A postgraduate (PG) year is an extra year of
secondary coursework at a
boarding school
A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...
following
high school
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...
graduation, but before entering
college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...
. It is a
gap year
A gap year, also known as a sabbatical year, is a period of time when students take a break from their studies, usually after completing high school or before beginning graduate school. During this time, students engage in a variety of educatio ...
option intended for students who either have not applied or were not
admitted to college.
[ At most schools, postgraduate students are integrated with the senior class, where they are able to participate in the same activities and sports, as well as living and eating arrangements, as the seniors.]New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
. They started around the 1960s and were sponsored by the U.S. military academies, who would accept students after the one-year program. Later programs were not all military-based, but followed the same theme of improving students' transcripts for college. Students also gained maturity and independence. Some athletes opt for a postgraduate year for the opportunity to physically grow and improve their skills to enter NCAA Division I
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...
sports programs.[ They also have the opportunity to be surrounded by other top prospects.]prep
PowerPC Reference Platform (PReP) was a standard system architecture for PowerPC-based computer systems (as well as a reference implementation) developed at the same time as the PowerPC processor architecture. Published by IBM in 1994, it allow ...
leagues do not allow postgraduates on the team, or they have a quota.[
]
See also
*Reclassification (education)
In education in the United States, reclassification or reclassing is the assignment of a student's high school (secondary school) graduation class to either a year earlier or later than their original. For youth sports, young athletes, graduatin ...
, graduating a year later to develop physically and academically
*Super senior
A super-senior is a student in a four-year educational institution (such as a high school or undergraduate school) who has more than four years in attendance or a surplus of credits required for a diploma and has not yet graduated. In certain ...
References
{{reflist
Education in the United States
Tertiary education