Many students are opting to take a year off before they start college. According to an article, “Worn-out students choose a timeout,” by Tracy Jan in the Boston Globe:
As their peers comb through course catalogs, shop for extra-long twin sheets, and seek out future classmates on Facebook, a small but growing number of students accepted by the nation’s top colleges are postponing their long-anticipated freshman year.
The students say they desperately need a timeout after spending their high school years building impeccable credentials for entry into selective colleges.
“Small but growing” is a little ambiguous. Is this a real trend? Well maybe. Back in 2008 MSNBC ran a very, very similar article by Danielle Wood about how the idea of taking a year off before college,
is now starting to gain significant steam here in America. Why? A growing number of high school seniors are balking at riding the academic conveyer belt from preschool all the way to university. They’re burnt out.
In 2007 the Washington Post reported that “more high school graduates these days are seeking a year off.”
In fact, it was as early as the 1960s that students began taking time off before they started college. This is probably because they felt “burnt out” then too.
