The path to college is clear for many students, but a small group of students in each entering class face a detour along the road.
About 15 or 20 undergraduate students take a year off before entering the University, choosing to travel, work or volunteer while their peers pursue a more traditional course of study, according to Dean of Admissions John Blackburn.
"I am a strong proponent of taking a gap year and having time to do something different," Blackburn said.
But, he said, very few students at the University choose to do so.
"I guess our students want to get on to it and feel that they are ready," Blackburn said. "Students come here thinking that it's not a grind and they will have fun here."
A 2003 Princeton Review poll released this year showed that of the 350 students surveyed, 55 percent of those who took time off said the experience improved their grades when they returned.
Blackburn said while some parents worry their children may ultimately decide not to go to college after taking a year off, his experience shows that students do in fact enter the University motivated and ready to begin their college careers.
Second-year College student Elizabeth Walsh said she chose to take a gap year before going to college.
"I just thought, 'What's the rush of going straight to college and then rushing out and getting a job?'" she said. "During my senior year of high school, I got a scholarship through the English Speaking Union. It paid for me to go and spend a year in an English high school."
Walsh said she spent the year attending boarding school with British students. She took the A-levels, a type of exit exam used in Britain, and said she experienced everyday life as an English high-school student.
"My year was more so for a cultural experience than an educational experience," Walsh said. "It gave me an opportunity to learn more about myself and about people in general."
After spending an extra year abroad, Walsh said she felt really ready to start college.
"Having that extra year of living on campus that year really made me realize that I was ready to head into college and an environment where I was taking care of myself," Walsh said. "I developed an even stronger sense of independence."
Blackburn said he finds that the students who take time off before going to college have experiences similar to Walsh's.
"For the students who do it, they are so ready [to go to college]," he said.
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