Gap years, though spoken of lovingly by those who take them, have long been shrouded in myths and carry certain stigmas. Many fear that students who take them are looking to avoid real life, delay their education, or will lose their skills and motivation. We’re told that a gap year is a fruitless and self-involved exercise that will leave students behind.

The truth is the opposite. Longtime Dean of Admissions at Middlebury, Bob Claggett, conducted a study that found that students who took gap years:

• End up performing at higher levels than would have been predicted by their academic rating.
• Maintained grade point averages between .1 and .4 points higher than their gap-free peers.

His study was supported by findings at UNC-Chapel Hill. Another study, at Colorado College, also corroborated these findings. They discovered that their students who take gap years, as compared to those who did not:

• Received better grades.
• Engaged more meaningfully with their college courses and extracurriculars.
• Were more likely to be leaders on our campus.
• Stuck with their declared majors at a higher rate.

There it is, the myth, shattered. For all these supposed associated risks, gap years are in fact an advantage.  Why else would Harvard recommend gap years to its students? Why else would their Dean of Admissions have taken the radical step of advocating for gap years in the New York Times? As he put it:

“For more than four decades, Harvard has recommended this option, indeed proposing it in the letter of admission. Now more than one hundred Harvard students defer college until the next year. The results have been uniformly positive. Harvard’s daily student newspaper, The Crimson, reported (5/19/2000) that students who had taken a year off found the experience ‘so valuable that they would advise all Harvard students to consider it.’”

Students and families are catching on. Why else would students from prestigious universities like Oxford defer their admission to see the world? One can only assume this is because the reality, that gap years provide students time and space to learn, grow, and discover their own passions outside of traditional education, is outpacing the myths.

There is a difference, too, between a gap year without structure and one with structure. A parent’s nightmare is their young person sitting on the couch for a year, wasting their precious youth. But Baret Scholars is a program built on the fundamental belief that if you show young, motivated people a jungle, they will cut their own path through it – but that it is even better to send them along with a guide.

Alongside traveling faculty, whose specialties range from Biology to Art History and Filmmaking, we journey through seven metropolises in seven regions of the world, and encourage our Scholars to pursue their interests on Fellowships in each region, to places as far flung as the Amazon and Patagonia, and as cutting-edge as Silicon Valley and Shenzhen. Our Art Historian takes Scholars through galleries and architectural marvels in each region, while our expert in International Relations brings them into contact with ambassadors, NGOs, and other political bodies.

Our guiding principle is that if you put your trust in young people while encouraging their interests and curiosity, they will become leaders, entrepreneurs, thought leaders and experts.

Who is a gap year for? Those willing to step off the beaten path are the ones who have the resilience and courage needed to succeed in any environment, the boldness to pursue their dreams. Which is to say that many who take a gap year are already motivated. A gap year, is, after all, a choice.

At the same time, we’d like to think that a gap year can also be a chance for a young person to discover their passions. Not taking a gap year can mean missing an opportunity to find one’s purpose. The march to college and a career can lead students to follow external incentives, rather than internal ones: chasing grades and accolades rather than passions that accord with their talents and values, when it is precisely the pursuit of passions that lead students to do well in the first place.

For too long the education system, well-intentioned as it is, has taught students to only pursue grades and test scores. No longer: Baret is part of a burgeoning educational vanguard which understands that the young leaders of tomorrow need the room to experiment, explore, and grow. Interest in gap years is at an all-time high because students and their families are beginning to understand this simple reality. Moreover, it has never been more important to be a global citizen: the ever-shifting global landscape requires an ability to think critically and to be able to reach across cultural boundaries.

Our Scholars go on to great universities: we have students who will be attending or have attended prestigious institutions like Harvard, Columbia, Trinity College Dublin, and Bowdoin, just to name a few. Here’s one of our future Scholars, Francesco Morganti, on why he chose to join Baret:

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“I decided to take a gap year before starting my studies at Harvard because I want to experience the world more directly, beyond just studying it in a classroom. I’ve spent a lot of time in Italy learning languages and getting to know different cultures, and I want to use this year to move from a more theoretical kind of learning to a practical one, seeing with my own eyes the places I’ve read about, speaking the languages I’ve studied, and experiencing the cultures I’ve mostly encountered through books and videos. To me, it’s not a break from learning, but a different kind of education, shaped by everyday interactions and living in multicultural environments. Harvard itself encourages this path because it allows students to arrive on campus with a clearer sense of the world and experiences they can actually bring into the classroom, and I’m really excited to take that step.”

Baret, with its international cohort which hails from every corner of the globe, gives its Scholars an entire year to immerse themselves in the world with other adventurous, curious young minds. It's up to prospective Scholars to realize this opportunity, reach out, and take it.