When your kid isn't college bound

On the flip side, there are some academically oriented seniors who graduate feeling too burned out to head straight to campus. For these students, deferring college and taking what is known as a “gap year” might be a solution.

“Sometimes, kids need to step away from the race for a moment,” says Bob Gilpin of Time Out Associates, an interim year consulting group based in Milton, Mass., that has counseled 3,000 kids on gap years. “Doing a gap year gives them a break to rebuild their batteries, refresh and recharge.”

This little-known option has been long favored by Australian, New Zealand and British students and is growing in acceptance stateside, especially among elite schools such as Philips Andover Academy and Harvard University .

To parents unfamiliar with the concept, the suggestion may sound alarmingly unfocused at first, says Holly Bull, president of the Center for Interim Programs, based in Princeton, N.J. “The parent is thinking, `What are you going to do, stay home and play computer games?’” In reality, these programs tend to be highly structured, setting up internships, course work and volunteerism around the globe.

Rebecca Sigel, a 2006 Milton Academy graduate, deferred college to spend a year backpacking in the Southwest, farming in New Zealand and working in the Galapagos. Now a freshman at Brown University, she touts the value of her year off. “I come at my academics from a much broader perspective — more apt to ask questions, more informed on the specifics of what I study.”

Best for the child — or parent?
Ultimately, whether a young adult heads straight to college, takes a break or never pursues that degree, parents need to analyze whether their own expectations are getting in the way of what’s truly best for their child. 

“Parents think of a college admission as a final grade on their parenting — and, of course, it’s not,” says psychologist Michael Thompson, the Arlington, Mass.-based author of “The Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life.”

“The goal of every parent should be to send a child out into the world who is independent, loving, productive and moral," Thompson says. "Does going to college immediately after high school guarantee those goals? The answer is no.”

That’s what Marchioni’s mother, Gretchen Stahlman, a tech writer who is pursuing her masters’ degree, firmly believes.

“I really give Paul a lot of credit for daring to be different,” she says. “All those times when I told him to ignore what everyone else was doing, that he should pursue what he felt most passionate about — I guess he was listening, after all.”

Melissa Schorr is a Boston-based freelancer who has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe Magazine, Reuters Health, Working Mother, Self, GQ and People. She is the author of the young adult novel "Goy Crazy."

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