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Hello

I was wondering: If you had the chance, would you take a year off after high school before moving on with college? My friends in europe have asked me to spend a year with them as it is traditional in their country for students to take a year off. If I take the year off, I will probabaly take 1 or 2 intro. business courses (even though I want to do biology), and enjoy my life.

I feel that although I have grown a great deal in high school, too much of my time was spent on trying to get into a good college. Now, I am somewhat ambilavent about this "good" college especially since I was rejected from my EA school. I feel that while I will be behind my peers if I take a year off, at least I can catch up on all the fun things i have missed out through my high school years (such as learning to cook, spending time with people, learning a language, improving my physical fitness). Looking ahead, I think that I will only be working harder and harder to achieve something better, and very soon I will die. I know this is depressing, but i suppose that is why I should "seize the day." I realize that later in life it might be difficlut to take a year off like this, so I do not want to miss out on such an opportunity.

Would someone kindly tell me what the drawbacks are if I take a year off? Has anyone done it and had regrets? Are there some really good advantages?

Also, I was thinking of reapplying to my EA school and other schools if I take the year off.

By Texas137 (Texas137) on Tuesday, January 20, 2004 - 06:34 pm: Edit

I think it's a great idea, as long as you have something worthwhile in mind to do with the time, which you obviously do. Many colleges encourage this by letting accepted students defer for a year.

By Justin185 (Justin185) on Wednesday, January 21, 2004 - 06:35 am: Edit

Taking a year off is good for some people. For me it would be a waste of time. When I graduated from high school I couldn't afford to go on vacation for a week, let alone take a year long trip overseas. My year off would be spent working a full-time job. Going directly to school was more beneficial for me.
There is a college student that I know who graduated a semester early so he will spend the entire spring semester traveling overseas, will hang out with friends during the summer, and start working for JP Morgan in August. I would love to be able to do something like that but I don't have the money. He must have had some good internships or some generous parents.

By Marite (Marite) on Wednesday, January 21, 2004 - 08:24 am: Edit

Justin:

Taking a year off does not have to mean traveling or taking on an unpaid internship. Sometimes, people can do a lot of traveling without really "seeing" the countries they pass through. Colleges will consider holding a job a way to gain maturity. It would be better, of course, to have an interesting job that would give a student some experience of the world of work, help him/her acquire some skills and be enjoyable as well.

By Wishiknew (Wishiknew) on Wednesday, January 21, 2004 - 10:25 am: Edit

I believe that taking a semester or year off can be beneficial for many students. Most 18 year olds don't really know what they want to do for the rest of their life. It is not unusual for those kids who take a year off to decide on a completely different direction for college than they were looking at the year before both in terms of their major and their choice of college. Ratcheting down the level of intensity for a few months is not the worse thing that can happen to a kid who has been highly driven during high school. Think of it as a sabbatical rather than just "time off". A sabbatical is a time of personal and intellectual renewal, not a time of goofing off. Also, it sounds better to be able to say I'm on sabbatical for a year rather than I'm going to bum around Europe for awhile.

The biggest danger is that you will not go on to college. If you go overseas, make sure you keep up and get those applications in on time. Also, you could do some volunteering overseas to really immerse yourself in the culture and it wouldn't hurt your college applications.

Don't worry about your peers. Once you go to college, your peers are no longer those people who were born in the same year as you but rather those people who are more or less at the same point in their lives.

By Chrisy (Chrisy) on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 02:44 pm: Edit

apply to school now so you don't have to do it again!

By Laceyski08 (Laceyski08) on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 03:17 pm: Edit

Hi,
I am taking a year "off" (I'm not fond of describing it like that). I graduated last June, and am now spending the year living as an Au Pair in Vienna (right now I'm at home for a Christmas/Winter break until the end of Feb. actually). If you decide to take a year off, make sure you are doing it for the right reasons. Do not do it just to re-apply to a first-choice school, which was a small part of the reason I chose to wait a year before starting at a college. During my senior year of high school my dad was diagnosed with cancer and we were told he only had a few months to live, this of course was a very hard time and I did not get a chance to research schools, etc. and I wound up applying to very few and getting into only one. I was offered the chance to live with a family with two kids, in exchange for around 20 hours/week of babysitting I stayed at their house, ate w/them, etc. basically I got room and board for free (and even a small allowance). The main reason I decided to wait a year was the chance to take German classes and really learn it first hand b/c I had taken 4 years of German in high school and was interested in studying language/linquistics at college. The experience has been and is WONDERFUL, I have no regrets whatsoever. I am learning so much German and have the chance to explore language as a possible area of study. Not only that but living abroad has allowed me to learn much about myself, and I think made me into a much more independent and confident person- that is the reason I would decide the same if I had to make the decision all over again. I did re-apply to my first choice college and got in, though re-applying to colleges made things stressful at times. So, if you can, apply to some schools through regular admissions now to at least have a back-up plan.
Taking time off is a good choice for some, and bad for others. You have to do what you feel will make you happiest. Everyone (peers, family, et al) has told me they wish they could do/did something like I am doing. Taking a 'risk' like taking a year off can really show something about you, and colleges will like that- they'll see that you have an adventurous spirit and aren't afraid to 'take the road less traveled'.
As for being behind your peers, while trying to decide my family warned me about this. They said that I would feel isolated and miss out on everything--wrong! This might be so if you start college, take time off, then come back and all your classmates have graduated/made other friends/etc. However, I'm sure most of your friends are attending different schools anyway, and if you start next year you'll be starting with freshman from all different kinds of backgrounds and you will be on equal footing. As for being a year older or what, I can't really say much about that b/c I was born on the cut off date but my parents started me a year early so I'll just be one of the older kids in my class... but you shouldn't let being a year or so older than your class make such a decision like that.
What country might you be staying in? If you can, if you're not already fluent in the language, in addition to business classes you should take language courses at a language institue.
Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions! Good luck and best wishes!

By Wastingtime (Wastingtime) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 12:31 am: Edit

Thank you all for your kind inputs!!! I am very happy that I received so many responses in such little time! Thanks especially to laceyski! Please check your email!

I am not taking a year off only to reappy. I was just toying with this idea because it suddenly occured to me that I could portentially have a second chance at admissions. I am of course continuing with the application process this year because I am not certain that I will take a year off. Would someone know what I might need to do to reapply since I wont have my high school to guide me next year?


Is there anyone else out there who may have done this? I do not personally know anyone who has taken a year off, so suggestions such as Lacey's and Justin's were very valuable.

Thank you

By Laceyski08 (Laceyski08) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 08:43 am: Edit

Your welcome! I checked my e-mail but didn't get anything from you.
It's good that you are continuing with application, and you should most definitely re-apply to your first choice school again next year! Depending upon your SAT scores now, if you're not satisfied, you could re-take them as well. I retook them at an American International high school in Vienna, so it's something you could think about.
When I decided to go to Austria, I don't think I even told my guidance counselor I'd be reapplying... I just started sending in forms for him (very early of course!); Though, maybe you could talk with your guidance counselor so he could expect forms and recommendations to come in.
I have a copy of an 'Addendum' I wrote that I sent in with my application that was about "my acitivites since last enrolled in high school" if you're interested in reading it I can post it here or e-mail it to you.
What country might you be staying in?

By Texas137 (Texas137) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 10:29 am: Edit

If you are accepted at your first choice school, you won't have to reapply (unless you decide some other school would be better). You just defer the acceptance. This is a straightforward administrative thing you do with the college.

By Emilyp114 (Emilyp114) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 02:07 pm: Edit

Not all colleges allow deferrals.

By Emeraldkity4 (Emeraldkity4) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 02:28 pm: Edit

Not all colleges want to be responsible of keeping track of the paperwork is my impression.
My daughter took a year off, was accepted to all schools but was told she needed to reapply.
taking a year off in a FOCUSED way ( she did Americorps), gives you a hook you didn't have before, although that is not why she did it.
Several schools including Harvard actually recommend to students that they take a year off, as mature students can benefit from an intense academic enviornment more than students who have been in school from K.

When she was into her gap year she reapplied to all her previous schools plus one school that would have been a reach for her the year before.
She was accepted and she is currently a junior.
She is probably also going to take another year off before grad school, several students at her school take time off between soph and junior years, but you really need to have that in place sophmore year, and she wasnt that organized plus she wanted to stay with her group of friends.

By Speechpathmom (Speechpathmom) on Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - 12:17 am: Edit

My son will be taking a gap year with Rotary Youth Exchange. They have an extensive program. If you are accepted, you live with one or more families in one town in one of many foreign countries and attend their high school for the cultural/language experience. (The courses do not count toward American colleges, but you are expected to be dedicated.) My son met two girls who came back from this program last summer, one went to Brazil and one to the Czech Republic.

It is my understanding that most of the private colleges will grant a deferral for a good reason but that the publics say they will not. My son only applied to public UCs and if he gets in somewhere he wants to go he will still try to get a deferral. Otherwise, he will have to re-apply next year, while abroad. He needs the time to think about where he wants to go and could apply ED somewhere if he wants to, thereby opening up his options a bit.

We haven't yet figured out how we will deal with the teacher/counselor recs, but I suppose it will be do-able.

By Dstark (Dstark) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 02:12 am: Edit

Anyone else's kid take a year off. Was it a good experience?