An article in the Associated Press entitled “Family Finance: A gap year need not break the bank,” featured Global Citizen Year for our efforts to make our program accessible to students from all backgrounds.  Highlighting the many ways to make a gap year affordable, the article helps break down preconceptions about who can or can’t take a gap year.

See below for an except from today’s article and read the full story anywhere from Today Money to The Philadelphia Inquirer Digital to The Herald News.

For instance, Global Citizen Year, a San Francisco-based organization that places students in Senegal, Ecuador and Brazil, offers scholarships to help defray the $26,000 cost.

The two-year-old program looks at the same financial aid forms required by colleges and offers assistance on a sliding scale, said CEO Abby Falik. A third of its 33 participants is on full scholarship and another third have partial grants.

…

“What we’ve seen so far is our kids after this year are hungry for college,” Falik said. “They have a skill set that will help them be much more self-directed.”

This piece, written by GCY Fellow, Tess Langan, was originally published in the New York Times. (Link)

It was early in my junior year, before my college search had begun in earnest, that the letters started coming. It began as a trickle, but I was quickly inundated. One stands out in my mind: a letter informing me in a manner both presumptuous and peremptory that “at long last” my college search was over. Soon after, I received a letter from clairvoyant admissions officials at another college, asking me to gaze into the future with them and envision myself at their school. Having already learned of the end to my college search, I was confused to find myself frolicking on the greens of another university.

Despite the confidence of these courting colleges, I was still a directionless junior. So I started clocking in hour after hour with my small library of guidebooks, fretting over student-to-faculty ratios and weighing the advantages of large versus small schools. For days I would be besotted with a school. Then I would find out that it rains perpetually in the region where the school is located, or that it is a “beer and football” school, or that it got a pitiful two-and-a-half-star quality-of-life rating from Fiske. I did find my dream school, Antioch College, only to go online and discover that it was “in a period of transition” — that is, it had closed.

Choosing the right college felt like trying to answer one of those dreaded multiple-choice questions that has two right answers. You march up to your teacher’s desk to expose the flaw, and she tells you to pick the best answer. Sometimes I would simper like a child, intimidated by the gravity of the adult decisions I was being forced to make, and that would mold my future.

I began my college sojourn in earnest with a tour of Colgate. We were all handed Chipwiches, those spectacular amalgams of cookies and ice cream. That gave Colgate the early lead until I took a tour at nearby Hamilton College. Not to be outdone, Hamilton was doling out coupons for the locally famous half-moon cookies and some pretty excellent stir-fry vegetables, courtesy of the cafeteria. Admitted applicants could look forward to a pair of Hamilton flip-flops if they visited campus before deposits were due. Colgate followed up by sending me an idyllic poster of the campus lake along with a handwritten note from the admissions director.

Now I was extremely conflicted; anyone who thinks teenagers cannot be bribed with food and flip-flops does not know teenagers. And the more time passed, the more muddled my mind became.

Even harder to ignore was a Princeton Review e-mail cajoling me to patronize their Web site by offering a personalized list of colleges “looking for students like you!” And there were simply so many colleges like Franklin & Marshall that e-mailed periodically to remind me that they “look forward to hearing from you!” Others, like Ursinus College, extended a special Priority Select application deadline, after their regular decision deadline. A painless application with no teacher recommendation, no essay and no fee, it was a hard offer to resist. But I did.

The sheen of a college brochure is yet another distraction from the substance of a school. My glossy Vassar brochure boasted a student circus troupe called the Barefoot Monkeys. And though the ground might freeze over from November to April, the brochures of Northern colleges invariably depict eternal spring. The University of Vermont has an elaborate tunnel system that allows students to move from building to building without fear of frostbite. But you’d never guess it from the mail you get, filled with kids in shorts playing Frisbee in the sun.

Soon I had whittled down my options and applied to college. The letters I began to receive from colleges now were less fluffy and more portentous. Bleary-eyed and near-blind with anticipation, I would rip them open and scan frenetically for key words. Words like “regretfully,” “welcome” and “congratulations” shouted at me like McDonald’s signs on the side of the highway. Vassar and William & Mary “unfortunately” told me thanks but no thanks, while Colgate and the State University of New York at Geneseo declared it a “thrill and a privilege” to offer me admittance.

Now it was time to decide exactly where I would like to play Frisbee in the sun. I attended accepted students days at Geneseo and Colgate. Both involved guided tours, reception speeches, free prizes and current students who had “drunk the Kool-Aid,” as my dad liked to joke, milling around wearing “Ask Me Anything” T-shirts and spouting canned lines about student life. (“There are going to be big drinkers everywhere, but there is no pressure to drink here.”) My parents enjoyed the cocktail party Geneseo hosted at a historic inn, and Colgate wowed its teenage audience with an ice cream social — eating ice cream is, it seems, a tradition at Colgate — and the tantalizing promise of many more to come.

I really like my Colgate water bottle and my many nearly identical totes emblazoned with college logos. But rather than enlighten me, the presidents’ addresses and the facts that ran together like slush and the pamphlets and the complimentary ice cream all threatened to immobilize me. I was more confused than ever, but of one thing I was certain: the dogged marketing of the admissions process had left a bad taste in my mouth that no half-moon cookies or ice cream social could wash away.

After all my researching and hand-wringing, I turned down Geneseo and Colgate. And my rejections were not “unfortunate” or “regretful” but, rather, freeing.

When I found out about a gap-year program, Global Citizen Year, I did not need any prodding to apply or any encouragement to commit. I knew instinctively I would do anything to go.

I am spending my year in Senegal. College will have to wait.

50 years after President Kennedy launched the Peace Corps, Global Citizen Year has issued a bold new call to serve to the pre-college set, committing to send 1,000 high school graduates abroad to prepare them for effective leadership in a globalized world.

San Francisco, CA, October 11, 2010 – Fifty years ago this week, President Kennedy made a now famous challenge to the students of the University of Michigan that led to the founding of the Peace Corps.  Today, Global Citizen Year, a San Francisco based non-profit, is expanding upon Kennedy’s vision by calling for a new generation of Americans to engage in service abroad – before pursuing their college degree.

GCY founder, Abigail Falik, is a Harvard Business School graduate who has spent the last decade refining a blueprint for a movement to engage American high school graduates in a global “bridge year” before college. “I remember graduating from high school, hungry for an experience far from the traditional classroom, and calling the Peace Corps to see how I could serve.  When they told me I needed either a college degree or significant work experience, I was struck by the irony that at 18 my only option for serving overseas would have been through the military. Ever since, I’ve been trying to answer the question of how our country can create opportunities for many more – and more diverse – young Americans to live and work in the developing world, before college.”

At a time when 9% of Americans speak a second language and only 22% have passports, American citizens are lacking in international exposure and understanding. Simultaneously, with over 30% of American college freshman not returning for a second year and students taking an average of six years to complete degrees at four year institutions, there is growing evidence that those who take a structured “bridge year” like GCY before college arrive more motivated and better prepared to persist and complete college.  A recent study published in Education Week suggests that these students have significantly higher motivation in college in the form of “planning, task management, and persistence than did students who did not take a gap year.” (Source: Research suggests a ‘gap year’ motivates students. Education Week. September 15, 2010).

GCY began with a pilot in the fall of 2009, and in one year has tripled the size of its second class of fellows.  This year’s cohort hails from 13 states and represents a cross-section of our nations’ diversity. Over 82% percent are receiving some level of financial aid to participate with one third receiving full scholarships. Fellows are already accomplished as community organizers, athletes and poets, and aspire to careers ranging from politics to mechanical engineering to global public health.

Alberto Servin, one of the 2011 Fellows, is preparing to embark on an entirely different kind of higher education from those in his graduating class at Branham High School in San Jose, California. Alberto has deferred his admission from Middlebury to live in rural Ecuador.  While his classmates are bracing themselves for a continuation of twelve years of classroom study, Alberto will be integrating himself with an Andean community and teaching at a local school.  As last years’ Fellows begin their freshman year at colleges across the country, 2010 Fellow Laura Keaton reflects on the power of her experience with GCY: “I knew I would develop fluency in a new language, but my Global Citizen Year brought me fluency in a new way of life.  I’ll carry my new found empathy, self-awareness, and entrepreneurial skills with me into college and beyond.”

Alberto and Laura are the just the beginning of a broader movement of young people developing a global perspective on themselves, the nation, and our world, before beginning college.  In September, at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, Global Citizen Year made a public commitment to engage 1,000 diverse American high school graduates by 2015.  Over time, GCY aims to build a pipeline of new global leaders who are prepared to address the global challenges of the 21^st century.

Last week, at the GCY Send-Off in San Francisco, Harris Wofford, former US Senator and architect of the Peace Corps with President Kennedy and Sargent Shriver addressed the GCY Fellows before they embarked for country posts in Brazil, Ecuador and Senegal.  Wofford shared anecdotes from his own early experiences overseas which shaped his perspective on himself and the world, and provided the foundation for a distinguished career in public service.

In a closing statement, Wofford voiced his support for the courageous and critically important step the students were taking, and the potential of Global Citizen Year to seed a broader movement: “When the veterans of World War II went back to college, the faculties of higher education declared us the best generation of students they had ever had.  Bridge years of military service are still available, but far better for America and the world will be the maturity, curiosity, and commitment that come from a Global Citizen Year of apprenticeship and service. The time has come for this bold new idea which will prepare the next generation of Americans for leadership in a complex world.”

Graham Saunders and Abby Falik with “Freedom”

The First session was designed by GCY’s Graham Saunders  to introduce the Fellows to the ideas of freedom and progress through a series of readings, case studies, and debate.

Notions of freedom and progress were divided into 3 theoretical frames: negative liberty (with a focus on self-interest and minimizing interference with it), positive liberty (with a focus on enabling people to live the “good life”), and relativism (where what it means to be free is culturally dictated, historically determined, and not a universal).  The readings included works by Thomas Hobbes (Negative Freedom), Amartya Sen (Positive Freedom), and Isaiah Berlin (Relativism) as well as a more recent examples from NY Times columnist David Brooks and the mission statement of Partners in Health.

The Fellows dug deep into a lively discussion (turned debate) as they considered different aspects of human nature, the role of government, and  social justice.

Joel Segre with “Leading Change”

Joel is an entrepreneur and strategist focused on creating business solutions in public health, who has experience working on projects around the world from Tanzania to India.  Joel’s first exercise highlighted several social innovations and challenged the Fellows to assess both their social impact and financial viability. Fellows considered a variety of products such as the Jaipur Foot, the $100 laptop, the camel library, and the LifeStraw (among others).  In addition, the Fellows were asked to place the products in the contexts where they would be of value and speculate on whether or not their was enough room for a value chain that led to profitability.

Each group of Fellows then had to place the innovation on an chart which graphed the intersection of social impact and financial viability.  After several surprising placements and vigorous debate, the Fellows concluded the exercise with an understanding of the challenges of product design and impact as well as the areas of interest on the part of venture capitalists, social investors, and philanthropists.

The Fellows second task was to propose a way to fix a broken health care delivery system that put “free” malaria medication out of reach for people who need them.  Fellows divided into teams and assigned a role in the supply chain – from the whole sale drug retailer to the patient and everyone in between. From the vantage point of each of these players the Fellows concluded that the only player who would support change was the patient, who coincidentally was not at the table.

College Can Wait (Download Here)

Bay Area organization makes bold commitment to send 1,000 young Americans abroad before college to gain a global perspective on themselves, their country, and the world

San Francisco, CA, September 27, 2010 – Instead of sitting down to their first college class this week, 33 emerging leaders who have been selected by Global Citizen Year (“GCY”) are deferring their college acceptances to live and work as Fellows for a year in communities across Ecuador, Brazil and Senegal. Established in 2009, GCY is a Bay Area nonprofit that seeks to engage young Americans in a transformative “bridge year” between high school and college in which they learn the local language, work on a community project addressing a pressing local need and gain a deeper understanding of their potential as a global agent of social change. Over the next two weeks, the cohort will participate in the first phase of training by developing the skills and knowledge they’ll need to succeed in their placements abroad. Instruction will include workshops with former US Senator Harris Wofford, architect of the Peace Corps under President Kennedy, as well as experts from Stanford University, the Clinton Foundation and Current TV. Additionally, fellows will visit local organizations including Room to Read, Kiva.org and Twitter, and will be challenged to spend a day living in San Francisco with nothing more than $5 and a directory of local social services.

The GCY founder, Abigail Falik, is a Harvard Business School graduate who has spent the last decade refining a blueprint for a movement to engage American high school graduates in a global “bridge year” before college. “I remember graduating from high school, ready for an academic break, and calling the Peace Corps to see if I could join.  When they told me I needed to go to college first, I was struck by the irony that at 18 my only option for serving overseas would have been through the military. Ever since, I’ve been trying to answer the question of how our country can create opportunities for many more – and more diverse – young Americans to live and work in the developing world, before beginning their higher education.”

GCY began with a pilot program in the fall of 2009, and in one year alone, has tripled the size of its second class of fellows.  This years’ cohort of participants hail from 13 states and represent a cross-section of our nations’ diversity. Over 20% of the class is made up of students of color, and 82% percent are receiving some level of financial aid to participate. Fellows are already accomplished as community organizers, athletes and poets, and aspire to careers ranging from politics to mechanical engineering to global public health.

Alberto Servin is preparing to embark on an entirely different kind of higher education. Having recently graduated from Branham High School in San Jose, Alberto has deferred his admission from Middlebury to take a Global Citizen Year.  While his classmates are rushing fraternities and slogging through required courses, Alberto will be living in rural Ecuador and teaching at a local school. “Global Citizen Year is an experience I look forward to because I want to learn about the world. With that knowledge and first hand experience, I hope to use it to help address the global issues that my generation faces.”

Today, over 30% of college freshman do not return for a second year and on average it takes students six years to complete a degree at four year institutions.  In explaining the phenomenon, college admissions deans and administrators point to a host of factors including students’ lack of maturity, focus and motivation.

At the same time, there is growing evidence that students who take a structured “bridge year” before college arrive more motivated and better prepared to persist and complete college.  A recent study published in Education Week suggests that students who take a structured year off before college reported significantly higher motivation in college in the form of “planning, task management, and persistence than did students who did not take a gap year. As policymakers ponder how to get students to complete college, some parents and researchers suggest a counterintuitive strategy: Encourage students to take time off school after graduation.” (Source: Research suggests a ‘gap year’ motivates students. Education Week. September 15, 2010).

But this is just the beginning of a much bolder vision for growth.  This week, the organization has been invited to participate in the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City where they will make a commitment to engage 1,000 diverse American high school graduates annually in a transformative global service “bridge year” by 2015.  Working in partnership with colleges, companies, goverment and social enterprises around the world, GCY will unleash a pipeline of emerging leaders who enter college knowing what they want to pursue, why, and how to use their education to have an impact in business and public service—for our nation and our world.

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About Global Citizen Year

Global Citizen Year is a non-profit organization which is building a movement of young Americans who engage in a transformative “bridge year” between high school and college.  Through an innovative cross-sector model that partners with high schools and colleges in the US, and NGOs around the world, we create opportunities for emerging leaders to work as apprentices in Asia, Africa and Latin America.  By providing intensive training and support, we ensure that our Fellows develop an ethic of service, the ability to communicate across languages and cultures, and a deep commitment to becoming agents for social change.

Global Citizen Year has benefited from generous investments from the Draper Richards Foundation, The Mind Trust,  The Hewlett Foundation, and the Peery Foundation.

Global Citizen Year is a 501 (c) 3 not-for-profit corporation.

Day 3

The day began with a low ropes course designed to bring the Fellows together to overcome obstacles through teamwork.  The Fellows worked as a cohesive unit as they hoisted each other over walls and balanced one another on thin planks.

In the afternoon the Fellows moved to the high ropes course, which had more of an individual focus.  With support from below, each Fellow dared to cross the high elevation cables.  As you can well imagine, this can be quite the challenge for some. (I was absent on this day for a reason)

Day 4 included a variety of games and exercises that shed light on some of the key leadership challenges the Fellows will face as individuals and as a group in country – trust, communication, openness, leadership, decision-making, etc.

One of the activities left the Fellows to solve a puzzle while blind-folded, which focused their attention on the importance of communication and coordination. Another challenged the Fellows to physically rely on the other Fellows to support them as each person had to reach out of a small circle to snag their goals (which were balled up about 6ft outside).

Check out the photos below!

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Greetings from San Antonio Road in Petaluma, CA.  I wanted to give you a brief update on what went on yesterday as the 2010 Fellows arrived for the start of the US Training Institute.

We’re off to a great start. After an introduction from Abby, the Fellows spent the evening getting to know one another through dinner conversation and the ice breakers that followed.  The introductions were a long time coming…

The Fellows spent the summer working individually in their home communities to mobilize support for their bridge years.  As a result, they raised over $45,000 from more than 400 individual donors (and this number is continuing to grow). Fellows participated in conference calls to discuss their organizing efforts and to get to know each other.  They also reached out to one another online through Facebook and TokBox (a multi-user video conferencing tool).

But, if you have ever met anyone online and then had the chance to meet in person, then you probably now know that online introductions have their limitations.

First quote to go on the board from the US Training Institute:

A few hours ago.. we were just figments of the internet.  Now I can’t wait to sit down and talk to every single one of you. – Lily Shaffer, GCY Fellow

Anyways – here are a few introductory clips that I put together of the Fellows during ice breakers.  About the shots of the food at the end - it’s all from the IONS garden here at the training site (except the fish). I just wanted to let you know that we’re eating well. Stay tuned for more updates.

Be sure to check back!