International public service opens your eyes and can make you a better student.



Danny Hage's senior year at Northwest Guilford High School in Greensboro, N.C., was intense. He took four Advanced Placement classes. He played soccer. He was student body president. It all paid off when he was admitted to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, but he was exhausted. Looking into a future of school and work, Hage figured someday he'd retire and have grand experiences. Then he realized, "Why wait 60 years and make a foolish circle just to do what I could do right now?"
So Hage applied for UNC's Global Gap Year fellowship, which paid for him to travel and do service projects before enrolling. He's now in Thailand teaching Shan Burmese refugees. "My gap year has thrown me out of my comfort zone," he says, as he sees his students try to learn despite hardships. He knows he'll be a different person than if he had enrolled right away.
This week, thousands of young people around the USA made their decisions on next year's college plans. If you've been admitted to one of your top choice schools, you probably can't wait to start. And you should — but maybe not yet. As a growing number of students are discovering, taking time off between high school and college can not only make you a more interesting person, it also might make you a better student. As Hage says, "There is no better education than having the world as your teacher."


The admissions grind
Like Hage, many high schoolers find senior year stressful. Elite colleges are increasingly selective. Princeton University, for instance, saw applications rise 94% in the past 10 years.
John Luria, director of Princeton's Bridge Year program, which offers support for international public service, notes that kids "need a break from this pressure to constantly excel and achieve."
For many teens, says Bob Clagett, director of college counseling at St. Stephen's Episcopal School in Austin, "Getting in has become an end in itself, not a means to an end." Add in the challenges of moving from home, and burned out students can squander their first college years. But students who've taken time to work or see the world develop a different perspective. They're independent and more mature.
Jakelin Bonilla, who runs UNC's Global Gap Year program, recounts offering to help a returned fellow find his way around campus: "He said I was lost in an airport where I didn't know the language. At least here people know English. I think I can navigate this place."
Beyond that, when students see developing world poverty and the lack of education that limits people's lives, they learn — as Emma Eytan, a Pace University student who spent a year in Ghana, Peru and Israel puts it — "not to sweat the small stuff and to keep my priorities in check."


Benefits to education
This perspective pays off in the classroom. Clagett analyzed students at Vermont's Middlebury College and UNC who had taken a year off. He found that they had higher GPAs than would have been predicted by their high school records. A bit of space made them better learners.
To be sure, gap years aren't for everyone. Recruited athletes make commitments to their teams. Travel can be expensive, though some programs offer financial aid, and many young people work for a few months to finance their experiences.
There's also the question of whether students will lose momentum. But there's a difference between taking a conscious "gap" and never planning on going to college in the first place.
Sydni Heron, who went to high school in Ames, Iowa, had been out of the country only once before doing a gap year in Ecuador, where she worked in a health clinic. The experience cemented her desire to go into medicine. She's now working as an emergency room tech and volunteering with the Red Cross while she's on the waiting list for her community college's nursing program.
Heron hopes to join Doctors Without Borders. "I'm not just going to school to get four years out of the way. I'm going to school with a purpose," she says. "My gap year inspired a lot of these dreams in me."
Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.