Students promote gap year trend

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Matt Gnabasik and his 17-year-old daughter, Sofia Gnabasik talk to a representative from AMIGOS about volunteer work in Central America during Saturday's Gap Year Fair held at New Trier High School in Winnetka. Sofia is a senior at Oak Park/River Forest H

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Updated: March 10, 2012 8:04AM

“Life is long.”

Suzi Katlin’s comment may be at odds with conventional wisdom, but those who attended a recent Gap Year Fair a wanted to explore the road less traveled through life.

Katlin and her daughter Julia were looking for enriching programs Julia, a senior at New Trier High School in Winnetka, could pursue before starting college.

The experience is called a “gap year,” because, in most cases, the expectation is students will start college after a semester or two of other endeavors.

The Gap Year Fair at New Trier, the only such fair in Illinois this year, had representatives from 32 different gap-year programs. Students and their families, including some from the Oak Park area, turned out.

James Conroy, chairman of New Trier’s post-high school counseling department, is an enthusiastic supporter of the concept.

“I think it’s marvelous,” Conroy said. “This is not a race. It’s not who finishes college first wins a prize. Many kids are not ready for college or don’t want to go right after high school.”

Katlin agrees there is no rush. “Life is long. I feel there may be more maturing that needs to go on . . . before hunkering down and studying at college.” She also hopes her daughter will “become a global citizen.”

Companies and non-profit organizations offer gap year programs that feature job internships, community service projects, outdoor adventures, international travel and/or language immersion.

Speakers at the Gap Year Fair urged high school seniors to apply and get accepted to a college, even if they are considering a gap year. If a student commits to a gap program, he may ask the college to defer his admission for a semester or a year.

“That way you can go into your gap year, without having to worry about that,” said Holly Bull, president of the Center for Interim Programs in Princeton, N.J.

Bull, who spoke as part of a panel at Saturday’s fair, acknowledged some parents fear their children will lose interest in college if they don’t go right after high school.

“It will not divert you from your education, it will only enhance it,” Bull said. But she advised, “Make sure you have a plan for the entire gap year.”

Brad Field of Oak Park brought his son to the fair to help him find a plan.

“At an Oak Park-River Forest High School Parents Night, they were talking about college and they mentioned these gap year programs,” Field said. “Neither my wife, nor I did anything like this.” But his son mentioned he might not want to start college in the fall.

“My son said he wanted to work and get some experience, but it didn’t impress me he had a real plan. If you want to (postpone college), there has to be some point to it, otherwise you are better off being in college.”

“The economy is so bad, the only work he might be able to get is at McDonald’s,” Field said. “A university is not going to look at that as an enriching environment.”

On the other hand, students often are more enthusiastic learners after spending a gap year away from school, said Robert Clagett, who was the dean of admissions at Middlebury College and senior admissions officer at Harvard College for a combined 27 years.

“It’s going to lead to a higher level of maturity, greater focus and you’re going to get more out of this huge (college) investment. A gap year can be a reminder to you what education is all about. We hope you won’t look at it as a year off, but . . . . as a year on, and one that can make a big difference in your lives,”

The idea of a gap year is most popular in affluent areas, as some three-month programs to remote locations in Africa and Southeast Asia cost more than $14,000, but less expensive programs and scholarships exist. Students can stay in the United States and volunteer for organizations like City Year, which promotes civic leadership and education.

Rhonda Bell’s son Cameron was an uninspired senior at Walter Payton College Prep High School in Chicago, when he suggested postponing college.

In his classes, her son got every grade from A to F, Bell said, really applying himself only when he had to.

“He was proud of his little coasting, as he called it,” she said. As a single parent, Bell told her son she could not afford to send him on an exotic trip. She also insisted he get accepted at a college before he embark on his gap year.

What they agreed on, was for Cameron to work as an assistant teacher for seventh- and eighth-graders in Washington, D.C. He was paid $800 a month. He had to find a place to live that he could afford and roommates to share the cost. Commuting an hour to his job and paying for his own groceries were all new experiences for him, and ones that helped him mature to such an extent that Bell said he was like a different person. Cameron currently is studying art at Boston College.

Evan Ruda of Wilmette attended the gap year fair at his father’s insistence.

“I’ve been excited about college for a long time,” said Evan, 17, who was accepted at Tulane University in New Orleans. “I want to be on the same page as all my friends.”

“My wife and I thought it would be good to explore all his options,” his father, Fred Ruda, said.

Browsing among the vendors’ booths at the fair, Evan found a program that appealed to him, Amigos, which places students with host families in Nicaragua where they collaborate with the local community on service projects.

“I’m almost positive my minor will be in Spanish,” Evan said. “But, “I think I could get just as much experience studying abroad” during one of his college years, as he would postponing the start of college for an outside program.

Caiti Kengott was apprehensive about being a year older than the other students in her college classes, when she took a gap year to hike and experience the culture first in Central America, and then in South America last year. Kengott, 20, calls it “definitely the best decision I ever made.” Her friends now at University of Illinois are both freshmen and sophomore.

“You don’t really notice the age difference,” Kengott said, especially since freshmen and sophomore are enrolled in many of the same courses.

Abby Fernandez of Wilmette traveled to several parts of Africa with Real Gap Experience in the six months after she graduated high school. She worried about being exposed to malaria and bugs in general, but learned they weren’t as frightening as she imagined. She did get malaria, but a doctor in Zanzibar gave her the appropriate medication and she is malaria-free. She also got pink eye in both eyes. Those were the times she wished, “I was home at my doctor’s.”

But the first day Fernandez returned to the United States, she cried because she missed the friends she had made and the adventures she had, which included teaching in a school in South Africa and building fences to keep elephants from damaging farmers’ wells and pumps in Namibia.

Despite the draw Africa holds for her, Fernandez has no doubt she will complete her college education.

“I know I won’t be able to do all I want to do in my life if I don’t go to college,” Fernandez said.