← ADHD Experts Podcast
ADHD Experts Podcast
542- Gap Year Pros and Cons for Neurodivergent Students
01:00:37
Some teens, particularly those with ADHD who have experienced persistent academic stress, may benefit from taking a gap year after high school. Carolyn K. Jeppsen goes over the different options, and benefits and drawbacks to weigh as you make your...
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Welcome to the Attention Deficit Disorder Expert.
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Podcast series by Attitude Magazine.
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Hi everyone, my name is Annie Rogers and on behalf of the Attitude Team, I am so pleased to welcome you to today's ADHD Experts presentation titled Gap Year Pros and Cons for Neurodivergent Students. Students Leading today's presentation is Carolyn K. Jepsen. Carolyn is the CEO, President and co founder of Broad Futures, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing opportunities for neurodivergent young people through paid internships and support while aiding employers in building inclusive workplaces. Carolyn speaks and advocates nationally on the benefits of a diverse workforce and the value proposition of internships and work based learning in today's webinar, we'll discuss the growing trend of gap years as they relate specifically to neurodivergent students. We'll review the benefits of dedicating a year to something other than higher education, potential drawbacks, and special considerations to help your neurodivergent child select the right path for them. Carolyn will also share gap year programs and resources. And finally, the sponsor of today's webinar is Landmark College. Landmark College offers summer programs to assist a wide range of students with learning differences, including rising high school juniors and seniors, recent high school graduates, and students enrolled at other colleges. Students learn specific strategies to be successful in formal academic settings and grow personally and academically in an intentional and supportive academic community. Visit landmark.edu to learn more. Attitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection or webinar content. Okay, without any further ado, thank you so much to Carolyn Jephson for joining us and for leading this discussion on gap years for neurodivergent speakers students.
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Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it and I'm hoping that you leave today with some information that's helpful for you as you're thinking about a gap year. Just caveat I am not a gap year counselor. I run a program that serves gap year students and I'm doing this today because I feel very strongly that it's super important for all young people to take time to make sure they're ready for college. But I also think it's particularly important for neurodivergent young people. As you all know, that the trend of gap years really saw dramatic rise during the COVID situation where folks had to defer their college admissions, and it's continued since then. But when we think about is a gap year the right thing for the individual that we're talking about? We look at several different factors so we start looking at academic readiness, is there a situation where this student may need some time to get ready academically? And that could even mean we're going to talk about that. That could mean actually taking a break from academ. That's what that is involved in academic readiness. Some super high achieving young people get actually burnt out, right? Motivational readiness, Are they motivated to go live on their own and have the rigors of a college campus and the classes involved with that? Are they emotionally ready? Right? So the idea that we're going from, especially with neurodivergent young people who really thrive in structured environments, that we're going from a much less. A much more structured environment to a much less structured environment. Are we ready for that? Do we have the independent skills to really live away from home and self manage self regulation? I mean, that's one we all focus on, right? Like can we. Do we have our sleep routine set up? Do we have our ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle? Are we on our technology all the time such that it's going to interfere with our ability to move forward? Right? So I use this phrase all the time. Most folks are college capable, but are they college ready? And that's what we're really going to drill down on. So what does that mean to be college ready? We could spend this whole webinar just talking about that. And I've just sort of distilled it down to this slide here. But the first one is decision making, right? As parents, that's the best thing we can do is infuse our children with the ability to make sound decisions that are age appropriate, right. That are going to impact what they're doing on a daily basis. Are they able to manage their schedules, assignments, medication, technology use more? If your child is not waking up on their own, they are not taking their medication. If they take medication, they are not going to sleep on their own. They are constantly on their phone or technology, and you have to have sort of like a technology use plan in your home. They are probably not ready to go live on a college campus on their own. When we think about neurodivergent students in particular, why are we thinking about gap years? Often this population doesn't really have a sense of control or independence or confidence that we see with their neurotypical peers. And that can be for a variety of reasons. Some of it can be that school's been really hard, right? And so they've had to work harder and longer. I would argue that this is one of the huge benefits of neurodivergent Young people, at the end of the day, this is in my work as working with employers, we see this as a benefit, right? That neurodivergent folks actually think and work differently because they've had to take a circuitous route to get from A to B. But that can have an impact, especially in that period right after high school. They may have a history of feeling controlled by their teachers, their therapists, their parents. They're not quite ready to go out on their own. Then I do think that we as parents take away some of those opportunities for self determination. We've been so supportive and in a positive way for, for our young people while they've been in high school that we actually haven't gotten them to a point where they have those abilities to manage on their own. And so what's gonna happen? It might not be a successful experience. We also want to think about timing, right? And I wanna talk a little bit about some trends that are happening. But when we think about the timing of the young person, and we understand that neurodivergent brains are often immature, for lack of a better word, several years behind neurotypical brains. And all young people at 17, 18 are super young. That is why. And I want to add that since COVID we have seen a dramatic difference in the maturity and independence of young people at this age. What we're seeing is that about a third of freshmen actually drop out within their first year of college. That creates all kinds of burdens, not to mention the financial burden on the family, right? And many of them don't even make it past first semester or midterms. We're going to talk later about when people take gap years, but there's an increasing trend of folks taking gap years at that time. I almost call them involuntary gap years, right? They start college, they didn't take a gap year, they start college, midterms start to come around, they realize they're not doing well, they drop out so as to be able to take incompletes and not actually get Fs in their classes, right? And then they're looking for that gap year experience. And then we find that while they may not be ready at 17, 18, 19, depending on what age your child is, when they graduate high school, they may very well find themselves ready a year later, right? Especially if we're intentional about that year that we're taking off. And then I was just talking about this growing trend that we're seeing and I'm pretty active in the gap year association, and now it's actually being acknowledged in that bigger context by the gap Year association themselves. The gap years are not just for folks between high school and college. It's often for people either intentionally deciding, I want to take a year off so they're finishing their freshman year and then they're taking a year off, or as I said before it starts, sort of involuntarily, they realize they're not doing well partway through and then they're taking the time off. So, you know, why do we want to take a gap year? Right. I want to reiterate, it's valuable for all young people here in the US it's not always a popular idea. In the past it has not been. It's growing in popularity. But in other countries like England, everyone takes a gap year. Right. But in particular those with ADHD executive functioning, as I said before, they may be college capable, but you're just not college ready. And so what's going to happen, you're either going to not do well, right. And you're actually going to have to leave school and that has tremendous implications on a variety of reasons, or you're not actually going to reach your potential. Right. So you may just skate by your freshman year and then you're making up for it the rest of the time or your freshman and sophomore year and then you're having to make up for that. I'm going to get into some stats later in this presentation, but we find that the ability to be more mature, to grow, to have a unique perspective that you gain through that experiential learning of a gap year, whatever type of gap year you take, we know automatically. Automatically. It's by definition experiential learning can really enhance what you're doing later. It can enhance your college trajectory and even beyond into the workplace. Right. I talked in the very beginning about folks who may have been high achievers and or who've had to work super hard and they are academically burnt out and then what happens is they don't do well. Right. And so it's a great opportunity to reignite that academic momentum. I saw in some sort of questions that were put out when people registered. There was some talk about people worrying that you're going to lose academic momentum. That can be a concern for sure. But more often than not it's the exact opposite, especially for neurodivergent students who really need a break because they've had to work so hard in order to get through high school. It's also a time to be able to think about what really are your areas of Interest. We do not expect 18 and 19 year olds to know exactly, exactly what they want to do when they grow up. Right. But sometimes we've been so scheduled and so focused while we're in high school that we really haven't had the time to self select what we want to do. We may have self selected a certain activity when we were in middle school and then we just find ourselves doing that. Much of our academic curriculum is self selected for us and so we haven't had that ability to self determine, figure out what we want to do and why does that help us. It leads to that motivation later on, both in school, but also in the workforce. And the research shows that. The research shows that gap year students, and sometimes we call them gappers, consistently perform better than their peers who did not take a gap year in all domains. Right? Academically, emotionally, they appear more mature, more confident, more independent and. And then in the workplace, AI agents.
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So let's kind of drill down on those categories. So when we're talking about maturity, personal.
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Growth.
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This it doesn't. We are later going to talk about the different types of gap years, but it doesn't matter what type of gap year you take. The fact you are not in a structured high school situation is going to provide you the opportunity to have that growth. Right? Definitely provides you the opportunity to be more mature. And why is that? It's often that we are, we could be traveling overseas, we could be moving to a different city, we could be doing something totally different. We could go from a, you know, high achieving private high school to working in the Dunkin Donuts for a year. Right. To get that work experience. It doesn't matter what the it is. But in so doing you're broadening your perspective, right? By definition. And in so doing you're promoting your maturity. I really want to talk about self exploration. I would also say self determination. Something I talked about earlier is our sort of lack of provision of opportunities for that while our children are in high school. And that's just by necessity. Right? But we want to provide an opportunity to actually do that self explanatory exploration. But in a, in a confined way. And that's what a gap year provides. In theory, college can provide that too, right? That you're exploring. You're able to, you know, once you've finished certain classes, you're able to explore what academic things interest you, what type of activities interest you. But it's very unstructured, right? And so what happens, especially for folks with executive functioning disorder, is that there are too many things coming at you at once and you're unable to actually focus. It's almost like you need that closed set of options. And that's what gap years can help provide. And then we find that when students come back from their gap year, they have more maturity, they have more confidence, and that translates to being able to choose their career path. Does that mean that people come back saying, I know exactly what I want to do? Not necessarily, but we're better at making decisions and we're better at figuring out what we like and what we you don't like. Another reason that is sort of the bread and butter of my career and where I feel very strongly is that a gap year can provide you that experience to gain work. Right. And explore your career interest. I cannot tell you how many people we interview at Broad Futures who have been they're about to graduate college and they have never had a job or internship. And there is no way they can compete on a competitive landscape with people who have had, by that point, seven eight experiences. When we look at employment rates of neurodivergent people, they are bad. This is generically across all definitions of neurodiversity, but it's somewhere at worst at 15%, at best 45%. We want to make sure that our children are in a competitive opportunity there gap years provide that. There are all kinds of programs people can do to have internships or volunteering, which they're working, they're just not being paid for it. Or experiential learning in a variety of contexts that not only put that experience on your resume, but way more importantly give you that practical experience of what it is to go to work. What skills can I learn? What is a work ethic? Seeing people around us who are working is super helpful for all of that. I cannot underscore enough how important that is in so doing. Think of all the things, all the executive functioning skills you have to practice in order to go to work, right? You have to get up on time, you have to know what your duties are for the day. You have to know when to speak to someone about whether you may be behind or whether you may need additional time. You have to ask for clarification when you need to. All those skills are going to translate smoothly into the college experience. Right. This stat on the fourth bullet here is palpable, right? 88% of folks who took a gap year felt like it helped them with their future employability, then higher job satisfaction. Why is that true? That's true. Because we've had time to actually think about what we want to do. A lot of people are having that gap year work exploration after they've graduated college where the stakes are quite, quite a bit higher. So kind of feeding off of that, I want to drill down on what actually employers on the other side of this who are employing gappers say about it. Right. We know that 20% of those who are hiring folks say they're more likely to hire someone who's had that type of an experience and in fact they're going to pay them more for that experience. Right. Because they're coming in at a level of independence and maturity that is now above their, their peers. Right. Hiring managers, 80% feel like it's important for personal growth. It's sort of, that's sort of the flip side of it, right? What happens when you have that experience? You are actually able to grow personally more. What does that mean in the workplace? It means that you have probably better decision making and you're able to do that self determination. So we know now that employers are really looking for young people and it's hard for them to be able to express what they want to do, what's the path they want, right? This is really hard for young people to be able to talk about that. They also want them to be able to express what do they need in order to be successful. Right. If you've gone from academic experience to academic experience and you haven't had any work experience, it's very difficult to do that. With that comes these, you know, attributes that we've been talking about all along. But this is coming from hiring managers saying, yes. In fact, this is not just Carolyn talking that yes, we find that gappers are more confident, they're more aware of themselves and what's needed from others. So ability to take the perspective of others, which is sometimes difficult for our neurodivergent friends. And then they're also, you know, better rounded all around. Right. Which, which I don't want to get into a whole employment thing here, but the workforce is requiring us to be more well rounded. Why is that? Because jobs are changing dramatically. You know, in seven to 10 years, the jobs that are in the workforce are going to be completely different jobs than what we have today. So the pros, let's talk about the pros and then we will talk about some of the drawbacks that you do not need to worry that your student is not going to want to go to college after their gap year. It's quite the opposite. They actually end up finishing college more quickly than folks who didn't. So 90% will return to college. About a quarter have higher grades than their peers who did not do gap years. And so they outperform their peers in that there's been a growing trend to take more than four years to finish college. Gap usually do take their four years to finish college. Right. So not only are they doing better, they're getting through college more quickly. And then this idea that they're actually taking their academics more seriously, that seems like a natural sequela from everything I've been talking about. Right? If you are clear about what you want to do, you're a bit more mature, you have a bit more self determination, you're going to take your academics more seriously and that that means why you're going to get higher grades. But it's not just about getting the higher grades, Right. It's about really being impassioned with what you want to do, what excites you, and seeing that thread of how that translates to work. Right. So we know that gappers are able to see that a little bit better. Right. What does all this academic work mean for me as far as a career goes? So let's kind of go over who should take a gap year and then we're going to talk about some of the reasons we may not want to take a gap year. So I want to demystify the fact that it's only for recent high school grads. That's still the majority of gappers. But it's as I've said before, it's also for college students who need to take time off. Right. It's for people looking to develop those executive functioning skills, which is not only folks with ADHD and executive functioning disorder, it's for all of us. Right. Our brains at 17, 18, 19 are not super mature. It's for those who really need to develop themselves before going into a rigorous college program. There are many people who do for a variety of reasons. For this population, it's almost uniformly the case. And so I would say that's probably one of the most important reasons we need to do it if we want to go to college and we want it to be a successful experience. And then for folks who for a variety of reasons may have been in a very structured environment and they may not have those skills to be in an unstructured environment, it's not just about getting poor grades and not knowing what your major is. This can lead to incredible mental health stress. And so we really do not want that. We want to avoid that. So those are sort of the ages and folks we should be thinking about on a global scale. It's also people looking for personal growth. Right. So it may be someone who has their executive functioning skills are growing, they feel like they might be able to do it, but they really haven't practiced their independence. They are not reliant on their self. They're still reliant on their tutors and parents and counselors who are helping them. And they, they want to become more independent. Right. Some people articulate, they really want to understand how different people live. Right. And they just want an experience that's not academic at all. And we've talked about that. So we're growing, but we're growing in a different way that we are then going to take back to academics. But we're really going to try to learn in a non academic environment. And so that, that's going to apply to all the different experiences I'm going to talk to you about in a few minutes. But the sort of the underlying thought is these are not traditional academic pathways. Right? We are learning, but we are learning in non traditional experiential ways. And those are coming from folks who really are focused on that and want to do that. That doesn't mean that idea cannot originate from a counselor or a parent. Right. But it's coming from within the person. Once we're made aware of that. There are also folks who are not emotionally ready either, right. Or academically. There can be people who have graduated high school. They may have even gotten into colleges. There are colleges who are accepting all kinds of students for reasons that may not be looking at academic readiness. Right. So it could be that these students literally don't have the skills yet for college academically. And it could be the opposite that I talked about way in the beginning. Those high achieving students who have worked so hard that they're not academically ready to apply themselves again. Right. We know that young people right now have many more mental health challenges than their predecessors for a variety of reasons and that we just need to take time to recharge. That could be in and of itself the only reason you are looking at a gap year. Right. It would be dangerous to go into the unstructured environment of a college with social, academic and emotional demands if you are not mentally ready for that. Right. This last bullet point is there are some young people and this is a reason to. And by the way, before I talk about the last bullet point, you could have all these reasons on here, right? But the last reason there are people who really want to, they want to grow as a person. They want to identify who they are. They either have had a very broad experience, haven't thought about it, or they've kind of been told they are a certain way and they're thinking that they're a different way. Right. And so these exploration gap years in particular are great for that population to really think about themselves, drill down on what's important to them, create strategic goals of how to think about these things. So let's talk a little bit about some of the reasons not to take a gap year. I am going to at the outset have a strong opinion on this, which is I have these on here because it's important and people asked about them and they're true, I did not make them up. But in the grand scheme of life, the risk benefit, it weighs way in favor of taking a gap year, right? So financially and financially flips both ways. But let's just talk about what happens financially. On the hard side of taking a gap year, you could be someone who by doing so you're thinking about it's actually delaying your ability to make that college wage, right? So with a college degree, what your wage is going to be, it's delaying that a year. It costs money to take gap years, right? And so you're accumulating expenses and you may be taking a gap year where you're not making any money, so you're accumulating even more expenses, right? And so you may have some people go into debt to do that. So you're, you're building debt before you've even started college, which may put you into even more debt if you're taking loans to do that. Right. There are a couple caveats to this. One is there are low cost programs. We're going to talk very briefly about creating your own gap year, which you can create your own budget for that. There's also lots of programs that have scholarships, I mean broad futures. Our own program is one that has scholarships, but there are many others that have scholarships. And I believe on the Gap Year association website you can filter for those types of programs. If you're just trying to search them, I would also say if you go to college and you have to drop out, that's a huge cost right there. Right. And so it can kind of flip both ways. Academic challenges. I prepared this slide before I read some of the questions in the registrations. But a lot of you were worried about loss of academic momentum and our study skills going to deteriorate. That could happen. Right. And that might be a reason not to, especially if you're someone who has working memory issues or memory issues. And so if you're not practicing that skill, you're kind of losing the muscle, and that could be a reason not to do it. I would argue that there are ways to account for that. One is to have a gap year that includes a small academic program. Another is a gap year that includes some sort of project so that you're learning and producing, but you're doing it in ways that don't feel like a traditional classroom taking the gap year, especially, let's do an extreme like you're doing, you know, mountain trekking in Nepal and then you're going off to Yale. Right. So two extreme differences. Right. It may be hard for you to readjust to that structured learning environment. Right. And so that may be if that. If we feel like that's going to be really hard for someone, we probably want to put them in a gap year that's more structured. Right. So we're not going from one extreme to the other. Potential loss of intellectual engagement. This is something people worry about, and I kind of disagree with this. But I can see how it could be a possible reason not to take a gap year. If we worry about someone not being able to be intellectually engaged in scholastic work. I would just argue that if that in fact, is a concern, college might not be the right thing at this point anyway. Right. So let's just think about that. Lack of formal academic structure can lose to losing sight of your original goals. That kind of fits in with the loss of academic momentum. If we are someone who really doesn't, like, thrives in an academic environment and with the academic structure, but we may not be ready for college. I would argue that's a. That's a reason to think about maybe we need a more structured gap year. Right. Or a college experience that's super supportive. There's a lot of college experiences now that have sort of, like, supports around that first year, and that's what we would be looking for for that student. There's also, you know, mental health, personal psychological risks of taking a gap year. Right. We know that some students and many feel Left behind. Right. Compared to their peers. There's that. Because if all their peers are going to college and they're not, especially if they're at a high school that doesn't totally support it, we can feel different. Right. And that can cause a psychological risk. People can get homesick or lonely. Right. That's. That's a fact. If we know someone is prone to that, it's probably not a great idea to send them on an international gap year with people they don't know at all. Right. There are ways to solve for that. Some people have a lack of clear direction or plan before going into a gap year. And then if we go into a gap year that's not structured, that's going to exacerbate that situation. Motivation. If it was really hard to stay motivated in high school and now we're taking a gap year off, it may be really hard to get motivated again and again on that. I would argue that person may not be ready for college because we can't teach motivation. Motivation has to come from within and from experiences that we have. And that goes with that disruption. If you have a very specific timeline, in four years, I want to be doing X, Y and Z. And now you're taking a year off. It's going to disrupt that timeline. One of the biggest barriers to gap years are college counselors. If we think about high schools, their ROI is that we got your first children into college and we got them enrolled in college. They actually do not follow. Some high schools don't even follow matriculation rates. They just follow acceptance, but they definitely don't follow. Did those students actually graduate college? Right. So college advisors are very focused on that. Same with academic advisors. And so the gap year alternative is only within the last few years really becoming a part of that alternative. Where we're looking at our college lists, we're also talking about gap years. Our family members, ourselves, our spouses, our own parents may not view gap year as valuable. And so that can be a psychological barrier. If someone is unable to live away from home and we're putting them on a gap year, whether it's domestic or internationally, where they are not going to be living at home, that may be a barrier. And so the solution to that is not to do that type of a gap year. Right. To do one of these, make your own gap years. I want to talk a little bit about the different types of gap year programs. And I want to underscore, again, I am not a gap year counselor. I have not been asked by any of these Gap year programs to promote their gap years. I've gotten permission from them to talk about it. But these are just my experience in the world and working with a lot of. We only. We work exclusively with neurodivergent young people. So these are programs that I know neurodivergent young people have been on and been successful in them. And through my experience with the Gap Year Association, I know a lot of the executive directors and think highly of their programs. So when we think about the different types, travel and adventure is sort of the traditional what we think of when we think of a gap year. These are going to places and they're all organized in different ways and different geographies. But the premise of it is that by traveling and being involved in other cultures and doing things that are beyond our comfort zone, we are learning right. Where There Be Dragons and Irish gap Year. We've had a lot of students do both programs. They're very well structured, they have excellent staff and the students learn a lot and have fun. Carpe Diem has been around for a while. The person, I believe who started Carpe Diem also started the Gap Year Association. So they are a very well known gap year program. I think most of these programs I have on here are accredited gap year programs. It does not. You do not have to only send your child on an accredited gap year program. I want to underscore that. That's just another layer of the Gap Year Association. It's a. It's a laborious process because we've been through it. They kind of make sure that you're safe and everything's good. But it doesn't mean just because you haven't gotten the accreditation that you're not good. But all these. I don't think. Yeah, I think all these on this page are Spanish. Gap year is a fairly new program, but it's gained a lot of excitement and interest because it's very hands on and individually based and it's got that travel and adventure, but it's got that language focus. Right. The ARC has a lot of programs. They focus on these community driven projects and that's another one we've had students do. And they found it to be very successful and they like it. The other type of gap year programs are these outdoor programs, right. And you've probably heard of Outward Bound and Knowles. Those are actually very traditional gap year programs. They're also for other folks as well. Outbound. Costa Rica in particular has just served. They are very interested and served a lot of students with ADHD and I think they're really sensitive and understanding of the issues and sort of forward thinking about it. Gap at Glenbrook, same thing. They serve a lot of students who may have executive functioning disorder. And semester is another one. It's just been around forever. They're super organized. That's for a student who really wants to be doing that. But we're really learning by doing and we're outdoors. Right. That's what all those sort of outdoor programs are. And I just want to say there's tons of these. These are just sort of the highlights. And maybe you can use these to compare other programs to that you're looking at. And then there's sort of these like potpourri, right? There's career focused programs. I gave the career focused programs in the U.S. ours and dynamy. But they're also. Some of those adventure programs have internship components that you can do overseas as well. They're probably not as rigorous, but you're still having that experience. So our program is solely an internship program. Right. So your goal is to build those executive functioning skills through pretty intensive internship programs. Meaning these are high profile internships in the Washington D.C. area that we're putting students into and then we're supporting the students and the employers. Right, to have these very successful outcomes. Dynamy is very similar. We're located in Washington D.C. dynamy is located in Massachusetts. They have a very similar program. The main difference is that they have their own housing. We sort of help refer you to housing. They have their own dining houses. And so they are a bit more focused on independent living skills. And you also have an internship component that goes with it. But it's sort of in furtherance of those independent living skills. And that's an excellent program that's been around for a while. There's a fairly new program that is very innovative that's in New York City. If you're looking at urban exploration, you want a structured program. Your student might not want to go overseas. Your student likes urban environments. This is an incredibly hands on staff who are experienced folks who are going to create this really experiential education opportunity. It's very structured and you're really learning about the city and your projects are individualized, what you want to do. And that sort of also fits into the self discovery. But it wouldn't be a supportive therapeutic program. We're going to talk about therapeutic in a minute. Self discovery supported programs. The Point school in Puerto Rico, it serves a lot of our population. So does Croca Expeditions. And they're really Set up to make sure they're focused on students who need support. Right. So if you are a student who wants to have a gap year experience, but we are not really, we're not even independent to go on a gap year experience. This is the type of, of program that you are going to want to look at. And then there's the therapeutic programs. Right. This is another thing that you can search specifically on the Gap Year association website. I believe the dorm has a therapeutic gap year program. The dorm is, I know they're in New York city and Washington, D.C. i think there are a few other places as well. Those are for young people who are really in mental health treatment. So you're getting your treatment, your living skills. They will even help support you in finding a job if need be. All in one place, Right. They have these, these kind of different levels of care and you, you titrate down. There's also, I'm sure all of you have heard or some of you have heard of the various wilderness programs. I am not going to sit here and go through all of them today. True north is one that we've definitely had students do. It's in Vermont. But they're, they're all sort of built the same. And the idea is that we are becoming empowered and having a therapeutic intervention while we're in these wilderness programs. And I would just encourage you to really look at them seriously. They do vary tremendously in the skill level of who is delivering the services. So you want to look at that. Whereas the dorm, these are mental health professionals by definition. And then the last one is designing your own gap year. Right. So people do do this and you can do this. You just want to be organized about it, right? You want to, you want to create a goal. What is it that you want to get out of this? You want to create a timeline and most importantly, you want to create a budget. Right. And then you're going to look at what are the activities that you want to do with it and then really stick with the plan. Right. I personally think that you should commit to a summary project so that you're able to have that reflection piece of what did all this add up to? Right. To do this, you can stay at home. We've had students go take a couple classes at the local community college and do a volunteer position somewhere or do a job or do an internship. Right. That is not. There's nothing wrong with that. And that actually can achieve all those same results I was talking about before. Sometimes we're burnout on the academic Classes, Right. So instead we're taking pottery or photography or doing a wellness class or we're learning how to bake, do the pastry arts, something that we are learning, but we're not like looking at books the whole time. Right. Folks also go abroad, right. These are. People are going to have to be more independent. But there are Teach English in Asia programs. You can get paid for those. There's all kinds of backpacking. People sometimes favor Southeast Asia just because it's cheaper. Inner railing is still a thing. There are tons of language immersion programs. There's working holiday visas. So you go to Australia and I think there's some parts of Europe where you can actually get a visa to work for certain period of time even without a job yet, and then you can go do it. The Wewoof is where you work on farms. Those are more structured programs. Right. Because you're working and living on the farm and they're actually usually feeding you as well. With that comes that traditional au pair programs that do the same thing. Right. You also can consult gap year counselors. I'm going to give you on the next slide, I'm going to give you the resource for the Gap Year Association. But a gap year counselor, you have to pay them, but they can help you not only find gap year programs, but they can also help you plan a gap year. Right. They're agnostic on what program you do. They just want you to have a good experience. And so if this is something you really want to do but you don't feel like you have the resources, I mean, to like the ability to put this all together, you may want to consult with a gap year counselor to help you with that. I'm putting up the Gap Year association website. You should be able to search in a myriad of ways, different types of programs, you can look at different levels of support. Some of the stuff I've gone through you can look through whether it's domestic or abroad, costs, lengths of the program. Gap year programs are now shorter than they used to be. We used to think of it as a one year experience, but a lot of people do two and three experiences in a gap year. You can still find six to nine to 12 month experiences. And if that's what you're looking for, you're going to search that way. But we also find a lot of students do two programs or sometimes even three. You can look at those accredited versus non accredited programs that I talked about before. There also should be some kind of reviews on there as well. And then I am going to These are just some of the resources that were part of this presentation that may be helpful to you all. And I am now exactly. Well, I'm at 1:44, so I am about 144 in a few seconds. So I'm like 30 seconds ahead of time here. And so I guess we now open it up to Q and A.
- [42:42]
A
Yes. Thank you so much, Carolyn. Wow. My notebook is full. And I want to quickly thank Landmark College once more before we start the Q and A. And I will also share just a few insights from the poll question that we asked during the outset of today's events. A lot of the topics that you covered aligned with this, but we asked what most excites our audience about a gap year. And we learned that number one was that focus on improving executive functions so, you know, time management and prioritization skills, being at the top. Number two was the opportunity to explore potential majors and career paths. Three was to recharge academically and four was to practice social skills and some of those professional like communication skills. So those stood out as the biggest attributes and benefits. And then we asked about what concerns you, worries you about a gap year. And number one was, as you mentioned, that fear of losing academic skills and momentum. About 22 people, percent of people said that was a concern for that child. Losing interest in or not wanting to Pursue College was 20%. So very closely related. And then floundering without a clear direction. So not having enough structure and very closely related to that was wasting all their time playing video games.
- [44:23]
B
Yeah.
- [44:25]
A
So we will do our best to ask questions that add some more clarity to those concerns. But our number one question really was about how logistically the gap year can work with the college application process. So a number of people wanted to know, is it best to apply for college and then defer and take a gap year or should you, you should you apply during the gap year and maybe use some boosted grades to help your application be stronger if you're doing like a community college?
- [45:05]
B
It's a really good question and it made me think of something that I did not mention, which I should have, which is that many accredited gap year programs like ours, you can get college credit through the American Gap Year association for being in a gap year program. Now, some colleges won't accept that credit, so it's just kind of credit out there, but many will. And it will provide you that opportunity to have another resource that would add to your application, not just doing the gap year, but also getting this college credit. And basically what the credit is, is it's taking experiential learning and turning it into a project that you are graded on. People are not going to like this answer, but it completely depends on your student. Right. So in an ideal world, you are applying to college in your senior year and then you're taking your gap year because I think it takes the pressure off of, while you're in your gap year of having to apply to college. Right. And it provides that structure. And I mean, we talked about the floundering and I have all kinds of thoughts on, on that. If we're worried about floundering, we want to make sure that someone has a structured program. So if we're taking, we're not taking a gap year to delay the application process. We're taking a gap year so that when we go to college we're able to be more successful. However, there could be a student who is not going to have a strong application to college or as strong an application as they would have if they had taken a gap year. In that case, I do think it makes sense to do your application when you apply to during your gap year. And I'm going to give an example of my brother, which was, you know, decades ago, before gap years were a thing. We grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. My dad's a professor, was a professor there. And my brother very much wanted to go there. When he first applied, they said to him, you, you need, you need, there's some coursework you need and you just kind of need to get out in the world and work. And he did not get in that first time, but he took the gap year and he reapplied and did all those things and then he got in. Right. So there are cases where you're actually going to get into a college or university that more meets your needs that you wouldn't have been able to get into before the gap year. But I think if you are, if you are ready to apply to school, you may not be ready to go to school, but if you're ready to apply, I would do it while you're still in high school, while you have that college counselor who can support you and then take your gap year.
- [47:50]
A
Okay. And this may be too in the weeds and more of a question for gap year counselor, but I'm going to ask it because it's come up quite a few times scholarships is there, I'm hearing in the chat here that a number of people have come across scholarships that are only, you're only eligible for them if you go immediately into a four year program. So it seems that would be a consideration that you may not be eligible for all scholarships if you take a gap year. Is that a fair assessment scholarship at colleges and universities or independent scholarships? Someone mentioned like through the state of Tennessee, there's a HOPE scholarship that pays for associate degrees at a community college. And they reported, although I haven't had time to fact check that if you take a gap year, you don't qualify for that there.
- [48:45]
B
It's true for some places. That is the case. And the answer that I don't know to that is would it count to do this college accreditation that these college courses that are accredited through the Gap Year Association, I think they do them through University of Washington maybe. Would that count? Right. So I know some people have gotten around that by taking like a class or a couple classes. I don't that is too in the weeds for me other than to validate that that is true in certain situations and that that's where you kind of have to drill down and ask about it. But I do wonder, in fact if the college that a way around that might be able to take that because the classes that are being that you can take through if you're doing a gap year through an accredited graph gap year program, it has to be an accredited gap year program through the Gap Year Association. Those are from four year. That's four year college classes. Those are not community college classes. So that might be a way around it. And you know, it's. I also have heard of people being able to work through it with the college. So I would encourage that to be to consider that as a dialogue. Okay.
- [50:06]
A
And you know, full disclosure, I have a high school junior myself and you know, the word on the street is that this is the most competitive college application year ever and that schools are encouraging students to defer a year or start in the spring. It seems like there's a lot of creative problem solving on the university's end because they are really swamped with applications which would you.
- [50:44]
B
Why in fact, they're going to be more open to talking to you about these kinds of things, right? Yeah.
- [50:51]
A
Yes. Yes. So a number of people said that the solution, the gap year solution that seemed to make the most sense for their child was one that involved living at home and working maybe with a combination of some community college classes. Can you offer advice for how to structure expectations with your young adult so that they are gaining those independent living skills, those executive function skills while living at home?
- [51:27]
B
Yeah. So we have a lot of people who do our program and do that people in the D.C. area. So I'm very familiar with that. I think it's a great alternative. We don't have to necessarily go on an expensive trekking to Nepal. And there are college counselors who actually prefer to see that. They would prefer to see that you worked at, you know, Starbucks and took a community college class and really learned about the real world. And your application might be stronger with that. So I encourage people who are thinking about that, that however, you know, I have this big asterisk on my notepad here about the floundering. You have got the problem of living. And I'm a parent, I have three adult children and I, I fall into the same trap is that we, in trying to help our children, sometimes we help them too much, right? So you cannot jump in, you cannot go wake them up if they're late to work, right. You cannot do that. You cannot be driving them to work, work, right. So you have to set certain boundaries. You have to make sure that all those college capable skills I was, I mean all those college ready skills I was talking about that they have, that they're taking their own medicines, if they're taking medicines, that they're on their own sleep schedule, you should be able to leave them, you should be able to leave them for a week if need be and they can manage on their own in your home, right. If we have a problem with screens, we have to start with a screen hygiene plan, right? And it sounds juvenile, but you have to do it. And you're creating a contract and you're both agreeing to it. Does that mean you're going and checking on your child all the time? No, you trust them, but you're putting those parameters in place. I also think you have to work, right? And so some people say they can't get a job. I totally understand that volunteering is working. You can work and not be paid for it, but you need to be doing that a minimum of 15 to 20 hours a week. I think that's more important than taking the community college class. And I would encourage you that it may be depending on where your student is. If your student is someone who really enjoys reading books and learning and producing papers, go for that. But if your student is someone who really wants to not do that, I would look at like the arts or physical activity, like some sort of class that doesn't involve that. It has to be super structured and you have to create a schedule as if you were a gap year program yourself. Right. Monday, Wednesdays, Friday, you're doing X Tuesday Thursdays you're doing Y. You have the sort of contract that you're agreeing to that you're not going to. You're not going to cook their meals for them, you're not going to give them their medication, you're not going to drive them to their jobs or to the college experience. And I'm sounding kind of harsh, but that's how I would do it. Otherwise, we are going to end up with the floundering. I also would say that you want to have that project I talked about, whatever it is, the project could be just. Just presenting to their parents what their gap year was, doing a video, you know, but you want to have some sort of culmination of what this experience has been and what it means for you going forward.
- [54:38]
A
Okay, very helpful. Now, I did want to touch on kind of the emotional component here. And as we know as parents, our kids have been hearing for basically their whole lives that their track is middle school, high school, college. Not everyone. But this becomes tricky when you want to introduce the idea of a gap year without it coming off as a criticism or a lack of faith in their ability. Do you have recommendations for how parents can broach this topic in a way that is positive and. Yeah.
- [55:20]
B
Support. Yeah, love. I love, love, love. This question I would use. I mean, I'd be totally pragmatic about it and I would use some of those stats I was talking about. You don't have to literally say the stats, but just say, you know, you are going to be in a better position to get the career and the kind of job you want. You're going to do better in college. If we take this time, right. You're going to be ahead of your peers, in fact, not behind. If you actually take this time and then just name it. It's not that you. That you are very capable of doing college, but because you are so capable, I want to make sure that you actually reach your potential. Right. And it's. And if you are paying for the college now, some students are paying themselves, but if you're paying, I would also put in that category. It's a lot of money. I've worked really hard to save this money, and I want to make sure it's well spent. Right? And so I want to make sure you get the most out of your experience because you have so much potential. Right. And I would put it in those terms that they're going to be. It's going to be to their advantage. We're not derailing. We're not derailing. Going to College, we're just finding an alternate way to get there. Right. And in the end it's going to put them in a better position. So we're coming from a strengths based approach. We're talking about other attributes, we're talking about how much better off they're going to be. We're talking about this is going to help them and then we're inviting them into the conversation. Right. Because your student may be someone who's like, yeah, that sounds great to me. And if they're concerned, usually the concern is what are other people going to think of me? Right. And so that's where we have to put it in those terms of you're actually going to be in a better position in the end.
- [56:57]
A
Yeah, it is tough. I'm going to squeeze in one more question, but first I wanted to say that we are lucky enough to have the director of admissions for a university in our session. And this person recommends reaching out to each individual college and university about the scholarship question and whether your child would still be eligible. So it really is, as you said, a case by case basis. And I appreciate that input from our, from our audience.
- [57:28]
B
We are very lucky and I feel so validated.
- [57:33]
A
The attitude community is, bar none, the best. So this is a brass tax, one that I'm going to throw in here because it did come up quite a bit. 529 savings for college. Can we use those funds to pay for gap year programs if they are accredited or if they're not, can those funds be used?
- [57:55]
B
Depends on it. Depends on what part of it. So that, that piece I was talking about, and I encourage you to go on the gap year website and look up the college credit part. Yes. You can apply it for, often for the living portion as well. If there's a living component, like what it costs to actually be in the program and then the program itself, if you're getting that college credit, there is a way that you can apply for that, but it really depends on what type of gap year it is. But just like we were talking about for the college scholarships, it's going to be a kind of program by program basis. But I do know that if you're trying to get that college credit, which by the way, that sounds like it goes against all my thing of taking a college break, it's not really a big deal. I mean your, your is being in the gap year program and then you're doing this sort of project, right. That's being supervised by an academic person. So yes, there are instances where your, your 529. I always want to say 504. Your 529 funds can be used for that.
- [59:03]
A
Okay, well we have run out of time, sadly. This one was so incredibly helpful. Thank you Carolyn so much for not only contributing your expertise, but also providing us with all of these resources. This feels much more doable. Something to tackle. So thank you very much.
- [59:25]
B
Yeah, and if anyone needs to reach out to me at any time, that's fine. I'm happy to respond to inquiries.
- [59:31]
A
Thank you.
- [59:33]
B
Direction put you in the right place.
- [59:35]
A
Thanks also to today's listeners. Your questions were incredible and we appreciate your engagement. If you are looking to access these event resources and perhaps share them, you can visit attitudemag.com you can search for podcast542. The slides and recording are posted just a few hours after each live webinar. If you're listening in replay mode, you can just click on the episode description. And please know that our full library of Attitude webinars is available as a podcast. It is called the ADHD Experts Podcast and it's available on most streaming platforms. We hope to see you again for another Attitude webinar. Our next one is on a related topic and that is Parenting Resistant Teens and Tweens with adhd. So to make sure you don't miss any future webinars or articles or research updates, you can sign up to receive our free email newsletter newsletters@attitudemag.com newsletters Carolyn thank you again and thanks to everyone for joining us. We hope to see you again soon.
- [60:44]
B
Thanks for having me. For more Attitude Podcast and information on living well with attention deficit, visit attitudemag.com.
- [60:54]
A
That'S a D D I T U D e m a g.com.
- [61:00]
B
Foreign.
- [61:06]
C
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