My granddaughter, who aced high school, is considering delaying college for one year. She has a lot of qualifications outside of her grades, clubs and such, and can easily get into most schools. She has a good head on her shoulders and has good reasons to do so, mostly financial.
She’s already saved up a bunch of cash and works at a pretty good job and wants to build up some capital so she can minimize working while she’s at college so she can comcentrate on her studies. She’s pretty ambitious. She will takie a few transferable courses at her communuty college while she works.
I know this isn’t unheard of by any means, and I’m wondering what the highly educated SDMB crowd thinks.
Any advice I can pass along? She will listen.
Peace,
mangeorge
I went straight from high school to a four year college. To this day, I wish I had delayed college for a year while I worked at something meaningful to learn what it was like to bang out a living in the real world. I think it would have made a big difference in my life and helped me to mature a bit. I also would have appreciated education a lot more.
Don’t get me wrong; I did OK in college, but there were a lot of wrong turns, a lot of worrying about the wrong things, and a lot of stupid decisions that slowed me down. I didn’t actually figure my life out and find my direction until after college in the army.
So yeah, as long as she’s ambitious and not goofing off, I’d say it’s a great decision.
It really depends on the individual. There are many good reasons to delay college. However, I’ll play devil’d advocate a bit. Things I would think about:
What sort of gig does she have for the year? Different jobs have different pros and cons–if she is waiting tables or working in the mall, it’s not always a good thing to be 18 and surrounded by people that see where they are as a lifestyle, not a transitional phase. If she’s surrounded by a lot of 18-22 year olds who are living the typical early-20s-work-to-party life, it could really dilute the standards she holds herself to. Especially if by the end of the year she’s offered an assistiant manager postion (she will be) and by then being a big fish in a small pond–where she’s adult, competent, and by the standards of her peers making good money–could be really tempting to a 19 year old. Of course, not all McJobs are like this, but it’s worth worrying about.
Another problem is the possiblity that maybe she just is nervous about college and looking for a sound reason to delay. I’d really push her to go through the whole application process and then look to defer a year if at all possible. If that suddenly becomes a problem for all sorts of logical reasons, I’d push to see if there is something else going on.
Again, there are good reasons to delay and it’s not a crazy plan. But there are concerns.
If she wants to attend a top university, she should certainly apply now and fully treat it as though she would attend next year. These schools are incredibly demanding in their paperwork, recommendations, tests, and such, and to do it while out of school will be more difficult. Their avenues are essentially: bright-eyed high school junior/senior with or without some college-credit work, or transfer applicant from another university. Taking some classes in a year off somewhat muddles this. It may actually make her a very weak/unestablished transfer applicant by some schools’ criteria (“ever enrolled” or “12 credits” are the most restrictive criteria I’ve seen). She might even appear as a weaker candidate for having opted for light work at a community college, I’m not sure–I certainly get that feeling from looking at the intense, “on the Top School track from age 13” standards of some schools.
I forgot to add that delaying matriculation for a year was an option everywhere I’ve seen.
Huh. It’s a tricky issue, and I think the key is to make the best match for the individual student.
I would highly recommened waiting for college (for a person who is sure she wants to go to college) in a few basic scenarios: a student who would likely not thrive in college without the skills that people can pick up from employment – time management, organization, real-world problem solving, that sort of thing.
Another other scenario is extreme financial need. Generally, I think easing the burden a bit is not worth it in the end. I think it’s sort of like that advice about buying a house – you want to stretch yourself as thin as possible without going over the edge, because tuition is only going to go up. (I don’t actually know if that’s good advice for buying a house, but it is for education.) You can actually look at the increase over the past four years at a given college, and figure out the dollar amount (minus anticipated grants and scholarhips) and compare it to her projected income for the upcoming year and see how things stack up. **I strongly suggest doing this research especially if she is interested in any sort of nationally-ranked four-year private. **There may not that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things as to where she will be after four years of college as opposed to one year of work plus four years of college. I can see where she is coming from with wanting to work less while she is in school, but … you know, I think it’s a very unpredictable thing. She’s still going to have living expenses the year she is working, and she’s still going to need extra money for things while she is in college. Also, most students work while in college, so she would not be out of step with the majority of her classmates in that area.
Obviously there are other individual factors but I’m assuming you would have mentioned them – responsibilities for care of a parent or child, an extremely unusual, once-in-lifetime career opportunity with a limited time frame, that sort of thing.
People do take a year off all the time, and it’s definitely working out for a lot of them. I think it’s helpful if a person isn’t 100% sure about going to college at all, or what kind of college education they want (such as a conservatory v. a traditional liberal arts experience). A downside is that it can be difficult to shift gears and leave a good work situation, especially if it is well-paying, and then you have that trap where you are thinking next semester, or maybe the next semester after that … and then a lot more time has gone by than originally planned. I have seen the emotional element go both ways – some students who started school after some work are even more motivated to do well in college, and then others who are frustrated (to the point where they are in my office because they are not doing well) by their classmates’ lack of understanding of the “real world.”
The kind of college experience she wants is also something to consider. If she is the kind of person who will get a lot out of the whole freshman year, living in the dorm, engaging in all the college trappings, then I would note that the longer you have been supporting yourself and working and living independently, the harder it is to adjust to this kind of college life hoopla (we could have a whole other thread about whether this stuff is a good thing or a bad thing, but either way, it’s reality). There are some schools where it is almost a waste of money if you don’t participate in that kind of experience. Then, there are other schools whose structure is less focused on the communal living experience, or it is only one of several options (think state school where some students are in dorms and others live at home with family or on their own in off-campus apartments) so she could be more flexible with her out-of-classroom experience.
I hope this gives you a few things to think about!
My parents wanted me to work a year after high school before going into college, in order to earn some cash because we had none for tuition, so I dutifully put that info on some form at school. When I scored 201 on my PSAT, the highest score the school had seen up to that point, my guidance counselor had me hauled into his office and told me that I’d be up for some mighty fine National Merit Scholarships if my SAT scores were of the same caliber AND if I would kindly change my answer to that particular question to say that yes, I would be going directly into college.
I did get a respectable score on the SAT and a nice National Merit Scholarship from my mother’s employer, and I entered college the very fall after my graduation (good thing, because it took me six years to get my degree, stupid major changes).
YMMV. This was in 1984 and I have no idea how conditions have changed. But it may be something to look into.
FWIW…
I waited a year. The summer after HS graduation I toured Scandinavia with a wind ensemble for a month, then hitchhiked from southern Denmark over to Belgium, hopped a ferry and spent the next month travelling through the UK. It was an amazing experience and I learned a lot about myself. After spending the rest of the year working a dead end job I was more than ready for college. After a year and a summer at Syracuse I took a semester off and transferred out to CU Boulder for the rest of college. By the time I settled into a school I was well out of sync with my peers. It didn’t matter all that much to me in the end, being that some of my hometown pals went out there too, but it might be important to others.
I can safely say that the wind went out of my sails with regards to being a classical percussion major while I dilly-dallied. At the same time I was kind of burned out and didn’t really want to go straight into a conservatory environment anyway. Sometimes I think I would have been better off plowing through fresh out of HS as I had focus, momentum, recruiters calling, and connections. That had all pretty much dried up by the time I finally got around to going to music school. Looks like a real bad decision in hindsight but at that time in my life I was genuinely tired of the scene.
delphica’s post was a good one, and I agree with almost all of it. I think the most important thing is what kind of college experience she’s looking for. I would definitely say to apply now and defer if necessary, rather than wait to apply. Honestly, though, unless there’s an absolute need to put it off a year, I’d say to go straight into it. Great student, ambitious, knows absolutely that she wants to go to a four-year college… sounds to me like any time that she puts it off for now is one year less to do what she’ll be doing AFTER college. Is another year doing what she’s doing now going to help her out significantly with what she eventually wants to end up doing? Or will she be better off long term by getting the degree a year earlier and getting started on what she really wants to do? As some have mentioned, even at the absolute best colleges, most students work part-time (if only for booze money!), so it won’t be something that keeps her from fitting in or will kill her studies.
For the most part, I think that waiting is a great thing for people who aren’t sure about what they’re doing. If she’s sure she wants it, she should go for it, IMO.
I pretty much agree with delphica, although I’d add a third case which is an ambitious student with a great opportunity to travel or join some structured program (like a one-year volunteer gig).
I think a “gap year” (as they are often called) can be a good thing, but it’s critically important that the student not get derailed during that year. It’s one of the arguments for doing wat Kiros said: apply to college now and then simply defer enrollment. (Another argument is that is can be a bigger hassle to get recommendations and transcripts and the like when you’re out of high school).
My concern would be that over the course of the gap year, the students’ aspirations may change or drift and it becomes too easy to put college off for another term or year . . . and then indefinitely. You meet someone, or you’re offered a promotion, or your best friend wants you to move in with her to a great apartment. . . when you’re just out of college mode and surrounded by people doing somethng other than college, those goals can become fuzzier. And later one might find disincentives to go, like I don’t want to be the oldest freshman on campus, or I can’t live in a dorm under those rules when I’ve been independent, yadda yadda. I don’t mean to insult your granddaughter, who may well keep her eyes on the prize. But the fact is, for some students getting off-track becomes a major threat to their eventual degree attainment. Even attending community college–even though some students successfully transfer for 4-year colleges–can depress some students’ degree aspirations.
The other thing to consider is the fact that financial aid calculations may not give her the freedom to “not work” in college. There are formulas that determine how many of a student’s assets are considered towards college, and all her increased savings from that gap year will be counted too. It’s not enough that your granddaughter planned to reserve that money so she wouldn’t have to work as much. They won’t expect her to contribute all of it that first year, but they may plan on her using a bigger chunk than she’d counted on. In the long run, its greatest impact might be to simply reduce the aid she qualifies for that first year–and thus it may not make a big difference in how much she has to work, or how much more money she has to live on in college.
Thanks a lot for all the good information. I’ll pass it along, for sure.
Weren’t we able at one time to email threads to “friends and family”? I don’t see the button. I’ll chech ATMB.
Thanks again,
mangeorge