Over the next few months, many high school seniors will be hearing from colleges and making choices to answer the often-dreaded question about “where are they going next year?” The pressure from parents, relatives, community members and peers is often enormous and overwhelming, and some students, quite frankly, are simply not ready for college – or need a break before starting college.

Enter the Gap Year. A Gap Year is a year break between the end of high school and the beginning of college – it can be a wonderful time to explore, volunteer, travel abroad, get a job or doing something extraordinary. Quite commonplace in England and parts of Europe (Prince William famously spent his Gap Year in South America) it is starting to take hold in America, and makes quite a bit of sense for students who just need time off before starting their college life.

Personally, I wish that the Gap Year would become more commonplace and accepted – I think that students who choose to do a Gap Year and plan it wisely go into their college experience more mature, focused and grounded. The potential for outside of the classroom learning is endless and can make a real difference in a young person’s growth, development and perspective.

If you live near or around our office, this upcoming Saturday, February 27th there will be a Gap Year Fair at Los Altos High School from noon – 2:30 pm. Its free, and more information can be found here. There are many meaningful ways to create a wonderful Gap Year experience, and the most important factor is that it is created with some reflective and thoughtful goals, and offers the experience to see things outside the traditional classroom or academic setting.

The book has now been out for less than a month now, and there was recently this very nice article by Beth Harpaz of the Associated Press about my work.

Tonight, my first Book Reading and Signing is at the Books Inc in Mountain View, CA – if you are in the area, please come by, or if you have friends who might be local, spread the word! THANKS!

The details are here.

By the UC system, that is…

A few weeks back, one of the parents of my college counseling students emailed me because her child had received a notice from the UC Admissions offices, asking for evidence for a “claim” he made in his application essay. The essay was completely factual and accurate, and his story quite extraordinary, but we all found it odd that he would be asked for documentation proving his claims.

Until, this great article in the Mercury News came out yesterday on the UC admission sleuths who go through applications and audit some essay claims – asking for factual documentation behind the homes you built, cancer you cured, or animals you rescued by single boat and oar.

I actually think this is great – because the fear of being audited (and your application being rejected) would hopefully deter some falsehoods being written and encourage students to write about their true selves. I think that sometimes students fear that they have nothing to write about, and that they need to make things up in order to look extraordinary. I believe that having confidence and faith in yourself can make writing about the seemingly ordinary actually quite extraordinary. I have had students write successful essays on being an only child, spending their dream day with friends, and their love for their car.

Now, my student’s essay was completely accurate, so the student has nothing to worry about (other than the annoyance of having to send in documentation). Students and parents, keep this in mind when those hours get long and the essay writing topics seem narrow – someone may be fact-checking!