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. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

following

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

graduation, but before entering

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

. It is a

gap year A gap year, also known as a sabbatical year, is typically a year-long break before or after college/university during which students engage in various educational and developmental activities, such as travel or some type of regular work. Gap yea ...

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. In the United States, most of the programs are in

New England New England is a region comprising 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 to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. 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 level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

sports programs. Some college coaches use it as an alternative to redshirting, allowing the player to grow and improve without losing a year of college eligibility. Some

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 allo ...

leagues do not allow postgraduates on the team, or they have a quota.

References

{{reflist Education in the United States Tertiary education

See also

References