Gap Year: Transitioning Into College

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A gap year is a time, generally, one academic year where a student takes a break from schooling between high school and college. During this time a student may seek out volunteering and job opportunities, as well as a reflection time, and a time to travel to a place with very different culture from a student’s own. Taking a gap year does not necessarily mean sitting back and relaxing, but it can be that if that is what a student prefers. With this time, students have the chance to further develop their personalities and grow their individual skills says Joseph O’Shea author of Gap Year. Gap years are becoming a more popular choice before transitioning into college because the programs set up to allow for growth and succession, it provides …show more content…

Harvard also has this mentioned on their website. In fact, taking a gap year may give a student a second chance to get into their dream school says Lynn O'Shaughnessy writer for U.S. News. Some time ago there had been a student who was originally rejected from admission by MIT. Because their rejection that student decided to take a gap year. Amazingly, in the gap year they had taken off they were able to invent an environmentally friendly scooter that Popular Science praised. After this had happened, they reapplied to MIT and their admission was …show more content…

Students can pick and choose what you want to learn from their gap year. If a parent or student is worried that taking a gap year gives off a sign or laziness or unwillingness to return to college afterword, there should not be any fears. As it currently stands the college return rate is a 90%. The statistics also show that students who decide to take the year off earn a GPA approximately .2 higher compared to the rest of the students (Gap Year Data). Even many would view this as a minuscule improvement .2 can mean the difference between getting into your desired degree program. However even with the delaying of an education, for those students who did not get into their dream school, they have another chance to make the admission. With this time off they can do or invent something impressive to attract or be noticed by those harder to get into

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