The gap year can be simple and easy, or as challenging as a student wants it to be. If they want a year away from their regular program at the university where they’ve been accepted, it may ease their mind to know that there are many schools of higher learning that are perfectly willing to allow them to defer their attendance for a year. They’ll also be glad to know that if they want to go abroad, then they will go with not just with the school’s blessing but also under the auspices of their chosen university or college, as some institutions allow and promote that as well.

Universities that either accept or even encourage taking a gap year are multiplying in the United States. Harvard University might even be called an old hand at this, since for 35 years they’re been sending acceptance letters to applicants suggesting that they might want to defer for a year, to give themselves a breather after high school. And Yale, another grizzled veteran of the gap year, has always allowed a student to take the extra year. It just doesn’t actively suggest it the way Harvard does.

Franklin & Marshall College of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, outdo Harvard and Yale one better, though. Reasoning that a student really needs a few months to transition out of the high school mentality and into the more adult world of college, this school started a “January Program” that allows these young people to defer starting their first semester courses. Instead, they can choose to participate in school-sponsored programs, like a course of study in Italy, or learning mountaineering. Princeton University is another of the schools with the same idea, using its “Bridge Program” to allow students to engage in community service work in other countries for a year.

Even at the high school level, the gap year concept is being promoted. For example, the Los Angeles college preparatory school, Harvard-Westlake, has hosted “gap year fairs,” where representatives from various programs present the available opportunities to students. Other public learning institutes are beginning to follow suit.

If a student wants to take a gap year and have a break, then he or she can go in several possible directions. The young person might choose the fairly unstructured way of just living at home and having a job for a year. Or there’s the more fancy free youth travel option, with a backpack. But if they’d still like a bit of structure and supervision, then they may want to see if their own schools have gap year work programs, and get the best of both worlds.

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