The so-called gap year between high school and college is just what some students need

By Tim Engle

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Grant Stauffer is willing to admit it: He slacked off his first couple of years of high school. He eventually got on track, but "my parents still believe there's a little more maturing I need to do, especially as far as my whole work ethic goes."

So Stauffer, 18, a newly minted Shawnee Mission East high school grad, will not be heading to college this fall. Instead, he's taking a "gap year," delaying frat parties, the Freshman 15 and the rest of the college experience by one year.

The gap year option seems to be picking up steam — Stauffer's high school paper, reporting plans of the Class of '10, included gap year alongside workforce, military and "undecided" — but for now it's only a micro-trend.

At William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., for instance, typically just one or two of each year's 300 freshmen ask to defer their first year, and those requests aren't always gap-related.

Not everyone agrees on what a gap year is or when it's taken. Generally it's the year after high school. But some college graduates, rather than dive into grad school or the job market, do a gap year first. (In the old days, gap years were sometimes known as "backpacking across Europe" — you know, to find yourself.)

A year that bridges secondary school and university is not a foreign concept in foreign places like Great Britain.

"A gap year, for some students, is a really great idea," says Rick Winslow, vice president for enrollment and student affairs at Jewell.

It's a decision that young people need to make with their parents, Winslow says. For students who are "developmentally mature enough to take a year off and focus on something they're passionate about," it can be a success, he says. A political science major at Jewell took a gap year before his junior year of college to work on political campaigns and travel internationally.

But "for students who are just blowing in the breeze and not sure what they want to do with the rest of their life, a gap year can be a waste of time," Winslow says.

The important thing is to have a plan — and a backup plan. Students should secure a spot in college beforehand (they can always request a deferment), so if their gap program falls through, they won't waste that year.

For students (and parents) who like the idea of a gap year, there are no lack of alternatives. Books like "The Complete Guide to the Gap Year: The Best Things to do Between High School and College" list page after page of programs.

A gap year can be spent in volunteer service (AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity and others) here or abroad. There are cultural immersion programs such as Adventure Ireland and the Southern France Youth Institute. Plus programs focused on adventure, language study, the outdoors, sports, even sailing.

The cost can vary widely. AmeriCorps gives members an allowance for living expenses and $5,350 to be put toward college. Programs sometimes provide housing and food. Scholarships are available for some gap year programs. But gap students typically have to pay to do volunteer work.

A gap year might end up costing just as much as, or more than, college.

Which brings us back to Grant Stauffer, who will spend what would have been his first semester of college at the National Outdoor Leadership School, NOLS for short. For three months he'll be backpacking, rock-climbing, back country skiing and more across the Western U.S. while learning leadership and how to work with others. He'll be in a gap program for students his age. Bonus: 16 credit hours.

Next spring, he'll take some classes at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan. Then a year from now, he plans to enter Colorado State University in Fort Collins as a sophomore.

"Every time I talk to someone who's already gone through college, 75 percent of them say, 'I wish I'd done something like that,'" Stauffer says. "I think it tends to be the people who change majors midway through college."

His mom, Sara Stauffer of Prairie Village, describes Grant as the most "wet cement" of her three sons. She and husband Ward were afraid he'd end up taking five or six years to earn a degree.

"For us, the college credit (through NOLS) wasn't as important as the life experience and growing up and learning a little more about himself and doing something positive," Sara says.

The idea of taking a year off used to be seen like "that 'Failure to Launch' feeling instead of a positive life experience," she adds. A pre-college break can be similar to a semester or year spent studying abroad, "but you end up doing it on the front end."

Which is just what Annie Wake, a 2008 Shawnee Mission Northwest grad, did. She repeated her senior year — in French — in the small country town of Andenne, Belgium, through a Rotary International program. She lived with three host families there.

She'd spent three weeks in France between her sophomore and junior years, also a Rotary program, so she and her parents had some idea of what to expect.

In Belgium, "half my battle for the first few months was understanding what was on the board," Wake says. The handwriting, the way numbers were written, were strange to her.

"And that's what's exciting about going abroad. You come up against these challenges you weren't really expecting."

Then last fall she started at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. A student manning an orientation booth told her later that she looked different — more confident, independent — than other first-year students.

Which was true, Wake says. "I definitely didn't feel as homesick as other students, because eight hours (from home in Shawnee) doesn't really compare to a seven-hour time difference."

Jenny Sander's gap year experience was also overseas — in Israel — but with an unexpected conclusion. The 2006 Blue Valley Northwest grad thought she had her future mapped out: pre-med, med school, "that whole track."

But first came the gap year, a program called Nativ, sponsored by United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. She spent the fall of 2006 studying at a university in Jerusalem, taking field trips to such locales as the West Bank and even getting "a little taste of the army" in a week spent with Israel Defense Forces. She and 85 other young people lived in a hostel.

The second semester, she lived in the desert city of Be'er Sheva volunteering at a special needs preschool.

After that year she entered Washington University in St. Louis. About a year and a half in, Sander decided she did not want to go to medical school.

Her year in Israel made her realize "there's a whole lot more out there than what I always thought I wanted to do," she says. Her new major is international studies with a minor in women and gender studies. Now a senior, she's thinking about careers in social work or public health.

Friends Jeremy Bowles and Chris Billups, both 21 and both 2007 graduates of Kearney High School, spent the year after high school working. It might not qualify as a typical gap year, but it produced some revelations just the same.

Both guys were working the fall after their senior year at the Shoal Creek Golf Course near Liberty, Mo., but their plan was to move to Orlando, Fla., the following January to study golf course management at a trade school.

What got in the way of that?

"Money. Girlfriends," Bowles says.

And as time went on, Billups figured something out. "After working 40 hours a week at a golf course, I changed my mind about what I wanted to do," he says.

Both ended up in four-year schools. Billups is at the University of Missouri-Columbia majoring in nutrition and fitness. Bowles is a horticulture major at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, but he's still interested in running a golf course.

Meanwhile the buddies are spending this summer, like previous summers, tending the grounds at Shoal Creek. But it won't be a forever thing.

"I want to be in charge," Bowles says. "So I can be the one sitting on the cart telling people what to do."

Jeff Anderson, a counselor at Johnson County Community College, says a lot of students "probably position themselves better by choosing to step out and take some time off.

"They seem to be more focused and in some cases more motivated, and (often) they're making some sacrifice to be back in school again. They have a different approach than someone who's right out of high school."

That probably makes sense to Margaret Knapp, 20, of Overland Park. She had planned to spend part of the year after high school graduation having a "monastic living experience" in LaCygne, Kan., which would have been home base for mission trips.

But she couldn't get enough money together. She later took classes at JCCC and got a part-time job. She spent last school year at Kansas State University in Manhattan, but instead of returning this fall she'll be doing mission work in the Argentine district of Kansas City, Kan.

Knapp will eventually complete college — she's interested in social work — but she's in no hurry.

"I just felt so much pressure (as a high school grad) to know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life," Knapp says. "It's just not realistic. It puts people my age through a lot of anxiety they don't need to go through. Take a breath. I just don't think everyone needs to take the same route."

———
GAP PROGRAMS
www.nols.com
www.idealist.org
www.servenet.org
www.serve.gov
www.americorps.gov
www.cityyear.org (domestic)
www.peacecorps.gov (international)
www.globalvolunteer network.org (international)