Gap Year/One Year Options

You know you want to go to graduate school and you’ve been accepted into your schools of interest. Great job! Now you’ve decided that you want to take a year off between your scholarly pursuits. What do you do? What should you do? Is there a right or wrong decision here?

Graduate school can be a grueling process. While as an undergrad at Brown you were encouraged to try your hand at many subjects and offered the opportunity to explore through our liberal curriculum, at graduate school, you will be studying one field – intensely. It is totally understandable to want to take a year off in between to do something of interest to you, or to get your head on straight in order to put your best effort forth for your graduate education.

So what should you do? If you have yet to apply to graduate school, will doing one thing in your gap year look “better” than doing something else?

Graduate schools want to see one thing in your gap year – that you are doing something. If you want to travel, if you want to work in a totally different field, if you want to dedicate time to service, if you want to explore research, if you want to work to save money for grad school, or all of the above, these experiences are most likely to be viewed favorably by admission committees.

Taking a gap year can also strengthen your application. If you focused on one specific area throughout your time at Brown, but your graduate program is in another field, you might want to take a year out to pursue something that is closely related to that field (i.e. a future law student working in a law firm or in legal aid). These types of experiences can strengthen your application, and also can help you make a decision regarding what program of study to undertake.

Some students get accepted to graduate school, then defer their enrollment for a gap year. This, too, is fine, and can be a good way for you to take some time off from the classroom in order to refresh your brain and get yourself ready for the intense nature of graduate school. Even if you are doing something during this time that is completely unrelated to your program of study, it is helping you to learn and grow as a person, and will make you a better student.

So… back to what should you do? The answer is: What do you want to do?

Popular options include:

  • Travel
  • Public Service
  • Work
  • Taking courses

Meet with a career counselor to discuss your options!