Gap year uncommon, but growing

Focus, purpose needed to succeed, experts say

Roy McKenzie, 17, pictured Friday, excelled in his advanced placement studies and graduated from Prairie Grove High a year early. He will spend what would have been his senior year living in Spain before beginning college back in the United States.
Roy McKenzie, 17, pictured Friday, excelled in his advanced placement studies and graduated from Prairie Grove High a year early. He will spend what would have been his senior year living in Spain before beginning college back in the United States.

The game of life has been a well-worn, but limited, path after completing high school for many generations.

The next move? Find a job, join the military, marry and become a full-time homemaker, or enroll in some form of higher education or trade school.

At a glance

The American Gap Association, a nonprofit group that accredits organized programs, estimates 30,000 to 40,000 students in the United States take time off annually, whether for a semester or a year.

Source: Staff report

An increasing number of high school graduates, including one who calls this nation's White House her home, are venturing off those well-traveled routes.

Malia Obama, eldest daughter of President Barack and Michelle Obama, is taking a "gap year" before beginning Harvard University in the fall of 2017. In England, where the gap year is more common, Prince William and Prince Harry both took time off from school during the early 2000s.

Acceptance of the one-year hiatus between high school and college -- during which students typically travel, volunteer, study or work -- is slowly, steadily increasing in the United States. And taking the year off is no longer a practice of just the financially privileged.

More students are finding creative and frugal ways to have experiences similar to a yearlong international program, which can cost as much as $30,000.

Arkansas high school graduates are a slow-growing part of the trend.

Studying abroad

Roy McKenzie, 17, excelled in his advanced placement studies and graduated from Prairie Grove High a year early. He will spend what would have been his senior year living in Spain before beginning college back in the United States.

"Growing up in a small town like Prairie Grove, I was always looking for opportunities and making them for myself," he said.

When his cousin Maria, who lives in Spain, came to stay with McKenzie's family for a year between high school and college to have the American high school experience, he began thinking of doing the same with her family and took classes at the University of Arkansas so he could graduate early.

"When I told people I was thinking about doing this, they'd advise me not to rush my life away," he said. "I never wanted to rush. Instead, I was looking at whether the greatest value was going to come from me staying in high school doing the same thing for another year or finding some new opportunity."

His mom, Sarah McKenzie, executive director of the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas, said her son has no set financial plan for his gap year.

"I don't know how it's going to work over there," she said. "He may have to play his guitar on the street corner. But that's part of him taking this year and what he's going to learn. I think it's such a great opportunity for the kids to see themselves in a new light, learn from different kinds of people than they've ever met before and face some challenges on their own."

Roy McKenzie said the financial challenge is as much a part of the experience as the travel.

"I'm not afraid of having to work some to make some extra money and then not working to take the time to travel. And I'm hoping it will be a trade-off between those two things. That is one of the major perks of my having family there. I'd be a little more worried if I was just going to be dropped off at the airport," he said.

McKenzie will attend the University of Chicago, where he has a spot awaiting him, after he returns from Spain.

Growing interest

The American Gap Association, a nonprofit group that accredits organized programs, said enrollment in the association's programs has increased every school year since at least 2006, growing by about 23 percent between the academic years of 2013 and 2014.

Some universities have developed gap year programs, with some deferring freshman year enrollment and/or financial assistance. All eight schools in the Ivy League system now consider a gap year to be a positive choice for freshmen. Harvard urges members of its incoming classes to consider it. The university's dean of admissions, William Fitzsimmons, along with two other school officials, even wrote an online essay espousing the benefits of a gap year.

Some who take a gap year volunteer with organizations such as AmeriCorps' City Year, which pays the students' stipends to teach, or Global Citizen Year, which offers financial support to students who volunteer abroad, although admission to those programs is highly competitive. Others sign up for mission work either in the United States or overseas, while others travel, work or combine experiences.

Supporters of the gap-year path believe students who have a meaningful, adventurous year between high school and college are more focused, mature and goal-centered when they do start classes. Skeptics worry the sometimes expensive alternative might cause students to detour off course and never make it to college.

Those considering a gap year are encouraged to have concrete plans for college afterward (preferably having deferred enrollment in a university), have a specific plan for how they will spend their year and be at least partially financially invested (from their personal earnings and savings, not just their parents' money).

McKenzie said he believes a gap year experience gives students an additional perspective.

"If you spend the year doing something really interesting and exciting, it has a lot of value and makes you a better person. For me, this is a chance to see a lot of the world while I can still have a very pure enjoyment of it.

"It is also a time for reflection, to figure out what you want to major in, enrich yourself, and whatever you experience, you can bring it back to your community."

As for organized gap year programs, his mother is dubious about how much the participating students gain from them.

"There's an industry of people who organize trips to places like Costa Rica or India, but it's still sort of supervised summer camp," she said. "The greatest thing about a gap year is that it gives kids a chance to be independent and make some choices on their own."

Ethan Knight, founder of American Gap Association, told The New York Times the gap year is when book smarts and street smarts intersect.

"If anything, it connects the theory that they've been exposed to over their many years of education to the reality of what's going on in the real world," he said.

The University of Arkansas works to accommodate students wishing to take a gap year, said Suzanne McCray, associate professor of higher education, vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions.

"We do allow students to defer their admission and defer scholarships and federally funded financial aid for a year as long as we understand what that gap year is and is some kind of planned activity," McCray said. "We've had students go on mission trips, Rotary scholarships and study abroad. We are certainly very flexible. We want students to have exceptional experiences and encourage that, as long as they're not attending another university domestically.

"But we don't have a lot of students who do this; usually two or three a year," she said of the freshman class, which last year was about 4,900 students.

Taking step into adult world

While interest in a gap year is growing in Arkansas, there has been no flood of teens doing it.

Darla Tomasko, an assistant principal at Rogers Heritage High School, knows of few high school students who have taken a gap year, even though awareness of the idea is growing.

"I think it's a great idea if you have a very planned focus and if it's a year that's going to prepare you for what you are going to do," Tomasko said.

In high school, students see teachers and counselors on a frequent basis who remind them of deadlines for scholarships and college applications and can assist with financial aid forms, Tomasko said. When they graduate, students are welcome to contact their counselors or teachers, but they don't have daily access to that support system.

She's seen many students delay their college education who start working and don't go, she said. They buy a car and start to need money for bills, such as car insurance payments.

Heritage counselor Kim Favero thinks students, such as recent graduate Casey Pinkerton, can succeed in a gap year if they have a clear focus.

Pinkerton, 18, of Rogers worked 30 hours a week in two part-time jobs for most of the second half of her senior year. She and her father had a tough time after they found themselves without a home. Family and friends cared for them, she said.

"It was incredibly hard," Pinkerton said. "I was always super tired."

Pinkerton picked up a third job at Lucy's Diner in Rogers this month. She's saving money for a new apartment, parts for her car and wants to make sure her father is OK, she said.

She's also saving up for college, hoping to start either in the spring semester or in the fall of 2017. She's interested in business, psychology and sociology and is looking into a four-year business degree program offered through Northwest Arkansas Community College and the University of Arkansas.

Pinkerton's decision has drawn criticism, but college is a goal she plans to achieve.

"I don't want to spend all this money and take all these classes just to watch myself fail," Pinkerton said. "I would rather be completely settled and know what I'm doing, know what my next step is and go from there."

NW News on 06/20/2016

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