Year Off is Often an Advantage

Year Off is Often an Advantage
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 12:28 AM EDT
The Washington Post
www.poststar.com

Excerpts from a recent Washington Post online reader chat with reporter Ian Shapira; Marlyn McGrath Lewis, Director of Admissions at Harvard College; and Holly Bull, President of the Center for Interim Programs with offices in Princeton, N.J., and Cambridge, Mass.

Q: Doesn't this smack of privilege and a refusal to grow up? Students whose parents spend $10,000 to travel around India because Junior is "stressed"?

A (Bull): Actually, the gap year is very much about growing up! Students with whom I have worked have helped pay for the program experiences during summers and in between programs. They handle a budget, learn how to travel on their own. They get a sense of working with people from many different socioeconomic backgrounds. It usually makes them appreciate their education more. Every year I have students who pay their own way completely, and we give them scholarship money for our consulting fee.

Q: Can high school students be admitted to college and then defer the admission for one year rather than simply taking a year off?

A: Most students who defer Harvard admission have already been admitted. We suggest in the admission letter that they consider deferring, because we are so persuaded of the value of maturity and self-direction. But other students do apply to us during a gap year.

Q: Our son is leaving soon for a year in Germany as a high school exchange student. Since Germany has an extra year of high school, this is a perfect gap year for our graduate. (But) one concern: If he wants to attend college the following year, he'll have to apply from Germany this fall.

A (McGrath): Applying to college from a year abroad, or from a gap year anywhere, requires advance planning, but it is not impossible to accomplish well. He will want to work closely with his school's college advisor to be certain that documents (transcripts, recommendation materials) are in order and to be sure he has taken the necessary testing. It would simplify matters if he had a tentative list of colleges in which he intends to apply, but the list can always be altered.

Q: I wondered why the story did not mention the "forced" gap year that some of the top schools are imposing on high school seniors. I've heard of many instances where an admissions board will only accept a student if they defer one year.

A (Shapira): Sometimes universities want to hold on to the best talent but don't have room, so they ask them to defer. But to say that these students are being forced to take the gap year is a bit off. They have a choice not to attend the university and go somewhere else. A deal is being made: Harvard says, Look, we can't take you this year, but we like you and we want to offer a concession. Can you wait it out a year and enroll the next? That's a pretty good deal. You get the comfort of knowing you got into your first-choice school, plus now you've been given the gift of a year to think creatively about what you want to do. It's a bad deal if you're the kind of person who feels like you need to go directly to college.

Q: I took a gap year four years ago and ... the most important part ... was about taking some time to remove one's self from the chaos which has built up around college admissions as well as to do something that benefits the student as a person or helps them grow in some way. I don't feel that taking a gap year is a way to build a resume or to get into an Ivy league school. If this is purely your goal, then I think that the idea of a year out needs to be re-evaluated.

A (McGrath): I think your concern is a real one, that the year off has the potential to become another standard resume-booster. But it can also have the capacity to strengthen both a student's resume and his or her actual skills, self-directedness and maturity, which makes a better college applicant and a better college student. That is an important goal, despite the potential for being manipulated.

Q: How does the admissions office look at "gap" year students? How does a university justify declining a high school student to make room for someone who spent a year at the beach or in Africa doing volunteer work?

A (McGrath): Selective colleges take care to consider the gap year experience, along with everything else they know about an applicant, in the context of that applicant's interests and particular set of opportunities. Even if sitting on a beach for a year helped a student gain maturity (or at least a more advanced age), it would be unlikely by itself to enhance an application to college.

Q: The gap year to "explore one's passions" is clearly something that is only realistic for affluent students. And I can't help but think that it also contributes to growing class stratification.

The gap year, like unpaid but sexy summer internships, is a means for advantaged kids to further pad their resumes for the post-college job search or graduate school application process--a boost that kids who actually might have to work during summer or a year off from school won't have. The fact that there are now services to help plan the gap year only is a testament to this.

A (McGrath): These are real concerns of many observers of the gap year practice. But many gap years provide opportunities to work, to help others (even one's own family) and require no financial investment. It would be good to read about more such experiences, as we get to hear those reports from Harvard students who used their time in such ways.

Q: Do all gap programs cost money? Are there scholarships for gap students?

A (Bull): Not all gap-year programs cost money. There are a range of options that provide students with housing and food, or at least housing, in exchange for work. For example, you can work on organic farms or on ranches in the United States and receive housing and food for your labor. You can help out at a school for the deaf, working with the kids, for housing and food. There is a non-partisan political internship out west that provides housing and food for a 10-week internship. Usually, it's travel costs and miscellaneous expenses that you have to consider for the low-cost gap year. I have students every year who receive scholarships for our consulting fee of $2,100. They will work in the summers and between programs to save money for their year and then head out on the low-cost programs.

One doesn't have to stay in the U.S. only, either. Taking Spanish classes in Guatemala while helping at an orphanage is a very low cost option. Some of the gap-year semester programs are delighted to offer scholarships for their program fees to good candidates. It’s not full scholarship but may make a fantastic travel and service type program affordable.

Q: Have any of the youngsters who were pointed toward college before they took a gap year gotten derailed by the time off and failed to go on to college?

A (McGrath): In my experience of 20 years working with students considering, and taking, gap years, I cannot recall a single student who decided not to go on to college.

Q: For those parents who are so incredibly worried whether the child will want to eventually go on to college or not, there's always the Study Abroad option. It's not the same exactly, but MOST colleges offer six-month or year-long options.

A (McGrath): Indeed, most colleges promote study abroad. And for many students getting away from their own college--and getting another perspective--is a major plus of studying abroad!