I know this isn't for everyone, but some students are able to do a gap year that isn't structured. My son, Paly '14, is in the heart of a deeply gratifying, life changing gap year and he planned the whole thing himself, working and saving as he went to pay for it: 4.5 months of solo world travel including 4 weeks of teaching in India, an internship with a local start up company and he just started the Pacific Crest Trail (he's on mile 230 as of today and will arrive within 100 miles of his college in Canada just in time to start in 4 months). His college not only gave him a deferment, but they awarded him the president's scholarship for his accomplishments during this year. My son has said over and over that taking an academic break was the best decision he could ever have made.

Michellev- thank you for sharing your son's gap year story. And congrats for being awarded a scholarship at his college. I hope other students read your comment and find inspiration, as I have.

-Lori McCormick

One of my kids took a gap half year. Went away to college, partied his way to a healthy D average and came back home to PA. Started attending Foothill College and now was just accepted at UCLA. He had something like a 2.5 GPA when he graduated from Paly. Some kids just dont fit the mold and they've got to figure it out.

What did you child do for the 1/2 year at home? Work? Attend classes at Fthill to prepare for another college? Decision making at my home as well for this same sceniero.

@ duveneck parent

He found employment consisting of leaning up against a wall in his uncles restaurant. He quickly deduced that was not his cup of tea and was more than happy to begin Foothill. Coincidently two of chums walked the same path, he'll be rooming in So Cal with one and the other will be attending UCSC.

This is interesting.

I think that amongst those I know thinking or have taken a gap year, the great majority are boys, at least I can't think of any girls known to me.

There is something going on in the boys' development that is telling them not to rush into their future college plans much more than used to be the case. The maturity level of boys in my experience is that they are wary of the college experience and need something to give them an emotional charge preparing them for young adulthood and I think gap year is something particularly beneficial to them.

Why are our boys not prepared emotionally or mature enough for the college experience? Is there something particularly lacking in their high school experience that makes the idea of taking a year off to "find themselves" attractive or necessary.

I am not talking about the travel or alternative mode of study experience, but the need to get a job, be lazy, or just "afraid to grow up" idea that some of them appear to voice.

I just could not handle a full time job at AMD and a full ( a typical 18 credit ) credit load at SJSU, so I ended my stay at SJSU. The Engineering Department did not have a real Computer Science degree yet. Only a FORTRAN CS course that I Aced with no problem. I learned how to keypunch on the Model 029 keypunch machine and had to hand decks of cards to the acolytes that tended the IBM god they prayed to.
Me, I was already training at home and at AMD for the future; I had built several S-100 computers that were the working, bleeding edge of the microcomputer revolution.
I also became a part-time student at Foothill College and I was able to get back into the Electives I needed for the Engineering Common Core without being exposed to politics that made it harder to get the courses I needed as a freshman at SJSU.
I learned the main reasons that I had to go to a college in the first place:
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN
HOW TO KISS SOMEONE'S BUTT TO GET AHEAD

I learn how to do preliminary research into any subject material to find the answer(s) to the question(s) I may have about any subject.

I learned ( the hard way ) that to pass important and necessary classes, you MUST kiss the butt of the person teaching the class and NEVER disagree even when you know that the stuff being taught is outdated.
There were no degrees offered for Computer Science or Test Engineer. Yet I was doing both in the SFBA until I got a chance to do some bleeding edge work in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Nothing to prove, no butts to kiss, just stay on that bleeding edge.

That was the state of the College System forty years ago

Great profiles on 6 Paly Alumnus (all '14) who took gap years: Web Link

RE Paly Parent: "I think that amongst those I know thinking or have taken a gap year, the great majority are boys, at least I can't think of any girls known to me."
I haven't noticed this... the number of students taking gap years is not huge, but I'd say from what I've seen it's about 50/50. At most I'd say it's 60/40? But the number of students taking gap years isn't massive to begin with.

Both our kids took a gap year, for different reasons. Our son fit the mold of not being very sure what he wanted out of college and used the time to mature. His experience was quite structured through some international charitable work organizations (Costa Rica and Galapagos). Our daughter seized on the gap year as an adventure and a way to use up some of her wanderlust. She rolled her own, found some organizations looking for English tutors (Peru and Vietnam), and traveled in between times.

They both are very glad they did so.

Gap Year has been very popular in the UK and Ireland as well as other countries for sometime for both boys and girls, but it seems to have only made its way here in the last ten years or so.

I said from my own experience more boys than girls opted to do this, not just from Palo Alto but from all over Silicon Valley and further afield, as anecdotally from friends and family.

I think the girls may be the ones who are doing the structured route and look on it as a stepping stone to the college transition in a positive way, whereas the boys are using it as a means to delay the onset of becoming mature adults.

Now I am not trying to say this in a negative or derogatory way, but just as an observation that boys are feeling less prepared to become men in our society. I think there has been a pendulum swing against what used to be called manly, masculine or even macho. I think that there have been societal trends to make them less likely to stand up for themselves, to man up to a situation and perhaps become a little more feminine. Their masculinity is buried beneath a layer of protectiveness which the old school playground used to foster. When a boy is afraid of standing up to the class bully and told to report it, or if he does stand up to the bully he is viewed as the aggressor, then the normal testosterone manner for dealing with life's problems has been taken away. This is going to cause a delay in development and this may be the way many are dealing with it.

If the average high school graduate male is trying to prolong his adolescence for another year, it just may be the price we are paying for not allowing him to be a boy when he was younger.