This article is the second in a two-part series examining students who opt to defer admission to college to take a year off. The first installment examined the increasing popularity of the "gap year;" the second will take a look at the personal experiences of students who have taken a year off before college.
During her senior year at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md., Lauren Clark (LA '06) decided to put off applying to college for a year. Instead of worrying about the college application process, she spent her final year of high school focusing on her grades and classes.
Clark said that her year off made her more enthusiastic about college and helped to hone her academic interests. Clark went to Ghana during her fall semester, where she lived with a host family and taught English to students at local schools, in addition to completing a community service piece.
"It was probably the most challenging experience that I've had in my life, but definitely one of the most rewarding," Clark said. "My experience in Ghana provided me with two things: First, a direction in which I wanted to pursue my studies - I eventually majored in international relations at Tufts, as a result of my experience in Africa - and secondly, I wrote my college application essay about my experience in Ghana, which I felt really set me apart from the other applicants."
Clark said that her application's personal statement yielded scholarships and personal letters from many of the admissions officers of the schools to which she applied.
"I was amazed at the response I got from the universities, which was surprising because of the response I had gotten only a year before from my college counselors and the parents of my peers, which was more one of shock," Clark said.
But now, as taking a gap year is becoming more and more commonplace, Clark said that the experience may not make for an exclusively original essay topic.
"As taking a gap year becomes a fad, it may be more difficult to stand apart from the crowd [when writing about year off experiences]," Clark said.
Holly Bull, president of the Center for Interim Programs, the oldest gap year consulting program in the United States, said that Clark is not alone in her decision to try to explore many different options during a year off.
"When students work with me, it's very typical for them to participate in two, three, even four different programs over the span of their gap year," Bull said.
And although Clark only took on two programs, she made sure they reached opposite ends of the academic spectrum in order to help her gain exposure to two very disparate potential career paths.
During her spring semester, Clark went to Italy on a British program, where she studied art history. Along with British students taking their gap year, Clark was accompanied by American college students taking a semester abroad.
Clark said her time in Italy was useful, but unlike in Africa, she was discovering what she did not want to do with her life.
"The program in Italy was something that I was passionate about and interested in, but I didn't see myself going into it as a career," Clark said.
Bull said that Clark's ability to narrow her potential vocational interests is ultimately an underlying goal of a gap year.
"I think taking a gap year makes the transition out of college and into the working world easier for the student as well, because they've already begun to build a résumé, and have had real-world experiences," Bull said.
And while organizations like the Center for Interim Programs are providing a popular option for many, some students are taking a less structured route in their gap years.
Sophomore Brandon Rattiner is one such student. Just a week before he was slotted to enroll at Tufts as in incoming freshman, he made the decision to defer his acceptance as a result of an unexpected opportunity.
Rattiner had run to become the international president of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization (BBYO), a Jewish youth group in which he had been involved throughout high school. He wasn't notified of the results until late in the summer before college.
"The BBYO International Presidency election took place a week before I was set to come to Tufts, in August of 2005," Rattiner said. "At that point, I had already had a roommate and a room in Haskell."
But accepting his presidency in lieu of his acceptance didn't come as a surprise to Tufts because Rattiner had notified the school of that possibility during his initial application process.
"Tufts was very supportive of the whole thing," Rattiner said.
Rattiner spent the following year traveling the world in order to give speeches, meet with community leaders and attend conferences.
"I was traveling all the time - going to a new place every three to five days," Rattiner said. "I was always on the road, and I was only home for three or four days at a time, every two months."
Rattiner described the transition to Tufts the following fall as being seamless in regard to his social life, but a little more difficult when it came to his professional endeavors.
"During my year as BBYO president, I was making changes for thousands of people, so it was very hard to start over professionally once I got to Tufts - it was a very different scale," Rattiner said. "But as much as taking a year off was a regression professionally, it was a huge benefit socially."
In the end, Rattiner said that his time off was ultimately beneficial to his college experience.
"Once you've deferred a year, you essentially go to college because you want to, rather than just going as the next step in a causal life," Rattiner said. "[A gap year] was the single best and most important thing that's happened to me thus far - to be able to be introspective and build my own thought process for a year was unbelievable."
Rattiner said the gap year is an option many other college-bound students should consider upon graduating high school.
"Taking a [gap year] enhanced my experience at Tufts, and I highly recommend it for any student," Rattiner said. "Deferring is the single best thing you can do after high school."
While Rattiner traveled around the world after electing to take a gap year, other students must delay enrollment due to prior obligations. Sophomore Gerald Heng, who will turn 23 this summer, spent two and a half years in his home country of Singapore serving in the National Service.
Although the requirement has since been reduced to two years, the Singapore Government requires that all able-bodied male citizens complete service with the National Army in order to attain citizenship. Heng explained that although participation in the Service is required, he also took part for other reasons.
"[Serving in the Singapore Army] is mandatory for citizenship, but I wanted to do it before I came, as I felt that it would be a good maturing experience that would benefit me in college," Heng said.
Heng said that his experience in the Singapore Army socially prepared him for the transition into collegiate life.
"There was no difficulty in the transition [from the Singapore Army to Tufts]," Heng said. "It was initially strange mixing around with 17 to 18 year olds coming in as a 21-year-old freshman, but being in the Army allowed me to assimilate into college life rather easily."
Bull explained that this sense of acquired maturity can benefit students as they enter college.
"With a gap year student, you're going to have somebody who has had a half-step out into the world," Bull said. "People who've had a gap year are often more proactive and self-confident because they've had to create their own lives for a year. Gap year students often have something else to bring to the table; a core sense of self which you can't just get from sitting in a classroom or living at home."
Clark said that perhaps it was the environment at Tufts that ultimately made the transition run so smoothly.
"Because of the diverse and international nature of the Tufts student body, I really found a crowd of students who were a lot like me, and found the transition rather seamless," Clark said.
