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Spend any time on the road and you’re more likely than not going to run into a young Australian or a Brit in the midst of a gap year. For many Americans, the gap year itself is a foreign concept (my guess is most Americans don’t even know what it means), but for those who just graduated high school in many parts of the world, the gap year — that 6 to 12 months off before entering college, usually traveling the world, oftentimes volunteering along the way — is a right of passage. Heck, even Prince Harry did it<\/a> (he spent time working in Australia and volunteering in Africa). In America, according to the most recent statistics on the subject, only about 7.6% of graduates delayed their entrance to school by one year, and only 29% of those took that year to travel (instead of working at home).<\/p>\n For most Americans, college comes right after high school, and any long-term travel is put off until after graduation — a bad idea according to recent studies. The Journal of Educational Psychology<\/em> recently published a study<\/a> revealing that students that took part in a gap year “reported significantly higher motivation in college\u2014in the form of \u201cadaptive behavior\u201d such as planning, task management, and persistence\u2014than did students who did not take a gap year.” My guess is that they also have much more interesting stories to tell around the dinner table in the dining hall.<\/p>\n