For nearly half of them, that dream will be a place at university and, for others, a vocational option or a job is likely to be their preference.
However, this year there was a dark cloud hanging over the prospects of those thinking that the next step should be the opportunity to earn while they learn on a high-quality apprenticeship programme.
Compared with two years ago, apprenticeship opportunities for 16- to 24-year-olds have slumped by a third. Even more disastrous is that opportunities at the intermediate starter level have fallen by more than half.
In the first nine months of 2017/18, there were only 127,000 level 2 apprenticeship starts in England when previously many more were available - for example, for young people who were not in education, employment or training, young offenders or care leavers.
Ladder of progression
Commons' education select committee chair Robert Halfon refers to apprenticeships as the ladder of progression, but sadly an axe has been taken to the bottom rung.
This is bad news for disadvantaged young people and for the practitioners trying to support them.
In the context of Brexit, it is also very damaging for those sectors such as social care and hospitality that have been heavily dependent on EU migrant labour and are now looking more to grow their own talent.
Like his predecessor, Education Secretary Damian Hinds has pinned his colours to the mast of social mobility and therefore it's fair to ask how we arrived at this point and what needs to be done to sort out the undoubted mess.
The AELP believes it is not the introduction of the apprenticeship levy for large employers which is responsible for the fall in opportunities, but the mishandling of its implementation.
The key failure was to accompany its introduction in May 2017 with a new policy to start charging smaller businesses for training apprentices.
These non-levy paying employers already have to pay the apprentice's wages and sustain other costs in running an apprenticeship programme.
Apprenticeships under threat
Faced with other rising costs such as increased business rates, many of them are telling our training provider members that they have to reduce the number of young apprentices they recruit or are abandoning apprenticeships altogether.
From a social mobility perspective, levy-paying employers are mostly located in the major cities, while disadvantaged areas of the country are more heavily dependent on small businesses and so, geographically, the policy impact has been disproportionately harmful.
AELP is seeking an immediate suspension of employer contributions for 16- to 24-year-old apprentices at levels 2 and 3 by non-levy payers.
In the meantime, practitioners should still be advising young people to check the government's "Find an apprenticeship" web-service for local vacancies.
Numbers may be down, but opportunities are still being advertised.
- By Mark Dawe, chief executive, Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP)
