By Katherine Stievater, Founder of Gap Year Solutions
Parent attitudes towards Gap Years are changing. Parents I speak with used to be more skeptical of Gap Years. I’m not getting that this year. They’re not asking “will my student ever go to college?” or “Will they be able to keep up academically once they get to college?” I’m not getting any of the usual questions and pushback I would get from parents. Instead, my experience has been that there is a shift to being okay with their student stepping back and waiting a bit before going to college. While I have always spoken with parents who were agreeable to the idea of a Gap Year for their student, this year many more parents seem emphatic that choosing a Gap Year could be the right path for their kid.
The main theme I am picking up is that parents “want their student to go to college when they are ready”. This year’s high school seniors were in 8th grade when COVID started. Maybe this has something to do with it? Whatever has changed, parents this year are expressing more openness to the idea that a year focused on personal growth is exactly what their student needs. What really brought this home to me was an initial call I had last week with Amy, a parent seeking Gap Year information for her son, a high school senior.
Amy told me that she and her husband wish they had brought up the idea of a Gap Year to their son earlier, maybe even as early as freshman year. Now she’s worried it might be too late since he’s already been accepted to two colleges but she doesn’t think he’s at all ready. She told me that she is thinking that “another year of taking time and being more present in decisions he makes” would be valuable. That “there are no downsides” to taking time for “more self-exploration and personal growth”. Finally, “there is no rush – you don’t get this chance again to explore who you are…it’s not some sort of punishment, it’s actually a gift”. Wow. These are all the same things I’ve been saying for years!
The challenge is that as student awareness of Gap Years continues to increase, they often think Gap Years are only for certain kinds of students – which means “not me”. So while more parents get it, and see the benefits of delaying the start of college, students often don’t see this. They haven’t thought about it for themselves and really have no idea why they would ever consider it. They just ignore it.
When I give talks at high schools, so many more parents are signing up this year. It’s very gratifying to see our message getting out there. I know that it’s only a matter of time before more students will hear the message too, and say “this could be me”.
