Ucas, keep your gap advice

Don't take a year off, they warned. Sarah Deech ignored them, and is glad

Dear Ucas, It's August! Mass Hysteria! Get to University Now - Next Year will be Worse! And don't have a Year Off, Mind! Oh Ucas, why must this be repeated every summer like a Test Match?

Almost three years ago to the day I was going through the same bewildering university entrance process as are thousands of others at the moment. For several sweaty months you efficiently controlled my application and offered copious instructions (via media reports) on whether or not I should take a year out and whether the situation was going to be better/worse/the same the following year. But I did not accept your advice.

Fortunately, I had realised a year in advance that a break would be beneficial in several ways: to earn some money of my own, to gain some valuable work experience and to travel.

My year off could hardly have been more full. I spent two months in France, worked for seven months as a lab technician, travelled to New Zealand with friends for two months and then worked as a waitress in Oxford. I also found time to take an AS Level in French. I might not have done any of that if I had listened to you.

I came back more ready to approach my studies and more clear-headed about what I wanted to do. I like to think that my year off stopped me becoming one of the thousands who drop out disillusioned after the first year at university.

It's the same this year, but even more so. Last week, in the middle of the seasonal A-level panic (to which you are surely adding), you warned students to think twice about having a year off because of the possible introduction of top-up fees.

Now I know - and I think you do too - that the top-up fee issue is largely political and tactical scaremongering. Enormous changes are under way in our higher education system and you, Ucas, have no more idea than the rest of us what the future holds in the way of size and shape of grants. So why put these stories about?

No A-level candidate should feel that a year off is a bad thing. A survey in the 1997 Degree Course Offers Guide reports that students' interests are too narrow (mainly of the "I do Biology so I think I'd be a great doctor" variety). Working, travelling and even retaking exams can help to broaden their views of the world.

So, Ucas, stick to statistics for those who need them, but leave the rest to decide for themselves. It's the people who know us well - teachers, older students, parents and friends - to whom we should usually turn for guidance.

There's so much conflicting advice flying around, you can't be surprised that we are driven right back to where we started. August! Hysteria! Crises!

With love,

Number 945203638