College Admission Help

College Admission Help: High School Students face a choice - Go to college or wait?

By Rob Daniel
Iowa City Press-Citizen

West High senior Nic Jewell recently sat quietly in his German class, listening as teacher Linsey Choun read from an essay.
A bit later, Jewell quietly sang "Happy Birthday" in German to a classmate before taking a practice exam for the upcoming advanced placement test in May.
The German class will come in handy for Jewell, 17, and his classmate, Zach Wahls, because both will study in Germany next year after they graduate from West in May. They are part of a growing national trend cited in a December 2008 Wall Street Journal report that said high school graduates are opting to wait to start college classes for at least a year after leaving high school.
That national trend, however, hasn't come to Iowa City schools, where few are taking advantage of the option. Guidance counselors at City, West and Regina high schools all said they knew of only a small handful of students who decided to wait.
One possible reason for this, said West High counselor Paul Breitbach, is the influence of living in a town that includes the University of Iowa.
"Since they're in the university town, they think the track to success is college," he said. "More may (wait) if they knew it was an option."
A sour economy has had little effect on the plans of Regina seniors, counselor Cristina Allgood said. She said most of this year's graduating class already has been accepted into colleges, especially out-of-state private schools such as the University of Notre Dame and Stanford University. Many are taking the path their parents did, she said.
"I saw more applying for scholarships this year," Allgood said. "A lot of our parents are parents who have attended college. It's the norm."
Local students who are not attending college in the fall have varied reasons they are waiting.
For Jewell, he said he was following the example of his mother, who spent a year in Switzerland before starting college.
He and Wahls will be in Germany as part of the Youth For Understanding program, which is designed to bridge cultural gaps between countries. Both still are waiting to find out where they will live and attend school, and both still are awaiting word on whether they will get scholarship money from the Congress-Bundestag Exchange Program.
They will attend some high school-equivalent classes while in Germany, since German students attend 13 years of classes before starting university, he said.
Jewell said he wanted to figure out what he wanted to do in college before starting.
"I was going to take classes I'm interested in and some classes I didn't get to take here," he said. "It's giving me more time to think about things. The ultimate goal is to become fluent in the language and establish the contacts."
For City High senior Dontrell Wright, taking a year off is part of a chance to better prepare himself for college courses. In a special education program at City High, he will spend next year in the Career Connection program job shadowing workers as he tries to decide whether he wants to become a video game designer or personal trainer.
"It'll help me figure out what I want to do in life," said Wright, who plans to attend Kirkwood Community College after taking a year off. "I'll actually get paid for it."
Regardless of whether the soon-to-be graduate decides to go on to college in the fall or wait a while, it is a good idea to apply for admission now rather than wait, said West High guidance counselor Renato de Leon. He said a student will have better access to resources, such as college lists and grade standards, while still in high school.
"We just emphasize that they need to go through the process, even if they hold off a year," he said.


College Admission Help: High School Students face a choice - Go to college or wait?