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I attended one of your virtual zoom sessions early in the pandemic. You were so convincing in the value of a Gap year that I convinced my middle son, who just graduated, to take a Gap year! He deferred his university acceptance and is now at the Cordon Bleu in London studying Cuisine until June.
After a huge spike in Gap Year deferrals during the early part of COVID-19 to avoid online learning and campus lockdowns, Gap Year numbers appear to have settled back to their pre-COVID levels.
Jonathan Kyed is 21 years old and on his second Gap Year. He’s also from Denmark, where a remarkable 80% of students take a Gap Year after high school.
It's that time of year. It's time to find the silver lining of college rejection. High school seniors by now have heard from all the schools to which they applied. Some are elated. Others are heartbroken that they did not get into their preferred college.
Is the most recent change in focus for Gap Year students a sign of things to come in higher ed? Perhaps. One thing we can say with confidence is that the steep and ongoing decline in acceptance rates at selective colleges is almost certainly going to increase the number of students taking a Gap Year.
We are happy to see that as expected, Omicron’s impact is declining rapidly and most countries are open to Gap Year travel. This post covers the current situation, and a quick view into fall 2022.
Studies and articles that point out the mental health challenges our teens continue to face do a great service by shining a light on the situation and elevating the conversation. They also point out the important role that time off plays before students jump into the academic rigors, relatively unstructured time and social demands of campus life.
We recently came across an article that does a great job helping families understand how to think through "time off" for students who are already in college. This is a great call out, because not all Gap Years are taken by students right after high school.
At last fall’s Gap Year Association Annual Conference, Bob Clagett, Gap Year Research Consortium Coordinator, reviewed results from a post-gap year survey that seven colleges and universities sent out to their gap year students from 2020-21 after they finished their gap year.
Kids have one chance to be in college. When you step on campus, you want to be the best you can be. What do you need to do that? What skills will help you do that? I speak about Gap Years as well as mentor kids before and during their Gaps Years. Many teens are ready to move on from their parents, but they still need mentors.
