Malia Obama will attend Harvard University, but only after she takes a gap year.

“The President and Mrs Obama announced today that their daughter Malia will attend Harvard University in the fall of 2017 as a member of the Class of 2021. Malia will take a gap year before beginning school,” the White House said in a statement issued Sunday, May 1.

‘Gap Year’ is the term given to a year off between graduation from high school and the start of college. The year-long deferral is a great idea for many students, and colleges seem to love it, if it is used well.

Several Jamaican students have used a gap year successfully, going on to earn millions in scholarships from their top choice overseas colleges. Still, it is the road less travelled and many parents and students react to the idea of a year ‘off’ with suspicion and scepticism. For some, it can feel like failure; many students are uncomfortable with being ‘left behind’ by other members of their class, while others dread the question from relatives and friends: “So, what are you doing next year?” Parents fear that their child will get accustomed to not attending school and love it so much that he/she won’t return to school after the year ‘off’.

Some data may back up parents’ worst fear.

TIME magazine reports that “a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University found that, all things being equal, those who delayed college by a year were 64 per cent less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree than those who enrolled immediately after high school”. This statistic masks the fact that for some, a gap year (or years) isn’t a choice, it may be a necessity due to financial or personal reasons. Those same financial or personal reasons may then affect a student’s probability of attaining a bachelor’s degree at all.

As with all educational decisions, it is best to understand what is the right fit for the individual. For some students, a gap year would signal the kiss of death since they would either not return to school or fall into the statistic above. However, a gap year deliberately chosen for the right reasons, with a robust plan for how the time will be spent, can be the best decision a college-bound student can make. Simply put, for most students navigating the college admissions process while taking a full course load in the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Exams, International Baccalaureate, or Advanced Placement curricula can be overwhelming. There are SATs, subject tests, dozens of essays, and deadlines galore.

During a gap year, students have more time to dedicate to their college applications and SAT preparation, so they usually create more robust applications which can ultimately lead to better college acceptances and scholarship offers. From a college admissions perspective, schools like to see gap years spent developing a skill, learning a new language, pursuing an existing interest, volunteering, travelling, or some combination of the above. It is important for the student to use the time in a meaningful way.

‘Gapped freshmen’ tend to come into college more mature, less burnt out, and ready to delve into college life and work. These are powerful predictors of college success. In fact, gap-year students at Middlebury College “on average… have shown a clear pattern of having higher GPAs than would otherwise have been predicted, and the positive effect lasts over all four years,” former admissions dean Robert Claret stated in the

New York Times. Harvard encourages it. Princeton has institutionalised it as an option (a tuition-free, nine-month ‘Bridge Year’ in which students can elect to do a service project internationally).

Malia Obama has made the gap year cool for many teenagers and acceptable for many parents. She will join many other students at Harvard — 80 to 110 admitted students each year — who have taken a gap year before starting college, including one of our very own — John Matthews who graduated from Campion College in 2015. He had first enrolled at the University of the West Indies’ Medical School, but changed his mind during the second week of orientation.

“My gap year helped me to truly reflect on what I wanted out of a college experience, and life. It was a time of reflection and maturation that also had the added benefit of allowing me to both rejuvenate and explore non-academic passions that I never had the opportunity to dabble in while in school. I also made a lot of time for rest and relaxation,” says Matthews. He tutored, took dance classes, took online courses; and he applied to college.

American International School of Kingston graduate Simone Phillips has worked for two years and will start Bentley University this September.

“Without first working, I would not have been able to appreciate the value of college,” reflects a more mature Phillips.

Simran Motiani, a graduate of Campion, will also head to college in September, having taken a gap year. During her gap, she started a tutoring business, took an additional subject, travelled to Cuba, re-did her SATs, did two internships with child psychologists, and of course applied to overseas universities. She was accepted to a range of competitive universities and offered over US$1million in scholarships. So the question is: What’s going to work for you?”.

Don’t be afraid to explore the possibilities you can open up by taking the road less travelled to the Gap Year.

Nicole McLaren Campbell is the founder and CEO of AIM Educational Services, an independent college admissions counsellor, and public speaker. Contact her at nicole@aimeduservices.com.