Princeton To Fund International Service Gap Year

Princeton University is planning to develop a new gap-year program to send one-tenth of its incoming freshman class abroad, the school announced on Tuesday.

The initiative, aiming to allow students to pursue international service opportunities prior to their freshman year, is more formalized than what is currently in place at other schools, including Harvard.

While Princeton’s proposed gap-year program plans to offer financial assistance and to set a target number of participants, Harvard does not have a similar program.

Many Harvard students who have taken gap years expressed support for the initiative, but Harvard administrators said they were wary of its financial feasibility.

Harvard officials said that providing financial assistance for gap years would give participating students an additional year of aid that would not be available for the typical Harvard undergraduate.

Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67 said that a similar initiative at Harvard would create “a fifth year of aid.”

“We want aid to be spread as equitably as possible, that would cut into that desire,” said Dingman.

But Dingman did cite a gap year’s potential to improve students’ academic success upon matriculation.

“[Students] seem to demonstrate that they’re hungrier, more aware, and I think have a whole different approach to their academics,” he said.

Dingman also said that it is still unclear how Princeton will encourage 10 percent of its incoming student body to take a gap year.

“All along, Harvard has been encouraging students taking time off, including between high school and college,” he added.

Many Harvard students, who have taken both voluntary and involuntary gap years, said they hope to see a similar program at Harvard.

“I think that taking a gap year definitely made me more excited about taking classes and wanting to do well in school because I had a job that was really crappy,” said Caitlin V. Crump ’10.

“I realized that if I didn’t do well at Harvard, that’s what I’d be doing for a living,” Crump said of her gap year working in a Mobile gas station. She had been accepted on the condition that she take a year off prior to matriculation.

“Finances for me were a concern,” said Crump, who was working towards a trip to Europe. “It was kind of unfortunate because if I hadn’t been working in a Mobile station I could have been volunteering in [Washington] D.C. for someone’s campaign or in someone’s law office.”

Hannah R. Trachtman ’10 opted for a voluntary gap year that she said would not have been possible without loans from her parents.

“If I hadn’t been fortunate enough to have that agreement it would have been a lot more difficult,” she said.

—Staff writer Charles J. Wells can be reached at wells2@fas.harvard.edu.