Area high school students investigate ‘Gap Year’ at New Trier fair

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Matt Gnabasik and his 17-year-old daughter, Sofia Gnabasik talk to a representative from AMIGOS about volunteer work in Central America during Saturday's Gap Year Fair held at New Trier High School in Winnetka. Sofia is a senior at Oak Park/River Forest H

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• A sampling of gap-year programs

Updated: March 3, 2012 8:34AM

“Life is long.”

Suzi Katlin’s comment may be at odds with conventional wisdom, but those who attended the Gap Year Fair at New Trier Township High School in Winnetka on Saturday wanted to explore the road less traveled through life.

Katlin and her 17-year-old daughter Julia, who live in Northfield, were looking for enriching programs Julia, a senior at New Trier, could pursue before starting college.

For quite some time, New Trier officials have recognized graduating seniors’ interest in interim programs before college. The experience is called a “gap year,” because, in most cases, the intent is to start college after a semester or two of other endeavors.

Linda Connelly, a post-high school counselor at New Trier and the gap-year coordinator, in 1998 first invited parents to an evening with four organizations explaining the experiences they could offer young people outside the classroom. That effort has grown into a regional Gap Year Fair with representatives from 32 gap-year programs.

James Conroy, chairman of New Trier’s post-high school counseling department, is an enthusiastic supporter of the concept.

“I think it’s marvelous,” Conroy said. “This is not a race. It’s not who finishes college first wins a prize. Many kids are not ready for college or don’t want to go right after high school.”

Katlin agrees there is no rush. “Life is long. I feel there may be more maturing that needs to go on . . . before hunkering down and studying at college.”

She also hopes her daughter will “become a global citizen.”

Julia Katlin already has enjoyed overseas trips with a teen travel program during each of the past three summers, studying photography in Paris and in Italy and a doing a service project painting a school in Fiji.

Julia appreciates her mother’s support.

“I understand I am lucky enough to have a parent who is so willing and able to give me the opportunities to explore interests I haven’t been able to in school.”

Spending a gap year exploring another country’s culture “wouldn’t be a luxury,” Julia Katlin said. “It would show me a different side of the places I am interested in.”

While many students at New Trier can say they have traveled overseas, “it’s been at a resort or on a boat. It’s not really interacting with the locals.”

New Trier staff and speakers at the Gap Year Fair urge high school seniors to apply and get accepted to a college, even if they want to do a gap year. If a student commits to a gap program, he may ask the college which accepted him to defer his admission for a semester or a year.

“That way you can go into your gap year, without having to worry about that,” said Holly Bull president of the Center for Interim Programs in Princeton, N.J.

Bull, who spoke as part of a panel at Saturday’s fair, acknowledged some parents fear their children will lose interest in college if they don’t go right after high school.

Not a diversion

“It will not divert you from your education, it will only enhance it,” Bull said. But she advised, “Make sure you have a plan for the entire gap year.”

Evan Ruda of Wilmette attended the gap year fair at his father’s insistence.

“My wife and I thought it would be good to explore all his options,” Fred Ruda said. Similarly, “Once he got into the college he really wanted to go to, it was like pulling teeth to get him to apply to other schools.”

“I’ve been excited about college for a long time,” said Evan, 17, who was accepted at Tulane University in New Orleans. “I want to be on the same page as all my friends.”

Abby Fernandez of Wilmette traveled to several parts of Africa with Real Gap Experience in the six months after she graduated high school.

She worried about being exposed to malaria and bugs in general, but learned they weren’t as frightening as she imagined. She contracted malaria, but a doctor in Zanzibar gave her the appropriate medication and she is malaria-free, she said. She also got pink eye in both eyes. Those were the times she wished, “I was home at my doctor’s.”

But “the hardest part of my gap year was coming home,” Fernandez said. She missed the friends she had made and the adventures she had, which included teaching in a school in South Africa and building fences to keep elephants from damaging farmers’ wells and pumps in Namibia.

The students studied the elephants’ dung to track them.

“You could tell how long ago they were there by how moist the dung is,” Fernandez said.

“How gross is that?” asked Fernandez’s sister, Gracie. Gracie is a high school senior who has not yet decided whether she will go straight to college next year or enroll in a gap program.

Abby Fernandez said she would like to do another gap program, but does not expect her family to pay the entire cost as they did for her African trip.

“I felt a little spoiled,” Fernandez said. Other students in her group did fund raising to get the money for the program, and that’s what she would do,“write letters, asking my parents’ friends to help pay for the trip . . ” if she goes again.

Despite the draw Africa holds for her, Fernandez has no doubt she will complete her college education.

“I know I won’t be able to do all I want to do in my life if I don’t go to college,” Fernandez said.