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As many high school graduates spend time this summer getting their new laptops and linens to take to college, others are getting their passports and heading off on a kind of 1)sabbatical. A growing number of students are taking what they call a “gap year.” It’s a break from the academic 2)grind and a chance to explore the real world.
“Once you lock in to the next four years of college, there are expectations, and you’ll never have this time to do whatever you want,” says James Clark, a 17-year-old who just graduated from one of the best 3)prep schools in the Boston area. A self-described perfectionist, no one was really surprised when Clark got in to a bunch of top colleges. But he did surprise many when he wrote back to his first choice and said he wasn’t coming—at least for now.
“I mean, unless I turn out to be a rock star,” Clark says, “I’ll never have this freedom again, and that’s why I knew I needed to seize this opportunity.” Clark is off this fall to do 4)field research in the Tibetan mountains, martial arts in Tiananmen Square and 5)scuba diving somewhere in South America. He says he hopes to “6)loosen up” and get in touch with what he really likes to do—without having to think about whether it will look good on his résumé.
Gap years have long been popular in Europe. There’s no 7)hard data on gap years in the U.S., but colleges, consultants and travel-abroad programs all say more kids are doing it.
At 8)Swarthmore College, the number of gap years doubled this coming academic year. (Students who want to 9)defer to take a gap year have to write a short essay on why they want the time and what they will do with it.) Dean of Admissions Jim Bock says overscheduled and overachieving kids are trying to reclaim the 10)downtime that is otherwise built in to students’ schedules. “Summers have disappeared completely, sadly, because so many [students] are doing what they think will look good on college applications,” Bock says. “So I actually think the gap year may be the new summer.”
For some kids, the gap year means time to pursue a long-time passion. For others, like Nicola Rentschler, it’s about pushing yourself into new territory. Rentschler was never an 11)animal person, but she signed up to help 12)rehabilitate wild penguins in South Africa. “You have to like, 13)wrangle them, you have to hold them. They bite and they 14)claw. You’d be surprised how many ways they can actually hurt you,” she says. “It’s a confidence thing because I had to push myself completely out of my comfort zone.”
Depending on where students go, what they choose to do, and how willing they are to “15)rough it” or 16)fend for themselves, gap years can end up costing anywhere from just a few thousand dollars to as much as $20,000. Many kids work at home for several months to save money before heading off to teach English in Peru, for example, or to work as a beekeeper’s assistant in France. Some parents are happy to 17)foot the bill for that rather than let a kid who is not ready for college waste a full year’s tuition. Schools say kids come back from gap years much more mature, ready to learn and 18)self-sufficient than they ever were when they graduated high school.
“A lot of these kids are coming out [of high school] with one set of skills—that is: how to be a good student,” says Gail Reardon, program director of Taking Off, a gap year consultancy group. “That doesn’t really give [students] life skills.”
Reardon’s business has more than tripled in the last few years as more kids take gap years and need help making it happen. As Reardon sees it, gap years are about letting kids make mistakes before their mistakes really 19)count. But as gap year consultants and programs 20)proliferate, college consultant Steven Goodman says not all of them allow kids that chance. “I mean, if everything is taken care of for a student, that does defeat some of the purpose of why [they’re] engaged in this in the first place,” Goodman says.
Others worry that gap-year programs will become the exclusive 21)provenance of upper middle class kids who already head to college with many advantages. Gap years tend to be more common with wealthier kids looking for the kind of 22)grittier, real world challenges that Johns Hopkins professor Stefanie DeLuca says other kids can’t avoid. “For the other end of the socio-economic spectrum, the gap year is not called the gap year,” says DeLuca. “It’s just called life.”
Colleges say a gap year doesn’t have to be costly. Students could 23)intern with a state representative or work in a national service program. 24)Princeton University is planning to 25)subsidize students who spend a year doing public service. Comparative literature professor Sandra Bermann, who heads a committee at Princeton that is working out details of what they call their “bridge year,” is hoping that 10 percent of freshmen will eventually take advantage of the offer. “There’s this 26)chasm between the kids who have everything and get every possibility as they prepare for their college years, and those who are working every summer as 27)cashiers just to get to college,” she says. “We want to be really sure to make it as easy for them, as for anyone else, to experience something as 28)transformative as the bridge year.”
今年夏天，当许多高中毕业生为即将到来的大学生活购置新笔记本电脑和床单被铺时，另一些高中毕业生却在准备护照，决定暂停求学步伐进入一段休假期。越来越多的学生选择在进入大学之前进行休假，暂时从学术苦海中挣脱出来，给自己一个探索真实世界的机会。他们把这样的休假期称之为“间隔年”。
17岁的詹姆斯•克拉克刚刚从美国波士顿地区一所一流预科学校毕业。他说：“一旦跨进为时四年的大学生涯，你就会有各种期盼，就不再有时间去做那些自己想做的事情。”克拉克自称是一个完美主义者，他被一系列顶尖大学相中的时候，大家都不觉得奇怪。但是，当他写信回复他首选入读的大学，说自己不会去报到——至少目前是这样，这件事情倒是让许多人吃惊不已。
“我的意思是，除非我以后成了一名摇滚巨星，”克拉克说，“我不会再有这样的自由，这就是为什么我知道自己需要抓住这个机会。”今年秋天，克拉克会休假到西藏山区去做实地调查，到天安门广场看武术表演，还要到南美某个地方玩深海潜水。他说希望“放松一下筋骨”，接触一些自己真正喜欢做的事情，而不在乎这些经历会不会为自己的简历增色。
间隔年在欧洲一直很流行。虽然，在美国没有关于间隔年的硬数据，但是，大学、咨询公司和出国旅行项目均称，现在越来越多孩子热衷于享受间隔年。
在即将到来的这个学年，斯沃斯莫尔学院申请间隔年的学生人数增加了一倍。（想要申请延期学业进行间隔年的学生必须写一篇简短的文章，说明自己为什么需要这段时间以及期间的打算。）招生办主任吉姆•波克说，日程满满、各方面表现卓越的学生正尽量“索回”那些本应包含在学生日程安排上的休息时间。“可悲的是，暑假已消失得无影无踪，因为太多（学生）正在做着自认为能为自己的大学入学申请增色的事情，”波克说，“所以，实际上，我认为间隔年可以算作新的暑假。”
对于有些孩子来说，间隔年意味着有时间去追寻自己的长期爱好。对于其他人来说，例如尼古拉•伦特斯勒，间隔年则意味着将自己推入一个全新的领域。伦特斯勒从来都不是一个动物爱好者，然而她却报名去南非帮助照看野生企鹅。“你必须得喜欢这些企鹅，要赶它们，抓得住它们。它们会咬人，爪子也会抓人。实际上它们伤害你的方式多得让你吃惊，”她说，“这是件需要信心去做的事情，因为我得完完全全地走出惯常的舒适地带。”
间隔年的开销从几千美元到高达两万美元不等，这取决于学生选择去哪里、做些什么以及是否愿意因陋就简地生活或者自我谋生。许多孩子会在家里工作几个月存了些钱之后才开始他们的间隔年生活，例如去秘鲁教英语或者在法国当一名养蜂人的助手。相比让一个还没有准备好上大学的孩子浪费一整年的学费，许多父母更乐意为孩子的间隔年买单。与刚刚从高中毕业时相比，学校说，经历了间隔年的孩子回来后变得更成熟、更热爱学习、也更独立。
“许多孩子（高中）毕业时都学到了一套技能，那就是如何成为一名好学生。可这并没有真正带给学生什么生活技能。”间隔年咨询公司“起飞”的项目总监盖尔•里尔顿说。
由于更多的孩子选择间隔年并且需要帮助，因此在过去几年里，里尔顿的业务增长了三倍多。在里尔顿看来，间隔年就是让孩子们在还输得起的时候跌撞成长。不过，大学顾问史蒂文•古德曼说，随着间隔年咨询公司及项目的激增，并不是所有的间隔年都能让孩子们获得那样的机会。“我指的是，如果学生的一切都被照料好了，那么就违背了学生当初选择间隔年的某些初衷。”古德曼说。
另一些人则担心间隔年项目会被上流社会的孩子独占。这些即将进入大学的社会中上阶层孩子本身已经具备了多种优势。间隔年在那些寻求真实世界中的挫折和挑战的富家孩子中更普遍，但约翰霍普金斯大学的斯蒂芬妮•德卢卡教授认为，这些挑战也是其他孩子在生活中不可避免的。“从社会经济层面的另一端来看，间隔年并不被称作间隔年，”德卢卡说，“那根本就是生活。”
各高校宣称，间隔年并不需要花费很多。学生们可以给州众议员当实习生或者参与某个全国服务项目。普林斯顿大学正计划给那些花一年时间从事公共服务工作的学生发放补贴。普林斯顿大学比较文学教授桑德拉•伯尔曼正在率领一个委员会制定他们称之为“过渡年”的详细规则，希望最终有百分之十的大一新生能利用这样的机会。“有些孩子在准备进入大学时已经万事俱备，而有些孩子却不得不在每个暑假兼职做收银员以赚取就读大学的费用，这些孩子之间存在着巨大差别，”她说，“我们真切地希望确保他们能和其他任何人一样，可以轻松地去经历像‘过渡年’那样具有变革性的事情。”
“Once you lock in to the next four years of college, there are expectations, and you’ll never have this time to do whatever you want,” says James Clark, a 17-year-old who just graduated from one of the best 3)prep schools in the Boston area. A self-described perfectionist, no one was really surprised when Clark got in to a bunch of top colleges. But he did surprise many when he wrote back to his first choice and said he wasn’t coming—at least for now.
“I mean, unless I turn out to be a rock star,” Clark says, “I’ll never have this freedom again, and that’s why I knew I needed to seize this opportunity.” Clark is off this fall to do 4)field research in the Tibetan mountains, martial arts in Tiananmen Square and 5)scuba diving somewhere in South America. He says he hopes to “6)loosen up” and get in touch with what he really likes to do—without having to think about whether it will look good on his résumé.
Gap years have long been popular in Europe. There’s no 7)hard data on gap years in the U.S., but colleges, consultants and travel-abroad programs all say more kids are doing it.
At 8)Swarthmore College, the number of gap years doubled this coming academic year. (Students who want to 9)defer to take a gap year have to write a short essay on why they want the time and what they will do with it.) Dean of Admissions Jim Bock says overscheduled and overachieving kids are trying to reclaim the 10)downtime that is otherwise built in to students’ schedules. “Summers have disappeared completely, sadly, because so many [students] are doing what they think will look good on college applications,” Bock says. “So I actually think the gap year may be the new summer.”
For some kids, the gap year means time to pursue a long-time passion. For others, like Nicola Rentschler, it’s about pushing yourself into new territory. Rentschler was never an 11)animal person, but she signed up to help 12)rehabilitate wild penguins in South Africa. “You have to like, 13)wrangle them, you have to hold them. They bite and they 14)claw. You’d be surprised how many ways they can actually hurt you,” she says. “It’s a confidence thing because I had to push myself completely out of my comfort zone.”
Depending on where students go, what they choose to do, and how willing they are to “15)rough it” or 16)fend for themselves, gap years can end up costing anywhere from just a few thousand dollars to as much as $20,000. Many kids work at home for several months to save money before heading off to teach English in Peru, for example, or to work as a beekeeper’s assistant in France. Some parents are happy to 17)foot the bill for that rather than let a kid who is not ready for college waste a full year’s tuition. Schools say kids come back from gap years much more mature, ready to learn and 18)self-sufficient than they ever were when they graduated high school.
“A lot of these kids are coming out [of high school] with one set of skills—that is: how to be a good student,” says Gail Reardon, program director of Taking Off, a gap year consultancy group. “That doesn’t really give [students] life skills.”
Reardon’s business has more than tripled in the last few years as more kids take gap years and need help making it happen. As Reardon sees it, gap years are about letting kids make mistakes before their mistakes really 19)count. But as gap year consultants and programs 20)proliferate, college consultant Steven Goodman says not all of them allow kids that chance. “I mean, if everything is taken care of for a student, that does defeat some of the purpose of why [they’re] engaged in this in the first place,” Goodman says.
Others worry that gap-year programs will become the exclusive 21)provenance of upper middle class kids who already head to college with many advantages. Gap years tend to be more common with wealthier kids looking for the kind of 22)grittier, real world challenges that Johns Hopkins professor Stefanie DeLuca says other kids can’t avoid. “For the other end of the socio-economic spectrum, the gap year is not called the gap year,” says DeLuca. “It’s just called life.”
Colleges say a gap year doesn’t have to be costly. Students could 23)intern with a state representative or work in a national service program. 24)Princeton University is planning to 25)subsidize students who spend a year doing public service. Comparative literature professor Sandra Bermann, who heads a committee at Princeton that is working out details of what they call their “bridge year,” is hoping that 10 percent of freshmen will eventually take advantage of the offer. “There’s this 26)chasm between the kids who have everything and get every possibility as they prepare for their college years, and those who are working every summer as 27)cashiers just to get to college,” she says. “We want to be really sure to make it as easy for them, as for anyone else, to experience something as 28)transformative as the bridge year.”
今年夏天，当许多高中毕业生为即将到来的大学生活购置新笔记本电脑和床单被铺时，另一些高中毕业生却在准备护照，决定暂停求学步伐进入一段休假期。越来越多的学生选择在进入大学之前进行休假，暂时从学术苦海中挣脱出来，给自己一个探索真实世界的机会。他们把这样的休假期称之为“间隔年”。
17岁的詹姆斯•克拉克刚刚从美国波士顿地区一所一流预科学校毕业。他说：“一旦跨进为时四年的大学生涯，你就会有各种期盼，就不再有时间去做那些自己想做的事情。”克拉克自称是一个完美主义者，他被一系列顶尖大学相中的时候，大家都不觉得奇怪。但是，当他写信回复他首选入读的大学，说自己不会去报到——至少目前是这样，这件事情倒是让许多人吃惊不已。
“我的意思是，除非我以后成了一名摇滚巨星，”克拉克说，“我不会再有这样的自由，这就是为什么我知道自己需要抓住这个机会。”今年秋天，克拉克会休假到西藏山区去做实地调查，到天安门广场看武术表演，还要到南美某个地方玩深海潜水。他说希望“放松一下筋骨”，接触一些自己真正喜欢做的事情，而不在乎这些经历会不会为自己的简历增色。
间隔年在欧洲一直很流行。虽然，在美国没有关于间隔年的硬数据，但是，大学、咨询公司和出国旅行项目均称，现在越来越多孩子热衷于享受间隔年。
在即将到来的这个学年，斯沃斯莫尔学院申请间隔年的学生人数增加了一倍。（想要申请延期学业进行间隔年的学生必须写一篇简短的文章，说明自己为什么需要这段时间以及期间的打算。）招生办主任吉姆•波克说，日程满满、各方面表现卓越的学生正尽量“索回”那些本应包含在学生日程安排上的休息时间。“可悲的是，暑假已消失得无影无踪，因为太多（学生）正在做着自认为能为自己的大学入学申请增色的事情，”波克说，“所以，实际上，我认为间隔年可以算作新的暑假。”
对于有些孩子来说，间隔年意味着有时间去追寻自己的长期爱好。对于其他人来说，例如尼古拉•伦特斯勒，间隔年则意味着将自己推入一个全新的领域。伦特斯勒从来都不是一个动物爱好者，然而她却报名去南非帮助照看野生企鹅。“你必须得喜欢这些企鹅，要赶它们，抓得住它们。它们会咬人，爪子也会抓人。实际上它们伤害你的方式多得让你吃惊，”她说，“这是件需要信心去做的事情，因为我得完完全全地走出惯常的舒适地带。”
间隔年的开销从几千美元到高达两万美元不等，这取决于学生选择去哪里、做些什么以及是否愿意因陋就简地生活或者自我谋生。许多孩子会在家里工作几个月存了些钱之后才开始他们的间隔年生活，例如去秘鲁教英语或者在法国当一名养蜂人的助手。相比让一个还没有准备好上大学的孩子浪费一整年的学费，许多父母更乐意为孩子的间隔年买单。与刚刚从高中毕业时相比，学校说，经历了间隔年的孩子回来后变得更成熟、更热爱学习、也更独立。
“许多孩子（高中）毕业时都学到了一套技能，那就是如何成为一名好学生。可这并没有真正带给学生什么生活技能。”间隔年咨询公司“起飞”的项目总监盖尔•里尔顿说。
由于更多的孩子选择间隔年并且需要帮助，因此在过去几年里，里尔顿的业务增长了三倍多。在里尔顿看来，间隔年就是让孩子们在还输得起的时候跌撞成长。不过，大学顾问史蒂文•古德曼说，随着间隔年咨询公司及项目的激增，并不是所有的间隔年都能让孩子们获得那样的机会。“我指的是，如果学生的一切都被照料好了，那么就违背了学生当初选择间隔年的某些初衷。”古德曼说。
另一些人则担心间隔年项目会被上流社会的孩子独占。这些即将进入大学的社会中上阶层孩子本身已经具备了多种优势。间隔年在那些寻求真实世界中的挫折和挑战的富家孩子中更普遍，但约翰霍普金斯大学的斯蒂芬妮•德卢卡教授认为，这些挑战也是其他孩子在生活中不可避免的。“从社会经济层面的另一端来看，间隔年并不被称作间隔年，”德卢卡说，“那根本就是生活。”
各高校宣称，间隔年并不需要花费很多。学生们可以给州众议员当实习生或者参与某个全国服务项目。普林斯顿大学正计划给那些花一年时间从事公共服务工作的学生发放补贴。普林斯顿大学比较文学教授桑德拉•伯尔曼正在率领一个委员会制定他们称之为“过渡年”的详细规则，希望最终有百分之十的大一新生能利用这样的机会。“有些孩子在准备进入大学时已经万事俱备，而有些孩子却不得不在每个暑假兼职做收银员以赚取就读大学的费用，这些孩子之间存在着巨大差别，”她说，“我们真切地希望确保他们能和其他任何人一样，可以轻松地去经历像‘过渡年’那样具有变革性的事情。”