Years ago, if teenagers told their families that they planned to take a "year off" before starting college, parents and grandparents feared the worst — that their children were walking away from their college dream, or that they had become slackers.
Things have changed. Today, a growing number of high school students are heeding the advice of guidance counselors and college admission officers and taking what is known as a "gap year" before enrolling as freshmen. Some of the country's leading schools, including Princeton, Harvard, and MIT, openly encourage teens to experience other cultures, or the working world, for a year before moving into their dorms. (Most experts strongly advise students to apply to college during senior year of high school, get accepted, and then ask to defer enrollment a year, rather than delaying their application until the gap year.)
Many students fill their gap year with professional internships, travel, or, increasingly, public service or volunteer work. Others spend the year earning money to help defray the rising cost of higher education. With the right attitude and planning, and the encouragement of parents and grandparents, a gap year can help a teen become more focused and better prepared for the rigors of college life.
A Burn-Out Buster
College administrators increasingly welcome the idea of a gap year for a variety of reasons: It opens space in overcrowded freshman dorms; it helps students bring a global perspective to their studies; and it gives burned-out teens a break they need after their push to win admission to the college of their choice. As Princeton President Shirley Tilghman has said, many teens need a year of "cleansing the palate of high school."
The College Board, the group that administers the SAT, estimates that almost 30 percent of all students who enter college don’t return for sophomore year. Many administrators believe that rate would decrease if more students took time off before freshman year. And with the average annual cost of a four-year private college now at $23,712, dropouts are bad business, not just for schools but for parents and grandparents paying the tuition bills.
Show Your Support
A lot of parents worry that if their kids take a year off they won't go back to college, says Karl Haigler, coauthor with his wife, Rae Nelson, of The Gap Year Advantage (St. Martin's, 2005). "But our research doesn't support that at all — in fact, nine out of ten go back within a year," he says, as his son did after taking a gap year. There are many high-school seniors academically ready for college, "but who may be burned out or just not ready," he has found.
For teens considering a gap year, Haigler says, grandparents can play a crucial role as sounding boards, advisors, and advocates. Grandchildren may come to you and say, "I don't want to bring this up with Mom and Dad, but I've got an idea," he says. They might say, "I'm really burned out. College is definitely in my plans but if I took a year off and did something — service experience or working or volunteering overseas — I would have a better perspective." Grandparents might be more receptive to the idea than parents, who have been so focused on the pursuit of college admission. "Listen to where the kid's head is at," Haigler advises. If grandchildren ask you, and you're confident that the tees have every intention of enrolling in college after a gap year, help them make their case to their parents.
Stick to the Plan
Gap-year students try to earn and save some money for school along with traveling, performing service, or gaining work experience. But even with the best intentions, a gap year will not benefit teens unless they make a plan and stick to it. "It's about doing something active and constructive," Haigler says, and grandparents can help.
Since many parents have been saving for years for college tuition, Haigler suggests, grandparents can help subsidize a grandchild's gap year by contributing to the teen's expenses, especially for travel. Let it be your commencement present, Haigler says, "because commencement isn't about what you've finished but what you're going to do." Grandparents could buy their grandchildren a round-trip ticket to their destination, or cover the cost of a flight home for the holidays if the teen will be overseas. "Tell them you want them to come back at Christmas and tell you all about their adventures," Haigler says.
Welcoming Them Home
When teens return home from their gap-year experience, Haigler says, they often have a hard time readjusting, especially if they've been overseas working with the poor or helping people in difficult situations. "They need to come back and decompress, and they need to tell their stories," he says. "They need somebody to listen to what they have to say, and not just ask, 'Did you have a good time?' or 'Did you take a lot of pictures?' That's not what's going on here. It's not tourism. These kids have gone somewhere to try to make a difference, but we've heard this over and over again: Nobody seemed to want to listen or understand, or people asked superficial questions."
Less focused than parents on wrangling returning students to fill out their college schedules and other paperwork, grandparents may be well-suited to listening to a grandchild's newly-gained perspectives, Haigler says. "Let them give you a sense of what the time has done for them and what they saw or the difference they made." The gap year, he adds, "just might be the difference in a kid's life, and you can play an important role supporting that."
To read about how one couple supported their grandson's charitable dreams, click here. Elsewhere on Grandparents.com, join the debate over whether you should hunt with your grandchildren, find advice on how to respond when a teenage grandchild becomes pregnant, discover our guide to your grandchildren's education, and consider whether your grandchildren know you well enough.
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