Eye on the Goal

There's been little other research on how gap years affect students' grades in college or what influence they've had on their careers. Recently, however, Harvard University Press contracted with two former federal education policy officials to write a book surveying gap year "alumni" about what they did in their time off, how they fared in college courses and what careers they chose.

Rae Nelson, who with her husband, Karl Haigler, is writing the book, says more solid research might convince more parents -- especially those whose children do not earn top grades -- that taking a gap year can be beneficial and does not deter college enrollment.

"We're focusing so much on the fast track, but the vast majority of kids are falling off the track. Of all the high school freshmen today who enter college later, only 18 percent graduate in six years," says Nelson, who with Haigler has already written a how-to book for taking a gap year. "Taking that time out after high school can turn someone passionate about education. There's a strong sense of personal responsibility."

The motivations to take a gap year can run the gamut. But ranking high, educators and students say, is the soaring stress of high school. Is it any coincidence that the gap year phenomena runs parallel to the increasing number of students taking Advanced Placement courses and applying to elite colleges? For the most part, students say they want a reprieve, a chance to get away from bubble answer sheets, standardized exams and college admissions paranoia.

But the irony is that the gap year risks becoming like just another award studding the résumés of students on the elite academic track. Some colleges and universities are even starting to promote the gap year as a way to gain admission. Georgetown University occasionally asks a few students to take a gap year and defer enrollment so that the school can hang on to more of the best high school students after the incoming freshman class has reached its capacity. And on its admissions Web site, Harvard University acknowledges the usefulness of a gap year while sympathizing with the academic straitjackets of today's uber high-schooler. In an essay titled "Time Out or Burn Out for the Next Generation," the dean and director of admissions offer this tantalizing line: "Occasionally students are admitted to Harvard or other colleges in part because they accomplished something unusual during a year off."

But Stephen Bartlett, who teaches International Baccalaureate physics at George Marshall High School and who wrote one of Bill's recommendations to U-Va., believes a gap year can be of great value to high-achieving students if they use the opportunity to unwind and gain perspective. Most of his pupils still plan on moving straight from high school to an elite college, but "the gap year makes a stronger student in the longer run," he says.

"There's so much academic pressure on most of my IB kids to do well on exams, and I don't know if their parents make them feel that way or not," Bartlett says. "Last November, I had a student sliding off the rails, and we had a parent conference, and I suggested a gap year. The mother was a real go-getter type of woman, and she had a very stern look, like: 'Not my child. My child is going to college.' She had this all figured out."

BILL'S PARENTS FULLY SUPPORTED HIS TAKING A GAP YEAR TO PLAY HOCKEY. After all, they've been rearing him on the sport since he was a 9-year-old boy growing up in Rhode Island. Bill started off on roller skates, playing street hockey before starting lessons on the ice. He immediately felt a natural connection to the rink and liked the way the game makes you move your feet constantly.

"Even when you're away from the puck, you're always getting ready for the next move," Bill explains. "You're anticipating the next step. You're constantly thinking that if you're too late, they're going to score a goal."

The league Bill is playing in, the Atlantic Junior Hockey League (AJHL), is considered by many to be the fourth-best in USA Hockey, which oversees 14 junior leagues, with about 200 teams across the country. The AJHL sends about 10 players a year to NCAA Division I hockey schools. The top league is the United States Hockey League (USHL), which sends more than 100 players a year to Division I schools, says Dave Tyler, who retired in June as a vice president of USA Hockey. It's rare for a high school student to win a college hockey scholarship without playing in the junior leagues.

In some ways, the intense, goal-focused competition of the AJHL has helped Bill mature. He has a girlfriend for the first time and, on the side, is holding down a job analyzing blueprints at an electrical contracting company. But in other ways, the gap year has preserved him in a state of stagnated adolescence. He lives with his parents, who tend to him as if he were still a high-schooler, with his mom, Young Day, preparing meals or picking up new undershirts for him at the store. He still has to look out for his 16-year-old brother, Jimmy, who also plays for the Junior Nationals. And without serious academic work looming, he spends much of his free time watching television -- he loves "Seinfeld" reruns and "Entourage" -- and hanging out with friends.

That's partly because he's just 18. But like many gap year students, Bill says he's also redressing some of the stress he faced at Marshall High. In those days, he woke up at 6:30 a.m. so he could be at school by 7:20. By his senior year, his academic load of all IB courses was just as grueling as his hockey schedule. After four classes a day, some of which lasted 90 minutes, he would get home about 2:30 p.m. and eat an early dinner. By 3 p.m., he would head upstairs for a few hours of homework. Then, at 6:30, three nights a week, he had hockey practice. He wouldn't get home until about midnight, at which point he would do more homework, before finally getting some sleep.