Gap Year Schools
The gap year can be elaborate or simple, structured or unstructured; whatever the student feels most comfortable with. If young people want to take this year off after high school, they can do it with confidence, knowing that many post-secondary schools don’t just accept that they want to do this, but actually promote it. Several of these institutions have now set up supervised programs for students who want to take a gap year, yet don’t want to be totally disconnected from their college or university.
Universities that either accept or even encourage taking a gap year are multiplying in the United States. Harvard University might even be called an old hand at this, since for 35 years they’re been sending acceptance letters to applicants suggesting that they might want to defer for a year, to give themselves a breather after high school. And Yale, another grizzled veteran of the gap year, has always allowed a student to take the extra year. It just doesn’t actively suggest it the way Harvard does.
Franklin & Marshall College of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, outdo Harvard and Yale one better, though. Reasoning that a student really needs a few months to transition out of the high school mentality and into the more adult world of college, this school started a “January Program” that allows these young people to defer starting their first semester courses. Instead, they can choose to participate in school-sponsored programs, like a course of study in Italy, or learning mountaineering. Princeton University is another of the schools with the same idea, using its “Bridge Program” to allow students to engage in community service work in other countries for a year.
Even at the high school level, the gap year concept is being promoted. For example, the Los Angeles college preparatory school, Harvard-Westlake, has hosted “gap year fairs,” where representatives from various programs present the available opportunities to students. Other public learning institutes are beginning to follow suit.
It’s helpful for the gap year student to know that there are many choices available when it comes to choosing a direction. For the young person who doesn’t want much structure, they can just stay at home and work for a year, or they can decide on gap year travel and just grab their backpack and go. But if they want just a bit more structure instead, then many of the post-secondary schools are now happy to oblige them in that regard as well.
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