Are students more or less successful taking a gap year between high school and college? Traditionally, university entry proceeds immediately after high school. However, it is statistically proven that there are more beneficial outcomes than unbeneficial outcomes when taking a year off before enrolling into a university. There are many benefits of taking a gap year, one of them being a way for students to take time off and think about their academic direction and professional goals they want to achieve before actually doing so. Right out of high school, not all students will know exactly what they want to do for the rest of their lives. According to the University of LaVerne (ULV, 2013) not all students will even want to pursue the same major they started with after a couple of years. Typically, 50% of students entering college right out of high school are undecided and approximately 50% – 70% of students will change their majors at least once. Taking a year off before enrolling into college will give students the opportunity to think about which academic pathway they're really interested in pursuing. The American Gap Association (AGA, 2015) shows studies that sixty percent of students who take a gap year said the experience during that year either "set me on my current career path/academic major" or "confirmed my choice of career/academic major.".
Not only does taking the gap year allow students to decide on a major and career path, but it will allow students to build work experience. Having work experience looks great on resumes and is something that most competitive colleges like to see in potential students (Purnell, 2015). A student with work experience and good work ethics is more likely to be accepted into a university compared to a student with little to no work experience. Aside from work experience looking good on a resume, it builds quality in a student in the way of gaining maturity.
