I still remember the well-loved leather chair where I sat drinking black coffee in a coffee shop on Nassau Street while reading Delaying the Real World: A Twenty-Something’s Guide to Seeking Adventure. It was May 2006: I had just turned in my senior thesis—a 100-page philosophical treatise on morality and the nature of blame—and my lacrosse team had just fallen in the NCAA semifinals. This was the first book I could remember reading purely for pleasure in four years. With only two classes and no lacrosse commitments for the next few weeks before graduation, I finally had the time and space to find perspective. I’d survived a grind. I craved a break from rigid schedules and competitive expectations. I wanted to do the least Princeton-esque thing I could think of: postpone grad school and travel off the beaten path, untethered to a plan.
The next year found me backpacking around New Zealand, hiking and skydiving and scrubbing hotel toilets to pay my way. A romantic interest in a Scottish whitewater rafting guide who led me through the Shotover Canyon improbably sparked my career in education when I followed him to Scotland the next year for my first teaching job in a Scottish boarding school. As our love story limped to its end—his car broke down more often than either of us could afford—I transitioned back to the US and felt ready to tackle the real world. Achievement culture had loosened its grip on me long enough for curiosity and serendipity to take over, and I’d become a refreshed, even more motivated version of myself.
Do Gap Years Hurt In College Admissions
Today, high schoolers navigating standardized testing, rigorous coursework, competitive leadership roles, selective club sports, social media comparison culture, and impossibly low college acceptance rates are experiencing pressures exceeding what most of the adults in their lives faced in college. For many of my students, the burnout I felt at 22 now greets them at 18. I draw from personal experience of my own post-college “gap years” when parents ask me whether taking a gap year before starting college is the right move for their child. Underlying this question is almost always a layer of fear or anxiety: are we throwing away the last four years of hard work? Will taking time off jeopardize their college matriculation? Will they lose momentum and struggle to restart?
The reassuring news for families is that selective colleges generally do not penalize well-planned gap years. In fact, many encourage them. Harvard has long endorsed the practice, with roughly 80–110 admitted students choosing to defer enrollment each year. Yale and MIT maintain formal deferral policies (MIT’s states that deferral requests are “indeed, often encouraged!”), while Princeton and Tufts have gone a step further by creating their own structured bridge-year programs—the Novogratz Bridge Year Program and Tufts 1+4, respectively— both focused on immersive community engagement and service.
What the Research Says About Gap Year Students
The research surrounding gap years is equally reassuring. A widely cited Middlebury College study found that students who took gap years earned GPAs that were, on average, 0.1–0.2 points higher than their peers across all four years of college. According to the Gap Year Association, approximately 90% of gap-year students enroll in college within a year, and they graduate at higher rates than students who matriculate immediately. Participation in gap years has also spiked in recent years, roughly tripling between 2019 and 2023 as families, educators, and admissions offices alike have begun to rethink the relationship between achievement and readiness.
This distinction is an important one, as Dr. Lisa Damour argues in her New York Times piece “Getting In to College Doesn’t Mean Students Are Ready to Go.” A student can be academically capable of succeeding at a highly selective university while still arriving emotionally depleted, intellectually aimless, and unmoored from the support systems they’ve grown to rely on. My TTA colleagues and I have found there are two situations in which a strategic pause can strengthen not only a student’s well-being, but their long-term trajectory.
Scenario one: The student who got in, but has nothing left in the tank.
Sometimes the sign that a student needs a gap year is masked by the achievement: they’ve gotten into their dream school, but at an unsustainable cost. These students led their school newspapers, engaged in original research, captained their teams, and gained admission to their first-choice colleges, only to arrive at high school graduation emotionally exhausted and dreading stepping back on the treadmill after the summer. For many students, a year spent working, traveling, or volunteering is enough to restore the curiosity and independence they’d lost to the grind of high school. They arrive on campus rejuvenated and ready to engage fully in campus life.
Scenario two: The student whose admissions results don’t reflect their potential.
Parents often tell me they feel their students are finally hitting their stride during the second semester of senior year, after the weight of the college application process has been lifted from their shoulders. More present with their classes, family, and friends, they become more intellectually curious and self-assured versions of themselves. Sometimes this growth comes too late to be reflected in their applications; in turn, their admissions outcomes fail to capture the trajectory they are truly on. A well-structured gap year can provide the time and perspective they need to realize their potential and demonstrate their readiness to colleges. As Top Tier Admissions CEO Dr. Liz Doe Stone notes in her Forbes piece, the rise of partnerships and transfer pathways between programs like Verto Education and selective admissions offices is evidence that colleges value the growth students experience during these years.
Incidentally, my family just returned from a sort of collective gap year during my husband’s sabbatical in Western Australia. We spent Christmas Eve in short-sleeved pajamas and New Year’s Day barbequing on the beach. The kids wore school uniforms with wide-brimmed hats, discovered “fairy bread,” and never quite acquired a taste for vegemite. Did they miss travel team tryouts and lose some footing in their old friends’ groups back home? Sure. But they also became more adaptable, adventurous (and cutely accented) versions of themselves. For our family, the year reinforced something I’ve come to believe deeply: stepping off the treadmill can ultimately move all of us further along than staying on it.
Your Gap Year Questions Answered
Here are some Frequently Asked Questions we typically hear from our students about taking gap years:
Should I apply to colleges while still in high school or wait until my gap year?
In most cases, we recommend students apply to colleges during senior year and request a deferral after enrolling. This timeline allows students to leverage the momentum and support systems already in place at school. If the student has been accepted to a college they’re happy to attend, they’ll have the comfort of knowing it’s waiting for them when they return from their gap year. If the student falls under “scenario two” above and seeks stronger options of schools that will stretch them, they could forego enrollment and reapply during their gap year. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that the five months between high school graduation and the next early application cycle is typically not long enough to substantially strengthen their candidacy.
How do I defer enrollment?
After committing to a college, students submit a formal deferral request explaining how they plan to spend the year and why the experience will better prepare them for college. Policies vary by institution, but many selective colleges are fully supportive of thoughtful, well-structured requests. Students will have to sign a deferral agreement, some of which explicitly state that they will not apply to other colleges during their deferral year.
How much of a plan do I need?
Students do not need every month mapped out in advance. Colleges generally want to see evidence of intentionality and forward thinking, but they will not audit your gap year. Meaningful work, service, academic exploration, outdoor leadership, creative projects, or experiential programs can all form the foundation of a successful gap year proposal.
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Anita holds a BA in Philosophy from Princeton, where she is an alumni class officer and former interviewer, and an MA in English from Middlebury. At Princeton she also contributed her drive and competitiveness to the women’s lacrosse team, winning an NCAA Division I National Championship and three Ivy League Championships while earning national scholar-athlete academic distinction and the Connie McAllister athletic department award for “effort, selfless dedication, enthusiasm and heart.” She brings these qualities to her relationships with students as she helps to bring out the best in them.
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