“What is
a Gap Year,” you ask? A Gap Year is a year off between
high-school graduation and starting college, or a year off after graduating
from college and starting graduate school, medical school, or law school.
High-school students use this time for a variety of activities. Usually
students take a Gap Year to boost their academics, increase their test scores,
or go out and do some activities before they start college.
College graduates do this for many of the same reasons. Those going to medical
school more often take a Gap Year in order to take additional courses to meet
med-school requirements or to take more time to prep for the MCAT.
For this article, we will focus on the Gap Year between high school and
college.
Why So Popular?
Gap Years are gaining a lot of popularity. There are many reasons for this,
but mostly it is because they give a student a chance to boost academics,
increase test scores, take a year-long adventure, or simply take a break.
For example, Malia Obama, the daughter of former President Obama, is taking a
Gap Year before she enters Harvard University. Although she was already
accepted, she chose to defer her enrollment a year.
Gap Years are also growing in popularity because many students who have
ambitions to attend top colleges did not get the preparation they needed for
admissions. So they take an extra year to be more competitive.
Many top colleges, including Ivy League colleges and service academies,
encourage students to take a Gap Year. In many cases, colleges provide special
programs for students who want to do this. Some colleges will defer admission
for one year to allow students to take a Gap Year, as Harvard did for Malia
Obama.
A properly executed Gap Year will help a student be better prepared for
college. It has to be a prudent Gap Year, such as I’ll describe below, not a
year of just goofing off. You need a well-planned strategy to meet your
student’s college ambitions.
A better-prepared student is going to be better qualified for college
admissions. He or she will be more experienced and mature. There also will be
extra time to produce better applications, essays, and recommendations.
Finally, a better-prepared student is going to be better qualified for
scholarship opportunities. A Gap Year provides extra time to prepare for
scholarship competition and even to apply for more scholarships earlier in the
cycle.
I have personally been involved with dozens of students doing a Gap Year. My
own homeschooled daughter took a Gap Year and received the Presidential
Scholarship to Texas Tech for her effort.
I always recommend that students use this time to develop their learning
skills, because college is a lot more rigorous than high school.
Gap Year Success Story #1: Would You Be Willing to Take a Gap Year for $100,000?
We had one situation where a homeschooler was one point away on his ACT score
from the top scholarship at a major university. The difference between the top
scholarship and the next scholarship was over hundred thousand dollars. He
only needed one point, but he didn’t have another opportunity to take the ACT
for admissions, because the deadline had passed.
I asked him, “Are you willing to take a Gap Year for $100,000?” He did! He
bumped his score considerably, got the extra $100,000 in scholarship, and
qualified for several additional scholarships. I guess it was worth $100,000
to take a Gap Year.
Academic Reasons & Strategies for a Gap Year
Here are four Gap Year strategies that focus on what your student needs to do
to pursue their college ambitions or gain some experience and maturity.
Boost Test Scores As in our story above, it may be worth a Gap Year to qualify
for several thousand dollars of scholarships. Many students come a few points
short of getting the big scholarships and it may be worth taking a year off,
boosting the test scores, and applying the next year.
Better Applications Applying for college during the senior year often is a
very frenzied activity. It causes a lot of stress and creates a lot of
opportunity not to complete the applications in the best way to get the
admissions and scholarships a student deserves. A good Gap Year allows the
student to take that experience, learn from it, and be better packaged for
admissions and scholarships the next year.
Round Out Your Resume Often students are unaware what colleges are looking for
in a prospect. They find out too late that there’s a lot of additional stuff
they should put on their resume. In addition, there may be some things that
need to be in the resume that they haven’t done, so they take a year to do
those things.
Public Service One of the strategies that we promote is to earn very
high-profile recognition via public service. Several awards are available
through the President’s Volunteer Service Award and the Congressional Service
Award, for students who can do additional community service. These take a lot
of time, so are difficulty to do during the regular high-school years. Any of
these awards will significantly increase your student’s “character” profile in
the eyes of admissions officials.
Ask yourself: is it worth the extra opportunities for admissions and
scholarships, the extra time to grow up and become academically better
developed, and the extra time to boost your scores to get big scholarships? If
you see chances for big improvements in any of these areas, definitely
consider a Gap Year.
Gap Year Success Story #2: The Injured Athlete
Many top athletes take a prep year before they enter college to fill in
academic gaps, to get bigger and stronger, or to overcome injuries. This gives
them an opportunity to boost their academics so that they are better prepared
for college academics.
Michael was a highly rated punter going into his senior year. He came from a
football family, with uncles who played in the NFL and one uncle who punted
for the Houston Texans. He was highly recruited by many colleges. However,
during the first game of his senior season, he planted his left leg to punt
and ripped his ACL. All interest in him dried up quickly.
The uncle who punted for the Texans contacted me to help. (This uncle had
three daughters in my program—all were Duke Talent Identification Program
winners.)
After several talks, Michael decided to take a Gap Year, heal his knee, go to
some kicking camps, and bump his ACT score. He raised his ACT from 21 to 33
and qualified for over a dozen full academic scholarships. The higher score
also attracted higher caliber colleges because the score exceeded their
admissions requirement.
In the end, Michael accepted a Division I football scholarship to Lafayette
College in Pennsylvania, a member of the Patriot League with Bucknell,
Colgate, Fordham, Georgetown, Holy Cross, and Lehigh—all very highly rated
academic institutions. West Point (Army) and Annapolis (Navy) are also members
of the Patriot League in basketball and baseball.
Athletic Reasons for a Gap Year
NCAA Eligibility Many athletes do not meet the National Collegiate Athletic
Association (NCAA)’s eligibility criteria, particularly for Division I
schools. They do not have the test scores to get into those schools or that
are needed to meet NCAA eligibility. Promising athletes who have graduated
from high school can work on their eligibility during a Gap Year. This allows
them to increase their academic profile, so that they will be eligible to play
their freshman year.
Playing Time Another major consideration is that an athlete is allowed an
extra year of playing time after graduating high school. The athlete has the
opportunity to get stronger and gain more experience in the sport.
Participation in prep-school athletics does not affect NCAA eligibility, so
they don’t lose a year.
What Are Your Gap Year Options?
Adventure & Life Experience There is a growing industry in providing a Gap
Year adventure experience. Several programs allow students to go overseas and
travel, gaining experience before they go to college. Beyond simply traveling,
there are a lot of unique experiences that students can go through, such as an
internship, backpacking, writing a book, developing artistic ability, etc.
Make sure there is some academic, service, or growth associated with your
activities: colleges aren’t impressed by a year of dedicated bungee jumping or
video gaming (unless you are actually incredibly good at video games, in which
case a few colleges offer scholarships to top gamers). If your video about
your bungee jumping that you post to YouTube makes $100,000 for cancer
research, that might work. But just “having fun” for a year misses the point
of a Gap Year and won’t improve your college admissions or scholarship
chances.
Volunteer Service is a growing field in Gap Years. I have already mentioned
awards you can earn for public service. For a more “employment” oriented type
of service, you can get involved with programs like AmeriCorps. Or you can
spend a year simply helping other people as you help yourself grow.
“Prep School” Type Post-Graduate Programs Many private schools have a
postgraduate program for students who already graduated from high school. In
these “prep” programs, students spend a year at an independent school to
mature socially or develop academically before college.
In many cases, students attend postgraduate programs in order to boost their
competitiveness in applying to competitive colleges.
To find a list of postgraduate boarding schools, simply google “postgraduate
boarding schools.” Many high-profile preparatory academies, such as Phillips
Academy, Phillips Exeter, and Choate, have postgraduate programs. In addition,
many military prep schools have postgraduate programs, primarily to prepare
students who need more help getting ready for the military academies.
Official Military Academy Prep Schools All three major military academies have
their own prep schools. The schools were established to provide additional
opportunities for students who show great promise, but for some reason did not
have access to or the opportunity to obtain the academic foundation for
admissions to the Service Academy. These prep schools provide a one-year
intensive program to prepare students for admission to the Service Academies
and to contribute to their success and retention
The downside of these elite prep schools isn’t so much the school itself but
that for political reasons, students who are otherwise qualified for admission
often are waitlisted and are not admitted, yet other students who are not
qualified for admission are allowed to attend a program that virtually
guarantees admission to the military academy itself.
Independent/Private Military Academy Prep Schools Happily, students who are
qualified for admission but not admitted to one of the military academy prep
schools have other alternatives. Consider the independent and private military
Academy prep programs that parallel the Service Academy prep schools, such as
Greystone Prep in Texas, Marion Military Institute in Alabama, and New Mexico
Military Institute, where Roger Staubach, quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys,
Heisman Trophy winner, and Naval Academy graduate, took a Gap Year. He is
still very loyal to the New Mexico Military Institute for the opportunities he
gained through them.
Self-Managed Gap Year Many students take a Gap Year on their own. Most take
community-college courses to dip their toes into the waters of college. The
caveat here is that you have to be careful not to take too many courses,
because you may not be able to qualify as an entering freshman and be treated
as a transfer student instead. Check with your prospective colleges on their
policies.
Yes, I Recommend Gap Years
For a student who wants the extra boost, a Gap Year is a very sound strategy.
But you don’t have to be suffering academically to consider it. We are seeing
more and more highly qualified students, like Malia Obama, take a Gap Year to
improve their capacity for college even further, while gaining some experience
and hopefully growing up a little more.
Many people become concerned about taking a year off and how it looks to
colleges. Quite frankly, the colleges don’t care. Many top colleges actually
encourage Gap Years. Applicants who are taking Gap Years are not treated any
differently than seniors applying that same year.
A well-placed Gap Year can have significant impact on where you go to college,
how much money you’re going to get for college, and how well you’re going to
do in college. All of this will have a very significant impact on your later
career and life.
There’s not a lot of downside to a Gap Year!
