off you go now, gap year edition

It’s the third week of my writing retreat here at the Modern Elder Academy , and I’ve been diving deep into the history of gap years.?

Three things stand out from my research so far:

1. Gap years have historically been about more than privilege. They came about, and receded, due to war, transportation costs and the need for information exchange—specifically the arts. I’ll get into this more below in a very unedited sneak peek excerpt from my chapter.
2. Pretty much everyone who has ever taken a gap year, dating back to the 17th (!!) century feels the same way about them. Gap years are life-changing endeavors that have almost exactly the opposite impact on gappers than what people assume: they’re eye-opening, formative experiences that inform their choices for the rest of their lives. People return more humble and ready to make a dent in the universe; not sunburned, broke and partied out. (Though I’m sure many still return with elephant pants…we were all young once.)
3. BUT: there’s almost zero rigorous evidence on the impact of gap years. You either have to take centuries of gappers at their word, or believe parents, administrators, and professors who have witnessed the difference first-hand.

For one of those first-hand accounts, I recently interviewed Gap Year alum, current Stanford sophomore and nonprofit founder, Audrey Pe , on her gap year experience in her home country of the Philippines. You can listen to the interview on our YouTube Channel.

(If you have a gap year story to tell, reach out at the Sabbatical Project - we'd love to feature it.)

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This lack of great evidence is particularly disconcerting because I was hoping that gap years would be one of the easiest chapters for me to defend. My book is based on the stories, traditions, and rituals of individuals, companies and cultures who practice extended leave. Many examples are fairly new, if not niche—for example the midlife ritual and wisdom school they’re running down here in Mexico.?

But, given the history of gap years, and the relatively large (and growing) number who count themselves as alums, I was pretty surprised at the dearth of data to support anecdotes around the value of time off before college.?

The evidence I could find fits into three categories: qualitative survey data, decades of nearly-identical op-eds, and the revealed preference of university adoption.

• Survey Data

The Gap Year Association has the largest collection of data, surveys, and member organizations in the United States. It began conducting annual surveys in 2015, and polls approximately 1,800 gappers—somewhere around a quarter of those who took a year off of school—on their experiences. The link to the survey is here. Its results are about what you expect: “gap years foster internal and external skills development…and help participants for their next steps.”?

The former Dean of Middlebury, Bob Cladgett, now at the Gap Year Research Consortium,? found that students returning from gap years outperformed their counterparts on GPA, both freshman year, and throughout their college careers. Using an innovative approach, Cladgett also found that gap year alums outperformed their expected GPAs. The study and more background can be found here.

• Decades of repetitive op-eds

You’ve probably noticed that every time daylight savings comes around, the same NYT op-eds appear about how it needs to be abolished. Same with the electoral college every four years.?

Well, it turns out gap years are no different: 2000’s “It’s time out, or burn out for the next generation,” 2011’s “breaking the cradle to college to cubicle to cemetery cycle,” and 2016’s “reflections on a gap year decades after taking one” are just a few from the New York Times.

The most surprising things to me about this trend are: A—burnout has been a constant among high schoolers for at least twenty years, even as reports about increases in anxiety and other psychological issues among college freshmen have increased steeply; B—these aren’t written by regular schmoes like you and I, they’re written by folks like the Dean of Admissions at Harvard. If students want to take gap years, and admissions deans want students to take gap years…who’s to blame?

• Increasing adoption by colleges themselves

Indeed Universities are increasingly in on the act. For almost fifty (!) years, Harvard has encouraged admitted students to take a year off before matriculation.?

Universities in at least 39 states have explicit gap year policies. Moreover, they range from consequence-free deferrals to scholarships and stipends to spend the year away from school. Princeton offers structured domestic and international programming for gappers, while the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill—in partnership with Tilting Futures —gives program participants college credit AND a stipend while on gap year.

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Still with me? If so, here's an excerpt from my chapter about the history of gap years:

The idea of a gap year can be traced back to a rite of passage among upper class European young men of “sufficient means and rank.”?

It was traditionally undertaken as a rite of passage at around 21 years of age, for educational purposes. In the Grand Tour heyday—from 17th to early 19th century—art associated with a sophisticated education existed primarily in Italy. The most famous musicians of the day didn’t tour; hearing their music was an opportunity exclusively reserved for the highest bidders.?

Youth on Grand Tours were commonly accompanied by a tutor, with the aims of extracting what Lassel described in 1670 as the liberal education of a traveler: “intellectual, social, ethical (drawing moral instruction from all the traveler saw) and political.” However, what these landed gentry possessed in resources, they lacked in originality, and the well-worn stops along Tour soon became the butt of jokes. In perhaps the world’s first published roast of sabbaticals, Mark Twain famously skewered the Grand Tourists in his 1869 satirical travelogue “The Innocents Abroad.”?

But we love the Old Travelers…They always throw out a few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded every individual and know that he has not traveled…Their central idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant and humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory!

The book went on to become Twain’s best selling novel, and remains one of the best selling travel books of all time.

As methods of transportation became cheaper and more widely accessible, the route started to become more of a tourist attraction, thus losing its exclusivity and prestige. Soon afterwards, decades of conflict throughout the European continent, stretching from the Napoleonic through the second World Wars, decreased both the supply of, and the appetite for, Tourers.

But the privileged are gonna privilege.?

The modern reincarnation of the Gap Year can be traced to post-World War II Britain, where for two decades, all young men were conscripted at the age of 18 for two years of national service. But this moment of quasi-accessibility among gap year-takers was short lived. The military draft ended in the 60’s, but it had both a lasting impact on the national perception on the importance of public service, and it left the impression on campus that (male) students performed much better after a couple years of growing up.?

Due to an easily fixable, but quintessentially British, bureaucratic quirk older than most schools on the planet, entrance exams at Oxford and Cambridge were only offered in the middle of the school year. This meant that students intending to sit for these exams had to prepare for six months, and wait nine months between the exam and the start of school in September during which to entertain themselves. Organizations sprung up to usher Oxbridgians into some form of public service, the first, and most famous, being the namesake for gap years itself: Gap Activity Projects (GAP).?

In a cruel twist of capitalist fate, (and not the last you’ll read over the course of this book), Gap Activity Projects was forced to rebrand itself in 2008, after clothing retailer Gap Inc sued a gap year organization called “Gap Sports” for trademark infringement. After enabling close to 50,000 education volunteer gap year service trips, Latitude Global Volunteering liquidated during the pandemic in 2021.

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Okay, back to writing in Baja! If you want to join us for MEA's "Sabbatical Sessions," take a look. It's a great, loosely-structured, relaxing way to spend a week or more. I've even got a discount code--DJD25--which makes me feel like I'm sponsored or something ;)

[not pictured: my actual feet]

Off you go now,

dj.