Why are gap years trendy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is the new name for it that is trendy. Foreign exchanges have been around for 40+ years. DH did one between HS and college in the 70's. Taking time off to save up for college has been around longer. My Dad worked at a Ford plant for a year to save up money to go to college.

gap years aren't exchanges. It is just taking a year off to travel, work or do other things of interest.

I know a few kids doing gap years and none of them are traveling, working or doing "things of interest".

Most are doing a structured volunteer program or going to a boarding school to work on their academic profile.

Going to boarding school isn't really a gap year....its a post graduate year to, as you point out, upgrade academics.

Structured volunteer programs are a joke and carry little weight with admissions.

I think gap years are a great idea but the student should think about what the goal is. If it is to mature so that they get the most of college then perhaps working a job would make sense. If they feel they've lived a sheltered life then by all means travel the world.

Nobody I know is "trying to impress admissions".

They are all accepted to a college and defer admissions.

Not everything in life has to be full of meaning, goal oriented or "help you get into college".

I also know a bunch of kids that after graduation didn't want yo get on the gerbil wheel chasing money and are working is New Zealand as tour guides. Just because.

What are you talking about? There are kids that defer admissions and take a gap year and there are kids that take a gap year and then reapply for admission hoping to have a netter result. For the latter, you better hope whatever activity they engaged in has some meaning to improve their application for admission to college. And I have no idea what your final sentence is addressing but you obviously have some axe to grind with somebody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is the new name for it that is trendy. Foreign exchanges have been around for 40+ years. DH did one between HS and college in the 70's. Taking time off to save up for college has been around longer. My Dad worked at a Ford plant for a year to save up money to go to college.

gap years aren't exchanges. It is just taking a year off to travel, work or do other things of interest.

I know a few kids doing gap years and none of them are traveling, working or doing "things of interest".

Most are doing a structured volunteer program or going to a boarding school to work on their academic profile.

Going to boarding school isn't really a gap year....its a post graduate year to, as you point out, upgrade academics.

Structured volunteer programs are a joke and carry little weight with admissions.

I think gap years are a great idea but the student should think about what the goal is. If it is to mature so that they get the most of college then perhaps working a job would make sense. If they feel they've lived a sheltered life then by all means travel the world.

Nobody I know is "trying to impress admissions".

They are all accepted to a college and defer admissions.

Not everything in life has to be full of meaning, goal oriented or "help you get into college".

I also know a bunch of kids that after graduation didn't want yo get on the gerbil wheel chasing money and are working is New Zealand as tour guides. Just because.

What are you talking about? There are kids that defer admissions and take a gap year and there are kids that take a gap year and then reapply for admission hoping to have a netter result. For the latter, you better hope whatever activity they engaged in has some meaning to improve their application for admission to college. And I have no idea what your final sentence is addressing but you obviously have some axe to grind with somebody.

Those looking to boost admissions do PG year.

[Anonymous]

If you reapply early in October you're not going to have anything else to add to transcript are you? I guess last semester of senior and AP scores? But that's probably not why you got rejected from an elite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It takes a lot of discipline to succeed in college. 12 months of taking it easy at a votunteer service job would not work for my kid !

Mine either! Straight to College she goes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It takes a lot of discipline to succeed in college. 12 months of taking it easy at a votunteer service job would not work for my kid !

Mine either! Straight to College she goes.

Like the good robot she/ he was trained to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It takes a lot of discipline to succeed in college. 12 months of taking it easy at a votunteer service job would not work for my kid !

Mine either! Straight to College she goes.

Like the good robot she/ he was trained to be.

Unless the kid is totally supporting themselves during the gap year (and the ones I hear about do not) that's an expensive proposition for the parents, so it's only really for the well-to-do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is the new name for it that is trendy. Foreign exchanges have been around for 40+ years. DH did one between HS and college in the 70's. Taking time off to save up for college has been around longer. My Dad worked at a Ford plant for a year to save up money to go to college.

gap years aren't exchanges. It is just taking a year off to travel, work or do other things of interest.

I know a few kids doing gap years and none of them are traveling, working or doing "things of interest".

Most are doing a structured volunteer program or going to a boarding school to work on their academic profile.

Going to boarding school isn't really a gap year....its a post graduate year to, as you point out, upgrade academics.

Structured volunteer programs are a joke and carry little weight with admissions.

I think gap years are a great idea but the student should think about what the goal is. If it is to mature so that they get the most of college then perhaps working a job would make sense. If they feel they've lived a sheltered life then by all means travel the world.

Nobody I know is "trying to impress admissions".

They are all accepted to a college and defer admissions.

Not everything in life has to be full of meaning, goal oriented or "help you get into college".

I also know a bunch of kids that after graduation didn't want yo get on the gerbil wheel chasing money and are working is New Zealand as tour guides. Just because.

What are you talking about? There are kids that defer admissions and take a gap year and there are kids that take a gap year and then reapply for admission hoping to have a netter result. For the latter, you better hope whatever activity they engaged in has some meaning to improve their application for admission to college. And I have no idea what your final sentence is addressing but you obviously have some axe to grind with somebody.

Those looking to boost admissions do PG year.

Sure, some do but others focus on some other activity like research to boost their credentials. I think PG is probably the least impactful route.

[Anonymous]

It takes a lot of discipline to succeed in college. 12 months of taking it easy at a votunteer service job would not work for my kid !

Yup, heaven forbid they spend a year learning to live without running water, taking bucket showers and sleeping under a mosquito net, planting crops or fixing up a school, eating rice and beans for dinner, just "taking it easy" while their peers head off to college and join a fraternity and drink themselves into oblivion. Not to mention that it will be a whole extra year before they can get to Wall Street and start earning a six-figure salary. Glad I don't have a slacker who would waste a year that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It takes a lot of discipline to succeed in college. 12 months of taking it easy at a votunteer service job would not work for my kid !

Mine either! Straight to College she goes.

Like the good robot she/ he was trained to be.

Unless the kid is totally supporting themselves during the gap year (and the ones I hear about do not) that's an expensive proposition for the parents, so it's only really for the well-to-do.

I know Princeton for sure has organized a pre-freshman gap year where you can used financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It takes a lot of discipline to succeed in college. 12 months of taking it easy at a votunteer service job would not work for my kid !

Yup, heaven forbid they spend a year learning to live without running water, taking bucket showers and sleeping under a mosquito net, planting crops or fixing up a school, eating rice and beans for dinner, just "taking it easy" while their peers head off to college and join a fraternity and drink themselves into oblivion. Not to mention that it will be a whole extra year before they can get to Wall Street and start earning a six-figure salary. Glad I don't have a slacker who would waste a year that way.

What makes you think all students taking gap years are taking bucket showers and sleeping under mosquito nets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are most kids doing during gap years? Are most of them really doing tours of Europe, or are they hanging out at home and working at the mall?

I lived and studied in Austria for my gap year. I was one of the younger kids in my grade and didn't want to start college as the "baby" (I would have turned 21 after college graduation). I've never known anyone to stay home and work at the mall for a gap year -- seems like a waste, no? If my kid wanted to travel, I'd encourage him to get on LinkedIn and network to see if he can get internships in his field of interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are most kids doing during gap years? Are most of them really doing tours of Europe, or are they hanging out at home and working at the mall?

I lived and studied in Austria for my gap year. I was one of the younger kids in my grade and didn't want to start college as the "baby" (I would have turned 21 after college graduation). I've never known anyone to stay home and work at the mall for a gap year -- seems like a waste, no? If my kid wanted to travel, I'd encourage him to get on LinkedIn and network to see if he can get internships in his field of interest.

Sorry, should read "if my kid DIDN'T want to travel." If he did want to travel, I'd be all for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It takes a lot of discipline to succeed in college. 12 months of taking it easy at a votunteer service job would not work for my kid !

Yup, heaven forbid they spend a year learning to live without running water, taking bucket showers and sleeping under a mosquito net, planting crops or fixing up a school, eating rice and beans for dinner, just "taking it easy" while their peers head off to college and join a fraternity and drink themselves into oblivion. Not to mention that it will be a whole extra year before they can get to Wall Street and start earning a six-figure salary. Glad I don't have a slacker who would waste a year that way.

But when kids do that, they know they have a warm bed waiting for them back home. They know they're parents will pay for a flight back home if something happens. They know they are supported.

I actually think that in some ways it gives kids a false sense of what it really is like for people who live in those areas of the world where they have no running water, and it's not just a year of roughing it; it's their lives.

It's a bizarre form of poverty tourism. There's also been a number of studies that have shown that some of those programs (where wealthy kids spend a year building things for free in poor areas of the world) actually make things worse because it would be far better to employ people living in those areas (who need employment) to do those jobs.

When I was in college, we had a couple of volunteer groups wherein kids would do those kinds of things over their summer breaks. They saw it as a kind of vacation. None of them ever came back (in my view) with a deeper understanding of poverty. If anything, they came back with a kind of self-righteous view of themselves. It was bizarre.

[Anonymous]

*their, not they're. typo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are most kids doing during gap years? Are most of them really doing tours of Europe, or are they hanging out at home and working at the mall?

I lived and studied in Austria for my gap year. I was one of the younger kids in my grade and didn't want to start college as the "baby" (I would have turned 21 after college graduation). I've never known anyone to stay home and work at the mall for a gap year -- seems like a waste, no? If my kid wanted to travel, I'd encourage him to get on LinkedIn and network to see if he can get internships in his field of interest.

Well, perhaps you live in a bubble. Some kids need the money. They work to save up some money b/c their parents either aren't paying for college or are only contributing a minimal amount. So they work for a year to save up some spending money.

Not everyone can afford to live in Austria for a year.