Customer Reviews

The Complete Guide to the Gap Year: The Best Things to Do Between High School and College

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an educational consultant who advises Manhattan high school students, I am very glad to have read Kristin White's The Complete Guide to the Gap Year. While taking a gap year is common in Great Britain, many Americans are not familiar with this option. White explains what everyone considering a gap year needs to know: how the gap year factors into college admissions, how to pay for it, where to go and what to do. This is a very useful guide.

Kristin White's book is a good introduction to gap year programs. It offers great discussion of why and how to do a program, how to pay for it, and a full directory of different categories of programs.

This book is a user-friendly start to the process of identifying the menu of gap programs out there. Many students interested in gap programs simply go on the internet, which provides no complete directory or third-party discussion. This book is a great guidebook to help "jumpstart" the gap year program search.

I gave this program a 4 instead of a 5 because it could have gone a step further beyond simply identifying programs under different headings. There could have been more of an objective review process, explaining why each program might be appropriate for a certain kind of young person with a certain set of goals. There could have been comparisons between programs that on the surface appear almost identical. There could have been some due dilligence, pros and cons, what to watch out for, rewards and frustrations that have been experienced by students who enrolled in each program.

But as an introduction, especially with the lack of guidebooks available, the book serves a market need. Hopefully Ms. White will come out with a more in-depth guide in the future!

What I love about White's book on the gap year concept is that White guides students toward making the decisions about their immediate future from a more informed position while showing them how to get more out of life and how to have more fun in the process. This book gives students useful information that can enable them to navigate the often confusing waters of post-high school life. It also helps parents and teachers understand the value of taking time off between high school and college so that they can get behind their student's plan and provide them with the support they need while respecting their need to make their own decisions. One of the greatest gifts that today's teens could ever receive is a guide to having more autonomy within a responsible framework and a solid structure. The Complete Guide to the Gap Year helps teens and those who love them achieve this goal, showing them the many exciting and life-enriching possibilities that are open to them at this transitional time in their lives.

not as complete as I would have liked. It provides some great resources and is worth purchasing if you or your student are considering a gap year but it falls short in two respects: 1) I wish it had had recommendations of programs for students who need some personal growth/matruing/issues to work on. 2) It would be helpful to have had the PG schools listing include the nature and scope of how PG students fit in to the cultures and curricula at those schools.

If you or your child is considering a gap year, or "bridge year" as they call it, this is one-stop shopping for domestic and international programs,volunteer opportunities and immersion programs, as well as advice on how best to present this gap year to prospective colleges.

Great book to get you started on planning a Gap Year. Provides some basic concrete information and an overview of issues to consider in the planning process. Presents options and lists programs which can then be further investigated independent of the book.