So Much To See, So Much To Learn

Gap Years Take Off, And Not Just For Pre-College

Journalist Wendy Greenberg writes an in-depth and thoughtful article on the gap year option (for young and old alike) in this September 2023 issue of Princeton Magazine.

"Within about 10 minutes of chatting with Holly Bull and Kate Warren, you begin to think about all the experiences you want to have, all the places you want to go, and how you can realize what you always thought was beyond your time constraints and logistical ability. You make a note that when ready, you will call Holly and Kate."

South China Post article "Chinese are ‘lying flat’, Americans are on gap years as pessimistic youth take a hard look at traditional jobs"

Journalists Ralph Jennings and He Huifeng recently posted this interesting article for the South China Post (April 13, 2023) comparing the response of youth in China and the US.

• A growing number of younger people in China are resenting the idea of struggling against economic problems, instead opting to join the so-called lying flat movement
• Millions are also leaning more towards the life side of a work-life balance in the US, with gap years a popular alternative to jumping straight into work after graduating

Holly Bull, gap year counselor at the Center for Interim Programs, is quoted regarding the impetus for American youth to take gap time and what they are pursuing during this break from the lock-step of academia.

Seeking College-Admissions Edge, More Students Take Gap Year

This Wall Street Journal article explains what's happening -- see some article excerpts below:

Rising rejections at highly selective colleges and hopes for better luck in a year are pushing more seniors to take a yearlong pause after high school. 

For the 2020-21 academic year, 130,000 students took gap years, according to the nonprofit Gap Year Association, with many of these early-pandemic gap-year students deferring enrollment to wait for the full college experience. That is up from between 40,000 and 60,000 students before the pandemic.

The following excerpt features Madison Kim who worked with Center for Interim Programs' president, Holly Bull. Madison took a gap year and reapplied to college halfway through her year. She was accepted into Cornell University after being on the wait list the first time around.

For Madison Kim, who says she received a score of 1510 on her SATs and played club soccer and lacrosse, last year’s admission season didn’t go the way she hoped. She was rejected from six schools, including her top choice, Yale University, and wait-listed at four others. She received two acceptances, but wasn’t enthusiastic about either, she says.
“I was pretty surprised and a little bit naive,” says Ms. Kim, 18, who lives with her family in California’s Napa Valley.
She worked with a gap-year counselor at the Center for Interim Programs, a consulting firm that helps students design independent gap years, and developed a plan. She would complete a marine-studies program over the summer and an off-the-grid hiking program in the fall while reapplying to colleges with a new major in mind: environmental science. 
“I ended up feeling a lot more like that my essay reflected my actual interest, whereas the first essay I wrote last year was maybe a little bit me trying to write what I thought they wanted to hear,” says Ms. Kim, who will enroll at Cornell University this fall. The school had wait-listed her in 2021.
What we have witnessed here at the Center for Interim Programs (after 42 years of doing nothing but gap year counseling with over 8,600 students) is that taking a gap year does not guarantee admission into college but it can't hurt and will only help, provided one puts thought and care into planning a year that truly matches core interests.

"You're a different person when you travel..."

This October 7, 2021 Washington Post article, You're a different person when you travel. Here's why, and how to transform yourself at home, touches on the benefits of travel and includes the gap option for adults as well as students. 

Holly Bull, Center for Interim Programs' President and Gap Year Counselor is quoted as saying:

It’s a chance for people to discover parts of themselves sidelined by career and family life, said Holly Bull, president of the Center for Interim Programs in Princeton, N.J., an opportunity to hop off “this track that people sort of see laid out ahead of them.” The counseling business she leads connects those would-be travelers with a breadth of possibilities, such as baboon research and language immersion. Bull saw a surge of interest in adult gap-year travel during the first year of the pandemic. 

Gap time is for anyone and the benefits are similar no matter one's age.

“The Benefits of Taking a Gap Year at Any Age”

In this article that came out in the Princeton Packet as well as centraljersey.com, Pam Hersh interviews Center for Interim Programs gap year counselors, Holly Bull and Kate Warren, about the benefits of taking gap time. Whether as student or older adult, the idea is invariably compelling for people of all ages.

Holly Bull, Center for Interim Programs President, Interview About "Filling the Gap"

Time Out for Students

Holly Bull was recently asked to speak at the South Orange-Maplewood Adult School in NJ about the "Gap Year Advantage": the many benefits of taking time gap time before (or during) college.

Local journalist, Rose Bennett Gilbert, interviewed Holly who pointed out that in the past young women and men who took time away from school were thought to be "indecisive or uncommitted to their educations," which is no longer the case. The reality is that gap time is "a great option for anyone who is trying to figure out who they are and what they really want."

Another benefit counteracting the effects of our current stressful academic culture, is how gap time leads to more rested and focused students who are typically more excited about their studies following some time to decompress, explore the world, and choose experiences that light them up.

Additional advice Holly offers to parents and students:

• Do your due diligence on possible gap programs
• Plan carefully so you don't have too many gaps during your gap year
• Include some hands-on practical experience

Read more gap year insights in Ms. Gilbert's article on the Adult School website.

Given College Costs, Can You Afford Not To Take a Gap Year? NYT Slide Show on Paying College Tuition

This recent NYT Opinion piece, filled with comments of College Graduates and Parents, highlights the potentially debilitating costs of college and college loans. The fact that students often take more than four years to finish college adds to the debt issue. According to the U.S. Department of Education, students take 5.7 to 6.4 years on average to complete degrees.

In comparison, Gap Year student research reveals that gap year students typically finish their degrees in four, or fewer, years. And their interests are more focused when they land on campus and they are more prepared to step into the work world post college after experiencing a half step into the world during a gap year.

Note the following potential savings when comparing 4 years of college costs to the 6 year average.

q

Public College Out of State:  

4 years = $149,720 versus 6 years = $224,580  

$74,860 extra cost 

§Private College:

4 years = $194,040 versus 6 years = $291,060

o$97,020 extra cost

It is also important to note that the cost of a typical gap year rarely comes close to a year of college tuition.

Feel free to contact us to learn how gap year options can save you time and money.

Next Avenue, Forbes' and MarketWatch article "A Guide to Taking a Gap Year or Gap Time in Midlife"

Mark Schmitt, in the photo above, is a Center for Interim Programs adult "gapper" along with Janet Lipsi who is also featured in this compelling "Next Avenue" article, A Guide to Taking a Gap Year or Gap Time in Midlife by Lisa Fields. Forbes posted this article the same day and MarketWatch two weeks later with the title Why you might want to take a gap year before you retire.

Mark took an unpaid leave of absence to travel in 2018 and in over 10 months completed 14 adventures. Janet Lipsi wanted to go where she was needed and volunteered at a children’s center in South Africa for two months before doing some travelling.

Fields tells her readers that your 50s or 60s may be ideal for taking time off if you have children who have grown or you are in a comfortable place professionally and have the financial flexibility for a break. She quotes Holly Bull, President of the Center for Interim Programs (who uses the term "Gap Time" instead of "Gap Year"), as saying "The value derived from this exploring, short or long, is invariably high: Rest, a sense of renewed excitement about life, being away from home and the familiar, meeting new people, being a traveler rather than tourist, engaging in something substantive with a sense of purpose."

It is always worth it for anyone of any age to do our free hour and a half brainstorming session to learn more about the many possible options and experiences to match specific interests and time frames.

Paying for a Gap Year

(This is our second post in a series on the economics of taking gap time.)

Paying for a gap year depends on what you choose to do, as we outlined in our first post in this series entitled “What Does a Gap Year Cost?”

We were contacted recently by Kathryn Flynn, a financial writer for Savingforcollege.com. Center for Interim Programs’ Vice President, Jason Sarouhan, is among her interviewees and her article (and website) is a good resource for families starting to explore and fund the gap year option. 

From a strictly financial point of view, here are several things to consider beyond family resources:

1. Financial aid and scholarships for those with fewer family resources
2. Working and saving money before embarking on a gap year
3. A question frequently asked about gap year financing, "Can we use our 529 savings to pay for our child's gap year?"

First, financial aid is offered by a number of quality programs. We at Interim can assist you in locating programs offering financial aid while helping you identify your program goals.

Second, we strongly recommend that once a student plans to take a gap year, he or she find employment for the summer before embarking on the gap year, and possibly even earlier if one’s budget is tight and work can be integrated with school demands. Saving as much as possible during this time of employment can often cover travel expenses to and from gap year programs as well as some program costs.

Third, the 529 question is worthy of a lengthier address. A 529 plan is a tax-advantaged education savings plan designed to help families save money for college. Savings can be used for tuition, books, and other education-related expenses at most accredited colleges. Here is a more thorough introduction to the 529 from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website, and here is a helpful list of questions and answers from the IRS. The current language from the IRS states: "An eligible educational institution is generally any college, university, vocational school, or other post secondary educational institution eligible to participate in a student aid program administered by the U.S. Department of Education." Currently, and unfortunately, this leaves out many gap year experiences which are not classically academic in nature or do not offer academic credit. However, there are a number of gap year programs that offer credit through various US colleges and these are often eligible for 529 savings. And important caveat: colleges that defer your admission may request that you not submit any academic credit garnered during a gap year. So, you may be able to use the 529 funds but you may not get the credit.

For more questions about how to pay for a gap year, take a look at our More FAQ page.

A Gap Year Supports The Making of a "Modern Elder"

Ever since the Center for Interim Programs (Interim) opened its gap year counseling doors in 1980, we have worked not only with students but also older adults.

Chip Conley's latest book, "Wisdom @ Work: The Making of a Modern Elder" highlights the importance of continuing to recreate one's life, or, as he puts it in his Chapter 8 title, "Rewire, Don't Retire".  He suggests that we adults "Reconsider a Gap Year" and quotes Holly Bull, President of Interim, as follows, "...we see an increasing number of adults who aren't completely retired. They are looking for a new direction and asking themselves what they want to do for the rest of their lives."

Rewiring can take many directions and here are experiences that some of Interim's "Modern Elder" Gappers have taken:

Parents, Be Advised that a Gap Year Can Benefit a Student's GPA and Mental Health

Marcia Morris, M.D., is a psychiatrist at the University of Florida

What we at the Center for Interim Programs have been witnessing in the thirty-nine years we have been counseling students through the gap year process, is finally being seriously considered and researched by colleges and mental health counselors: the value of gap time in terms of student maturity, college attendance, academic performance, and mental health.

Marcia Morris, M.D., a psychiatrist at the University of Florida, looked into the benefits of a gap year after she was interviewed on NPR's radio show, On Point. The subject was the rising rate of mental health problems on campus and the role this played in one of three students leaving college during freshman year. A discussion on the show brought up the subject of a gap year and how elite colleges have long encouraged a gap year to increase maturity before college.

Top Colleges are Embracing, Encouraging, and Even Contributing to a Gap Year

Gap Years, once thought to be options only for students from well-to-do families, are now growing more popular for students of modest means who want to pause before jumping into college. As Duke Undergraduate Admissions Dean, Christoph Guttentag, tells us in this article by Melissa Korn that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Christmas Day, the gap year allows hard-charging, academically focused students "to reflect, to grow, to mature, to develop".

Not only are there many low cost Gap Year options open to all, but incoming freshmen at schools such as Tufts University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Florida State University, and Princeton University, can get financial support to defer their enrollment for a year to travel, volunteer, or pursue other passions. Generous donors are also beginning to support Gap Year participants and some colleges are forming Gap Year partnerships.

Sometimes Coming Home from College is a Bad Sign

This informative article was published in the New York Times just before Thanksgiving and reaches out to the parents of future college freshmen. It starts with an unhappy fact that acts as a warning and then raises a powerful question. The warning: “Thirty percent of freshmen won’t return for their sophomore year, and the wheels can start to fall off as early as Thanksgiving". The question: "What can parents do?”

This article’s authors are William Stixrud and Ned Johnson. Stixrud is a clinical neuropsychologist with whom Center for Interim Programs' president, Holly Bull, met in 2014 in her ongoing efforts to inform people about the Gap Year’s very positive experiences. One of the key effects she described to him was how these experiences lead to successful college careers for the overwhelming majority of Interim’s Gap Year participants. Stixrud's co-author, Johnson, is a leading tutor and test prep professional. They published “The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives” and are well known and respected in the field of young adult education. What they say in this article leaves us with much food for thought.

For example, "When the new batch of freshmen arrived on campus this fall, many of them were greeted as members of the class of 2022, based on the old assumption that college is a four-year program. In fact, according to data from the nonprofit Complete College America, only 20 percent of students complete a bachelor's degree in four years." And, "only 57 percent of students who enroll in college will graduate in six years."

When students drop out it can be devastating for parents and students.

Stixrud and Johnson also state, “If you question your teenager’s readiness for college at the end of high school, you cannot expect that he or she will be ready by fall. It takes time, practice and some failure to learn how to run a life. And you don’t want your child to learn these lessons in an environment that is as toxic as it is expensive.” And, “Options like gap years or plain and simple work experience can help students mature so that when they do enroll, they are more likely to be successful.”

As quoted above and believed here at Interim, the Gap Year is one of the preparatory activities that should be considered.

The First "Official Gap Year College"

The Gap Year Association has named Warren Wilson College its first "Official Gap Year College".

According to Ethan Knight, executive director of the Gap Year Association, “If a gap year is to go out, explore the world, and understand yourself and your place in the world better, then college is the next step to really cement the better attributes of society and self," and  "Warren Wilson is a great place for students to land.” The Gap Year Association, who looked deeply into Warren Wilson's policies and programs before making the college their first Gap Year College, states on its website that Warren Wilson College is, "GYA's first Official Gap Year College - having met the standards for a gap year graduate to land successfully".

Warren Wilson College stands proudly behind applicants who wish to take a Gap Year before attending. The college's belief in the value of a Gap Year is evidenced by how it treats its Gap Year students. The College’s initiatives include leadership scholarships for students who have excelled in gap year experiences, varied international and domestic study away programs and internships, themed housing for gap year students, and a general education program anchored in a commitment to civic identity and community engagement.

Read Warren Wilson College's Press Release announcing their selection and how pleased they are, as well as what they have to say about Gap Years and students.

A Gap Year is now for Baby Boomers too!

In Philippa Fogarty’s recent BBC Capital article, “The Baby Boomers Taking a Golden Gap Year", she comments "As baby boomers have begun rewriting the book on retirement the idea of a gap year for later life has emerged."

Ms. Fogarty quotes Center for Interim Programs President, Holly Bull, who describes working with older adults taking gap time and how they typically participate in programs lasting from a few weeks to a few months.  

The Gap Year as a Victory

Among the many benefits of a Gap Year, and what is almost universally agreed upon, is that the Gap Year is a time to explore, grow, contribute and enjoy. The author of the article presented here is Cheryl Ursin who, in her writing for Buzz Magazines, looks into the Gap Year from the viewpoints of a variety of Gappers. She reports that the many different and rewarding ways that a Gap Year is experienced can be seen and felt as a personal Victory: a Victory for learning, contributing, developing, participating, understanding and more.

Devin Gohel, a Center for Interim Programs student who took a gap year before college from 2016-2017, is featured in the article and comments on the success of his gap year with Interim's assistance. Devin describes how he was overwhelmed trying to find Gap Year options. “In the beginning, I did research on my own and was overwhelmed,” he says. “They (Interim) know hundreds of companies, get feedback from students who have gone on the trips, can help you find a good fit.”

Enjoy the article!

The Glorious Comeback of the Gap Year (Thank You, Malia Obama)

ADDitude magazine is an online and print publication dedicated to the health and well being of young people with ADHD and related mental conditions as their logo title, "Inside the ADHD Mind" makes us aware.

This article written for the benefit of the parents of the teens they serve focuses on the benefits of a Gap Year. It advises them that, "The concept of a gap year makes perfect sense: Your stressed-out teen with ADHD takes a year off to mature, gain independence, build skills, and find direction before entering college or starting a career."

We at Interim realize that many students are feeling the pressures of growing up and going forward. And we believe that a Gap Year can be truly beneficial.

Read the article, and note that these advisers recommend Holly Bull, president of the Center for Interim Programs, as "the preeminent expert..."

Family Circle Magazine Recommends Parents and Students Discuss a Gap Year's Benefits

Family Circle, a publication geared for parents, explains how a Gap Year is a chance for a teen to explore and mature without the many pressures felt during high school and carried into college, pressures that are mentally and even physically exhausting.

Author Allison Slater Tate believes that parents should most definitely discuss a Gap Year and its benefits with their teenage children. Ms. Tate supports her beliefs in the Gap Year with the assistance of the Center for Interim Programs’ president, Holly Bull. Holly suggests recognizing the "treadmill" that students often feel they are on and looking into how a Gap Year, built with a well designed plan, can bring them back into full ownership of their lives and education. Holly also recommends that, while parents may encourage their children to consider a Gap Year, whether or not they ultimately decide to take a gap year can be less important than the fact that they’re making a conscious decision about their future. A decision that is a boost to their personal power.

For more information, read Ms. Tate's article.

Adult Gappers .. It's Your Time!

Kathy Thomas is paving the way for adult gappers. She has been working with the Center for Interim Program's President Holly Bull since retiring in 2015. In that time Kathy has traveled to Africa multiple times for various volunteer projects. She has attended yoga and writing workshops in the US and Europe. She has worked with elephants in Thailand. Upcoming plans include an expedition to Antartica, followed by some travels in Chile. Kathy's journey is far from over ... 

How can one summarize such a vast array of experiences? Just recently we heard from Kathy who shared: "I am three years into this exciting, exhilarating, life-changing Journey and I couldn't be happier. Thanks for your guidance. I don't know that I would be on this path without your help."

Read more about Kathy and other inspiring adult gappers in this NYTimes article: You Don't Have to Be College-Bound to Take a Gap Year

Is it YOUR time for an adult gap year? Explore the mid and post career pages on our website, and contact us for your free 90 minute consultation!

Gap years are for grown-ups too!

This time of year we hear from many parents about how "jealous" they are of their kids who are preparing to leave for their gap years. Well, guess what, gap years are for grown-ups too!

Our very own Holly Bull was recently interviewed for an article in the New York Times that highlights the benefits of mid-career professionals and retirees taking a break from work to explore their interests, and the world.

Intrigued? No matter your age, stage in life, area of interest or budget, you can have a free 90 minute consultation with one of our expert counselors! Feel free to contact us at any time.