The Covid-19 pandemic shook the world, hitting one demographic particularly hard: students. Within that group, students on the cusp of graduating high school were especially negatively affected.
College is generally the land of new opportunities and rich with social and academic challenges. But the pandemic changed that with its virtual classes and strict 6-ft social distancing policy. As a result, college lost its allure. This effect continues to be felt as the country struggles to leave the pandemic behind, and more students finish secondary education without solid plans to start college. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the number of students taking a gap year rose during the lockdown. That it continues as a trend is the surprise.
WHAT A GAP YEAR IS
Still a relatively new phenomenon in the U.S., gap years are a bit of an unknown for many parents. Some have a negative view of the gap year thinking of it as a deterrent to the otherwise “normal” progression from high school to college. Parents worry about their child wandering aimlessly.
“A gap year is an intentional break,” says Jane Goldstone Sarouhan, co-founder and gap year consultant at J2Guides. “It is not anti-education, but a tremendous complement to one’s education. It’s hands-on learning for any age, at any time, an exploration of skills and interests in the U.S. or overseas, and exposure to career and academic paths.”
This complement is arguably more important for students graduating in the fallout years of the pandemic. They may be more burnt out and face greater mental health repercussions. They are also susceptible to delayed emotional growth. In other words, they need a break.
The Center for Interim Programs defines a gap year as a “focused, finite period of time in which an individual deliberately takes a break from his or her current academic or professional path to explore other interests and skills.” Founder Holly Bull, whose father was a pioneer for U.S. gap years in the eighties, says that these breaks are natural considering how prescribed the path to life can be.
“The core of a gap year is that it’s often the first time a student chooses and creates their life,” she says. “You’re not asked if you want to go to school, you go and do school, then you’re expected to go to college, typically, then you get a job. So there isn’t a lot of break in there when students can step back and say, wait a minute, who am I? What am I interested in, and then actually have the chance to figure that out and start initiating their life and owning what they’re up to.”
Some might say that’s for a good reason. Letting a 16-or-17-year-old student take the reins for a year can be difficult for parents. Who knows what kind of year that will turn out to be? And how will they figure out what they want to try? The paralysis of choice is a huge—and understandable—concern. But it’s one that Goldstone Sarouhan is intimately familiar with.
WHY TAKE A GAP YEAR
“The first step is to figure out your why,” she explains. “Why do you think a gap year can be great for you? There’s no wrong answer. And we find that almost all students can articulate their why.”
Common whys, according to Goldstone Sarouhan, are personal growth, burnout, mental and physical health, curiosity about the world, and indecision about what to study.
HOW TO SPEND THE YEAR
Once a student’s why is decided, Goldstone Sarouhan suggests an “unfettered brainstorm.” It’s a period of getting quiet and writing down ideas–no matter how outlandish. Letting the mind wander can help the student start to narrow the focus on what they’d like to do with their year.
In the thirty years that Bull has been consulting gap-year students, she says it’s extremely rare that they don’t find one thing that lights them up. But even if they don’t, it’s not necessarily a loss. There is just as much value in knowing what one doesn’t like as in knowing what one does.
Parents and students may not realize that gap years don’t have to be limited to just one area. Bull says that students looking to take a full year off often follow a schedule involving multiple areas of interest.
THE BENEFITS
In J2Guides’ free webinar on gap years, Sarouhan referenced the following points: 90 percent of gappers returned to college after their gap year, and those students, on average, graduated in four years or less versus the national average of six. Bob Clagett, who has nearly 30 years of admission experience at Harvard College and Middlebury College, found that gap-year students consistently produced higher GPAs than non-gap-year peers. Mark Hatch, Vice President for Enrollment at Colorado College, echoes that finding. His research shows that gap-year freshmen have higher GPAs, take less time to graduate and report fewer behavioral issues.
“It’s a bridging journey,” says Goldstone Sarouhan. “Most kids at 17 or 18 don’t have a clear path, so gap years can really ignite their curiosity and reignite their interest in education.”
How can they do that? By showing kids how what they’ve learned in school physically translates to jobs and careers and the impact it has on the communities and people they’re working with. It might open them up to a certain career and incentivize them more to go to college because of the degree required to work in that field. That may be why gap year students finish college quicker—they’ve seen the tangible impact they make.
A relatively local example is the Sonoma Corps’ “Gap Year” Work-Readiness Program, which began in 2017 due to a partnership between the Career Technical Educational Foundation (CTE_ and local educators and employers, primarily in construction, trade, and advanced manufacturing. Its initial cohort was aimed at high school seniors who were not primed on the path to college, but creators soon realized that the opportunity had to be available to all.
The recent program has already garnered huge support from families. In a January 2021 survey, students endorsed the program’s effect on understanding workplace culture, learning work-readiness skills, and learning about different career opportunities.
GAINING IN POPULARITY
According to Bull, there are more gap year programs, consultants, and organizations than ever before, signs that the U.S. is prepared to embrace the idea as something that can augment students’ next steps.
“Gap years are not mainstream,” Bull says, “but now we’re starting to have higher education paying attention and tracking students. Schools like Stanford, Harvard, Colorado College, Princeton, Tufts, and Duke are all endorsing gap years—some of them even offer their funded gap years once you get in.”
She believes it comes down to the rise of the mental health crisis in the U.S., especially in the last three years. For any college, it’s only to their benefit to have incoming freshmen who are grounded, healthier, and more sound—which gap years have consistently been able to show in the last 10 to 12 years.
Gap years can be wonderful add-ons toward one’s path in life, and Goldstone Sarouhan believes that all students—regardless of where they stand in academic prowess—should consider one.
“Consider being the operative word,” she adds. “We want students to be intentional decision makers; we want them to think, am I doing this because it’s what I’m supposed to do or because it’s what I want to do? No choice should be a blind choice, but gap years shouldn’t be mandatory. We want every student to be able to have all the information and the facts before making their decision.”
If there’s anything we want to teach our children it’s that there is no one path to college or life. A gap year can be exactly what your student needs to explore and reflect on what’s to come after the “gap.”
Lisa Wong is a freelance writer, editor, and in-house editor. She has a background in journalism before transitioning primarily to book publishing.