Reply to Is an Ameircan "gap year" becoming more common?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think it's becoming more common among many students in this area, including kids graduating from a range of schools.  In almost all cases, these students have already applied to college and been accepted.  They work as volunteers at a range of different organizations, travel in the US and overseas, and in some cases work at "grunt" jobs to help pay for their travel (e.g., bussing tables, clerking at Giant, etc.).  I don't know a single kid who's done this who regrets it , and their parents are just as enthusiastic.  For many kids who've been in highly competitive high schools, the gap year is a chance to think about what they really want to do with their lives -- not just what they should be doing in order to gain admission to a selective college.     [/quote]

Agree. The kids I know who have done gap years have already been accepted at college. In the last couple of years that includes kids deferring Yale and Dartmouth so these are not kids struggling to find themselves or reapplying to better schools. I know one kid who did City Year. Another spent 1/2 the time getting fluent in a language and the other half working. Another did an internship in Africa. [/quote]

A few other examples --

volunteer work with a faith-based program in New Orleans
volunteer work in the Dominican Republic
volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity
exchange program with French high school
exchange program with Chinese high school

these students deferred admission at Duke, Swarthmore, Rice, Kenyon and Stanford 
[/quote]

I'm not sure that the kids need to do organized programs. Learning to manage their lives and work out where their next dollar/meal is coming from is a great education in itself. Not sure you'd get this with an organized program where they still manage your time/lodging/meals.[/quote]

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