You have made it to the finish line. You have worn your cap and gown and have been handed a diploma, the golden ticket to the next stage of your life. “So, where are you headed off to next year?” people ask. Then you must give the tricky explanation that you are not going to college, but that you are doing a post-graduate year.

This conversation is one that every Williston PG has experienced.

A PG year is taking a risky step into the unknown. There are two possible outcomes: you either reach your goal and end up at the college of your choice, or you end up right back where you were at the end of last senior year.

Each PG enters their year with an end goal and a plan to achieve it.

Matt Folger, a PG at Williston, decided to do a fifth year of high school not to better himself academically, but to pursue his dream of playing college basketball.

He shared, “I did a PG year because it was all that was left for me. I had always said that it was the last thing that I wanted to do, but I eventually realized about halfway through my senior year that I had two choices. Try out the unknown, and do a PG year, or be unhappy at a mediocre division three college.”

Folger adds, “I chose the PG year, and it was probably the greatest decision of my life. I now have great options as far as college is concerned, with one of the top colleges in the country, Middlebury, recruiting me heavily.”

Patrick Beaton and Zachary Bernstein, two PGs who are also roommates, have coincidentally both committed to their top choice, Bates College. Bernstein has achieved his goal of playing baseball there, and Beaton will be playing both baseball and football.

On the topic of making his decision to take an extra year, Bernstein says, “My parents and I knew that an extra year would do me only good and increase my chances to get into a great school. I did reach my goal in the process.”

Jada Goodrich, one of only two female PGs, decided to do an extra year for academics.

She says, “Throughout the course of my high school career I moved several times and attended four different high schools, five if you include Williston. Each move was a set back for me academically. When my senior year came around I felt unprepared for college and decided that I needed a year of consistency. I thought that attending prep school would be the extra push I needed to succeed in college next year.”

Being a PG can make one feel like he/she is taking a step backwards.

Goodrich added, “The hardest part about being a PG is the minimal freedom and independence I have on campus. The weekends can be hard especially when all of my friends send me snapchats of them having fun in college.”

Folger notes, “The worst part about being a PG has to be every Friday and Saturday night, because when I open up snapchat, I see all of my friends at parties having the times of their lives, and I still have a bedtime.”

Despite feeling like they are a year behind, Williston PGs all feel that the good outweighs the bad.

“I still stand by my decision to go to prep school because I have made so many valuable friendships and Williston offers so many opportunities to challenge yourself in the classroom and out on the field,” Goodrich says.

Bernstein concluded with, “As for regrets, I have and will not have any.  I could not imagine going right to college this year.”