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happyfacetwin wrote: “BTW I don't mean to judge rbw's choice - I'm sure that was more complex than it seems.â€
Well, thanks for that, but it wasn’t really any more complex than it seemed.
The choice to pursue an elite track depends on the realization that increased effort can bring increased rewards. I don’t think that my dd can train less than half as much as an elite and less, even, than most nonelite gymnasts and be competitive, but it’s clear that the same considerations must also apply in school.
Aussie_coach asked, “Why is deferring for a few years to get some life experience not an accepted practice [in the US]?†and fuzi answered, “More people take a few years off than you might expect . . . . In reality, people take a lot of different paths through their education.â€
That raises the question of whether or not there is a cost to deferring education. You’ve indicated that isn’t a concern in your country, but it could be an issue for some students here. It happens that my next-door neighbor is a semi-retired professor who attends to admission at the university in our town. When she learned that my dd was on track to exhaust the local high school’s math curriculum by her sophomore year, she told me that it was essential that dd take addional math courses at the university (and not at the local junior college, as those grades would be unofficially discounted) because competitive colleges, in her opinion quite decidedly but unofficially, did not want to see any gap in mathematics instruction in students who intended to continue in the sciences, as such students have historically lagged upon admission. I don’t doubt that the situation could be quite different for students with different plans.
However, it happens that we never considered deferring our child's education--we just decided that we weren't interested in an elite track. I thought that akoshinski27 might find it interesting to consider a viewpoint that might be rather atypical on this board.
Well, thanks for that, but it wasn’t really any more complex than it seemed.
The choice to pursue an elite track depends on the realization that increased effort can bring increased rewards. I don’t think that my dd can train less than half as much as an elite and less, even, than most nonelite gymnasts and be competitive, but it’s clear that the same considerations must also apply in school.
Aussie_coach asked, “Why is deferring for a few years to get some life experience not an accepted practice [in the US]?†and fuzi answered, “More people take a few years off than you might expect . . . . In reality, people take a lot of different paths through their education.â€
That raises the question of whether or not there is a cost to deferring education. You’ve indicated that isn’t a concern in your country, but it could be an issue for some students here. It happens that my next-door neighbor is a semi-retired professor who attends to admission at the university in our town. When she learned that my dd was on track to exhaust the local high school’s math curriculum by her sophomore year, she told me that it was essential that dd take addional math courses at the university (and not at the local junior college, as those grades would be unofficially discounted) because competitive colleges, in her opinion quite decidedly but unofficially, did not want to see any gap in mathematics instruction in students who intended to continue in the sciences, as such students have historically lagged upon admission. I don’t doubt that the situation could be quite different for students with different plans.
However, it happens that we never considered deferring our child's education--we just decided that we weren't interested in an elite track. I thought that akoshinski27 might find it interesting to consider a viewpoint that might be rather atypical on this board.
Amanda
, I had for some reason assumed a college gym career would be a back up plan rather than main aspiration for the US girls. 
