anything for himself other than study…..It took him a year to get it together at Cornell but by the time he started year 2 he was a different person.

My 2nd one was the same way. But since he was a young graduating senior we encouraged him to take a gap year. He did 2 different overseas program. Came back a much more mature kid. It was much much easier for him when he started at UCB.

[Anonymous]

I think my kid would have benefited from a gap year. He refused to consider it, so we'll just have to see how it goes. Academically precocious, but immature socioemotionally. A year of good old fashioned work would have helped him mature, I think.

[Anonymous]

I have a junior in college - when he was a senior, I encouraged him to take a gap year because I thought he could use a growing up year. But I think I was wrong about that. He wanted to go straight to college and he did and he did a pretty good job.

In the end, I think college is a good transition - move into dorms with other kids in the same place, have a RA in the dorms, an academic advisor and a decent amount of support. I feel like a gap year would have been less supportive.

We did encourage him and he did pick a college with a decent first year orientation program and not a huge state school so he could adjust in a smaller environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think my kid would have benefited from a gap year. He refused to consider it, so we'll just have to see how it goes. Academically precocious, but immature socioemotionally. A year of good old fashioned work would have helped him mature, I think.

New poster. I feel the same way and have the same type kid. It’s hard for kids who are academically advanced, yet immature to see the value in taking time to work on life skills. But my kid should have taken the time to work or travel.

And to the other posters who say parents failed to teach life skills, we have tried that. For years, we worked on executive function, organization, street smarts, budgeting, etc. It doesn’t help. My kid is unwilling or incapable of learning these things. For this kid, academics is much easier than keeping money in a bank account, learning these things shuttle schedule, ordering books, etc.

[Anonymous]

My son was an athlete and with all his responsibilities with that I don't think he could have done anything without free tutors and the guy assigned to the team to register for his classes. He got a 2.1 GPA the 1st year, just enough to stay academically eligible. He ended up getting it all together junior year aka figured it out and went to graduate school.

My youngest was ready for everything except the timing of registering for classes and dropping them when one was going south. He failed out of the business school (sub 3.0, 2.7 GPA) and had to change majors (which was a blessing in disguise), he loves his major and new career. He had medical issues (like 5 different ones), he could not manage that without my help. Doctors shamed me for helping him. Once I was at the gastro dr and the doctor was like, He mom do you think he can handle this himself he's 19 and I said... I don't know ask him what type of doctor you are.. So the dr did and my son said, neurologist? NOPE then he said is he the blood doctor? Nope Is he the throat doctor? NOPE again (he had a growth in the back of his throat that was not cancer - yea) He literally had to take a whole semester off to deal with medical issues.