How a Gap Year Prepares Students for College

While many students head directly to college after graduating from high school, a smaller cohort chooses an alternative: a gap year.

"I would hazard to say that there is at least as much educational value in an international or domestic gap year experience as there is in a freshman year of college," says Ethan Knight, executive director and founder of the Oregon-based nonprofit Gap Year Association.

A gap year, as Knight's organization defines it, refers to "a semester or year of experiential learning, typically taken after high school and prior to career or postsecondary education, in order to deepen one's practical, professional and personal awareness."

Typically, he says, high school graduates travel, volunteer and focus on personal growth during a gap year.

"These kinds of experiences fundamentally open up your eyes to see the world at a larger level," Knight says.

[Read: How a Gap Year Can Make Students Successful.]

Gap Year Considerations Amid the Coronavirus

As the novel coronavirus has knocked higher education off balance, surveys suggest that some students are considering deferring admission. That may mean signing up for a structured gap year program or sitting out the school year until in-person classes resume, a decision that is still up in the air at many universities while others have already announced plans to bring students back to campus.

While experts see gap years as valuable learning experiences, they suggest that delaying enrollment due to the uncertainty prompted by the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, isn't ideal. Taking a gap year to avoid new academic environments is something admissions officers advise against.

"Fundamentally, I hope families don't think of a Gap experience as an alternative to college but one that better prepares (certain) students for the university experience," Greg Zaiser, vice president for enrollment at Elon University in North Carolina, wrote in an email. "The reason for a gap year shouldn't be to hold out until college life resumes to what it was through February of this year."

Zaiser adds that "no academic environment will be exactly what the student or family anticipated" prior to the coronavirus pandemic. Colleges are operating in new territory, he explains, and still determining what the fall semester -- whether online or in-person -- will look like.

How Gap Year Experiences May Vary

For high school students or graduates considering a gap year, the options are plentiful and can be structured programs or self-guided. The Gap Year Association, which accredits numerous programs, lists a wide range of options on its website, including experiences with a focus on ecology, animal welfare and conservation, language studies, coding, cultural immersion and a variety of other topics.

"The best gap years tend to be the ones that push students to think about who they are and their role in the world," says Joe O'Shea, assistant provost and dean of undergraduate studies at Florida State University and author of "Gap Year: How Delaying College Changes People in Ways the World Needs."

O'Shea says a gap year can help motivate and inspire students and better prepare them for college. He notes that the "natural break" between high school and college is an ideal time for students to "pause and reflect" and explore options before their studies begin.

"Often you see students who struggle in higher education because they don't have a sense of purpose and direction," O'Shea says. Gap years -- because they give students a broader sense of the world and their place in it and how they can contribute -- help to supply and empower students with the kind of motivation and purpose that can animate their entire college experience."

How a Gap Year Affects College Admissions

O'Shea suggests that high school students considering a gap year think about how colleges support that effort. In the competitive world of college admissions, prospective students need to know where a school stands on gap years in regard to the admissions process.

[Read: Get Money or College Credit for a Gap Year.]

"If they have specific colleges that they're already considering, or have been admitted to, reaching out to every single one of those colleges, even before admission, is a good idea just to ask what the policies would look like if they chose a gap year, what pros and cons might come along with that and to weigh all of those along with their decision to take a gap year," says Erin Jensen, assistant director of admissions at Portland State University.

PSU, Jensen explains, has a gap year deferred admission policy in place that allows students to keep their spot once admitted. Prior to this policy, she says that students were required to reapply for admission, housing and institutional aid after their gap year, which caused extra work and stress "especially if a student was overseas or participating in some sort of intensive program" at that time.

A similar deferral policy is in place at Elon. At both PSU and Elon, gap year students pay a deposit to retain a spot during their break before starting their studies when they return.

[Read: What to Know About Deferred College Admission.]

Similarly, both colleges stipulate that students should not earn college credit during their gap year. The reason for this "is because postsecondary work would change their status to transfer and typically students request the gap experience during the application process or once they've been admitted," Zaiser explains.

However, there may be exceptions. One such model is offered by Verto Education, which CEO and Co-founder Mitch Gordon refers to as "a gap year without the gap." Students enroll in Verto's program and a partner college simultaneously and earn college credit while overseas for a single semester or a full academic year. Verto lists more than 40 partner universities in the U.S. on its website.

Gap Year Costs and Options

When it comes to costs -- much like college tuition -- the sticker price for gap year programs can fluctuate wildly and be unclear, Knight says. While programs on the high end may come in at more than $50,000, students may pay less due to scholarships and other financial aid, he explains. And for low-income students, certain programs may be subsidized to enhance affordability.

O'Shea notes the need in higher education to support gap year students and points to scholarship funding from FSU that aims to do so. He believes such initiatives are making the gap year concept more available to students with limited financial means. While gap years have been the domain of middle-class families and above, O'Shea thinks that is changing as programs become more affordable.

"There are new models that have emerged that are not as expensive as one might think," O'Shea says.

For example, Verto Education has emphasized making gap years more accessible to students across all income levels, which means offering a single semester experience for as low as $5,000 through an "opportunity grant" for families making less than $100,000 annually or those affected financially by the coronavirus.

Experts also point to an increased awareness of gap year programs. While they say the concept has long been popular in Europe, it has grown in the U.S. only in the last decade. One major boost came when former first daughter Malia Obama announced in 2016 that she would take a gap year before attending college, which caused the term to spike in Google searches that spring.

O'Shea suggests the move not only introduced many students to the concept but gave them "social permission" to pursue it.

But the question of what a gap year abroad may look like looms large at a time when countries are enacting travel restrictions to stop the spread of the coronavirus. That means some countries are denying entry to travelers from high-risk countries, including the U.S.

"The question is really whether or not they're going to allow international visitors by September or October," Gordon says.

As he monitors the situation in countries where Verto operates, Gordon is optimistic about the fall semester abroad, though his company has had to shuffle some of its plans such as dropping a program in Italy where the coronavirus caused thousands of deaths.

But Gordon adds that other countries where Verto operates, such as New Zealand, are "inarguably safer" than the U.S. for students.

Knight suggests that students with gap year goals discuss the topic with their high school counselors, reach out to colleges before applying to understand their deferral policies and -- he emphasizes -- gain admission knowing that they can defer.

Students should also be intentional about their gap year plans. "What I would require of anyone thinking about (a gap year) right now is that this is not something to go into haphazardly. There needs to be some sort of plan, some sort of ultimate outcome," Jensen says.

That's especially true for first-generation and minority students who tend to be more likely to not attend college after taking a year off.

"I think that if students don't have a plan, that could certainly be a negative experience," Jensen says.

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