Gap Year Students
Important questions hover around the concept of taking a gap year between high school and some kind of post-secondary study. What kind of students actually take this year off? Are these young people just lazy slobs hoping to put off becoming responsible adults for another year, as some believe? Or is there something else going on in their lives that makes them want to take a year’s deferral before starting their higher education?
The answers, of course, are as varied as the young learners themselves. But one answer is that they are often simply burned out. For twelve long years of public school, their entire childhood, in fact, they and their mothers and fathers have probably been focused on them getting good grades and being accepted at an excellent school. But Jim Bock, Dean of Admissions at Swarthmore College, said in 2008 that he thinks this single-minded focus on creating the right image and grades, even during the summers between terms, is part of what has led to student burn out and the popularity of the gap year. As Bock put it, “Summers have disappeared completely…so I actually think the gap year may be the new summer.”
Some parents who have really pushed their children so they would get excellent grades all through public school and be accepted by one of the better universities might find that this strategy has backfired. By engaging these young people in this adult preoccupation, all through their young lives, mom and dad might simply have overwhelmed them. The students may need the chance to learn some independence and replenish their energies before finally going to university or college.
Whatever the case, many elite schools have now recognized that burn out among students is a serious problem. For example, Harvard actually recommends to its accepted applicants, right in the acceptance letter, that they consider deferring their attendance for a year so they can start refreshed when they do arrive at school. Yale happily allows its own successful applicants to take a year off. And Princeton has even started a “Bridge Year” program to send freshmen out on service trips.
No doubt there are some students who defer university simply because they simply aren’t very responsible people and just want to goof off. Yet in their defense, some may just be burned out and need to replenish. However, a large percentage of young people who take the gap year are looking for the change to be independent. Most of them return from their gap year travel or work as new people, responsible and mature, who are ready to work on their degree and take on the mantle of adulthood.
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