By Katherine Stievater
Gap Year Solutions has always focused on college readiness. Data has consistently shown that one-third of first-year students don’t return to their college the next year. From our start 10 years ago, this has been a big focus for us. For the last couple of years, we’ve started to see more unprompted anxiety from parents, who are wondering if their child is really ready for campus life. Two parents I spoke with recently separately brought up “screen addiction”. Others describe their student’s social anxiety.
Our gap year 101 presentation now includes a slide illustrating those potential challenges. This has really seemed to resonate with our webinar audience this year, and prompts lots of extra discussion during the Q&A portion of our talks:
- “I don’t see her being able to go find clubs and make friends and really engage with campus life right now…”
- “He doesn’t seem like he’ll be comfortable speaking with his professor…”
- “I worry he’s going to be playing video games and on his phone and never leave his dorm room…”
- “Hmm…what if she has a challenging roommate? That could be really tough for her…”
It’s good that parents are more willing to share their concerns about social and non-academic skills. They worry that their student – while plenty smart – will get lost trying to navigate the thicket of other tricky things that help determine college and ultimately life success.
In our practice at Gap Year Solutions, we see so many fantastic young adults that have some social and learning struggles. Maybe a generation ago, before social media and smart phones, they would have worked through more of this during their middle and high school years. There are so many theories for what is happening. Today’s parents make many decisions for their kids, who then fail to develop “tensile strength” by trying and failing at things. Many teens are just so focused on getting into the right school and checking boxes along the way, that they forget how to play, and have fun. (Jonathan Haidt covers this extensively in The Anxious Generation.)
Whatever the cause, many students emerge from high school without having yet developed a good set of tools and approaches to navigating the world around them. Often, they simply lack confidence. The good news is we are talking about this. And while at one time students had to convince their parents that a gap year is a good idea, many times now it is the other way around. Parents are going through a discovery process with their son or daughter to help them see the benefits of gap time.
We are so proud of those students we work with who fall into this category. They are high functioning in many ways, with certain challenges. They know they have some things to work on, and want to fit in, and gain confidence. These students are not suited for traditional “therapeutic programs” (we have done a lot of work to draw this distinction – click here for presentation from Dec 2025, and reach out if you’d like more information). There really aren’t a lot of structured gap year options for these students. So we help them figure out appropriate experiences and activities that will make them feel purposeful and proud of themselves, give them confidence and tools so they can have a successful college experience!
