What would your FA teen do with a GAP YEAR?

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PurpleCat:
Your DD will know what would mean the most to her. If I knew her to talk to her, I would tell her....I had a chance to go to Europe and put off college. I got scared and decided at the last minute not to go and went to college instead. It is my only regret in life. Once I got out of college and was faced with student loans to pay back....I was stressed to get working and start paying. I never felt like I had a chance to be free after that.

My feeling is that there is nothing like that last bit of true freedom and if you have a chance to try something, see something, do something - go for it...all of it.....live live live!!! (I love Auntie Mame!)

What are some of your daughter's interests? Can you turn them into an adventure? Is there something she would like to learn that is not part of her academic plan.....something like.... photography.....that she could submerge herself into for awhile. Try, explore......

If overseas travel is out, how about some domestic travel....by rail.....follow a coast....visit the places of some of her favorite famous americans....follow a museum trail.......explore the smithsonian museums.....travel and blog about it.

Such exciting possibilities!

booandbrimom:
Wish I knew. I agree with you...most of the commercially-available programs involve travel to unacceptable locations.

If you're just starting to think about this, here's a good resource:

http://www.usagapyearfairs.org/programs

My son is still too stressed out to talk about college vs. gap year, so we haven't narrowed things down any.

CMdeux:
She's actually seriously interested in:

a) interning for a local NPO that she's worked with for many years (a food-based one, ironically!)

b) learning a string instrument intensively

c) learning a third language-- Spanish or ASL-- and doing some volunteer work as a translator

d) job shadowing seriously-- some of the front runners on that wish list include a federal judge, professional editor, college faculty, etc.

e) spending time improving her artistic skills-- probably taking some classes

f) Google Science Fair. She has an idea, but is a long way from making it a reality... though it's FEASIBLE, imo, and definitely something that she would be able to do in another year.... the age group winners there get 50K and a mentor for a year. So that's a pie-in-the-sky kind of gap year plan. But it's also a far cry from the Intel competitions, which frankly are a matter of privilege as much as any kind of independent innovation (the winners INVARIABLY have already got a faculty mentor and access to state of the art research facilities).

Macabre:
I know a kid who, after graduating from high school (and she did cyber school) went to Egypt by herself over the summer to learn Arabic. She went from there to an orphanage in Viet Nam for the year. She had gotten a full ride to UVA, too. :)

As she was doing this stuff I thought DS would never be able to. Maybe not--but he can do other things. I think other things are totally doable.

Hoping SLIT helps with this frankly--whatever happens after high school.