Talk:Gap year
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UK gap year
[edit]There's a bit of confusion in the UK section, which defines the origins of the gap year in the 1970s as "an interim period of 7 or 8 months between completing secondary education and starting university": readers may wonder how that worked in practice. In fact, most students took their A-levels and left school at the end of the academic year in July; and entered university at the beginning of the academic year in September - either the September immediately following (without a gap year), or the September after that (with a gap year). So in those cases the "gap year" would actually last about 14 months. However, candidates for Oxford and Cambridge, in addition to A-levels, had to pass a separate Oxbridge entrance exam, which was held in December. They therefore stayed on at school an extra term, and then had some time off before starting university the following September: that's what the "7 or 8 months" refers to. The Oxbridge entrance exam was abandoned in the mid-1980s. I don't have sources for any of this. GrindtXX (talk) 12:00, 11 April 2025 (UTC)