Eye on the Goal

Bill Day could be attending an elite university. Instead, he's paying for the privilege to push a puck down the ice.

By Ian Shapira
Sunday, August 5, 2007; W12

THE MOST CENTRAL STRUCTURE IN BILL DAY'S LIFE right about now might well have been Thomas Jefferson's rotunda at the University of Virginia. Instead, it's the Schwan Super Rink, 148,000 square feet of ice in the Minneapolis suburb of Blaine. Housed in a sprawling rust-red brick complex, the Super Rink emerges from the prairie like a temple to youth ice hockey.

On a weekend in mid-November, college scouts, parents and teenagers are pouring into the hockey center for the Junior Jamboree, an all-star game showcasing the country's top pre-college players organized by USA Hockey, the governing body for amateur hockey. One of those talents is Bill Day, 18, a 2006 graduate of George Marshall High School in Fairfax County and a defenseman with the Washington Junior Nationals, a high-level USA Hockey junior league team. Bill has just flown in as one of the junior league's all-stars -- an elite group of players hoping to impress the dozens of college scouts.

Down in the rink's locker room, as loogies are hocked and barbs are traded, Bill, a stony-faced, 5-foot-9, 175-pounder, is silent and jittery. Unlike most other players in the room, he has already been admitted to a university. But right now, this game is more important to him than college. Since U-Va. only has a club hockey team -- and not a competitive Division I program -- Bill has decided to take a "gap year" and defer his college enrollment so he can continue playing in the junior league, which he hopes will enable him to land a hockey scholarship at an equally prestigious university. He's playing the system, in other words, rigging it so that he gets to keep U-Va. in his back pocket and use his year off to court schools he prefers.

In the Super Rink's locker room, as he laces up his tattered black skates and wraps tape around his socks, Bill is nervous about the one prominent institution that is seriously considering him. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., which also happens to be his father's alma mater, has dispatched an assistant coach to watch him. But if he doesn't perform well enough -- and today's game is a major audition -- NCAA coaches could suggest he needs more time in the junior league system. That could force him to give up his admission to U-Va. and extend his gap year from one to two.

BILL KNEW THAT HE WANTED THIS LIMBO LIFE when he was a rising high school senior. It fazed him only slightly that he would be left behind, living with his parents, while his friends moved on to college. So, he joined the growing trend of taking a gap year between high school and college. During this time, Bill will focus almost exclusively on two things. He will constantly plot his next move with hockey teams and colleges, making sure that whatever he does this year serves his goals when it's over. And he will try to fit in whatever random fun he can have with his teammates and his girlfriend, a high school senior who will be starting college this fall.

In his unswerving focus, he is similar to many gap year students. The practice of taking time off after graduating from high school became popular in the 1970s, but it has evolved to connote something very different from the more aimless, Jack Kerouac-inspired adventures of 30 years ago. Like Bill, today's students taking gap years often are among the hardest-working and highest-achieving in high school, and they relish the chance to take a break from studying. But they often apply the same industry and organizational skill that helped them excel academically to excelling during the gap year. They come mostly from middle- and upper-middle-income families and have been accepted into a college during their high school senior year and deferred enrollment. Sometimes, they apply to college during their gap year, enabling them to gussy up their application with an essay about their new experience. Often with the aid of one of a burgeoning number of gap year consulting firms, they take on civic projects, such as venturing to Honduras to build a library or working for Habitat for Humanity in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. Or, like Bill, they pursue a passion -- heading to Europe to study art or to Baja California to backpack at the National Outdoor Leadership School.

John Blackburn, dean of admissions at U-Va., says he is prohibited from commenting on a student's application. But in general, he says, the admissions office looks favorably on students who want to use gap years to polish a certain skill.

Many of these experiences require parents who are willing to foot the bill. Bill's relatively close-to-home mission to play hockey is costing his parents at least $6,500, which covers travel, equipment and lodging.

While school systems do not track how many graduating seniors take gap years, educators such as David Hawkins, director of public policy at the National Association for College Admission Counseling in Alexandria, cite anecdotal evidence that the practice is increasing. "When I am listening to high school counselors, they report personal experiences hearing from more students interested in participating," says Hawkins.

Still, some parents remain skittish, concerned that if their children don't go to college right away, they never will. When a federal Education Department study was released two years ago, it contained news that seemed alarming: "Delayed entrants" began college at a "significant disadvantage," the report says, compared with their peers who began immediately after high school graduation. The report noted that only 40 percent of delayed entrants earned some kind of postsecondary credential compared with 58 percent of immediate entrants.

But gap year consultants who charge hefty fees to help place students with organizations around the world say the study is too inclusive and takes into account students who delay college for sudden personal reasons, military service or poor grades. Gap year students, consultants say, are those who specifically take time off to focus on a goal.

"The reality with that study is that you're talking about kids dropping out with babies," says Holly Bull, president of the for-profit Center for Interim Programs in Princeton, N.J., which calls itself the country's oldest gap year counseling organization and was founded in 1980. "Gap year kids are going to college with a lot more vigor and excitement about learning. They have a sense of what they want to focus on, and they often are straight-A students. They're more like graduate students who know why they want to be there."

There's been little other research on how gap years affect students' grades in college or what influence they've had on their careers. Recently, however, Harvard University Press contracted with two former federal education policy officials to write a book surveying gap year "alumni" about what they did in their time off, how they fared in college courses and what careers they chose.

Rae Nelson, who with her husband, Karl Haigler, is writing the book, says more solid research might convince more parents -- especially those whose children do not earn top grades -- that taking a gap year can be beneficial and does not deter college enrollment.

"We're focusing so much on the fast track, but the vast majority of kids are falling off the track. Of all the high school freshmen today who enter college later, only 18 percent graduate in six years," says Nelson, who with Haigler has already written a how-to book for taking a gap year. "Taking that time out after high school can turn someone passionate about education. There's a strong sense of personal responsibility."

The motivations to take a gap year can run the gamut. But ranking high, educators and students say, is the soaring stress of high school. Is it any coincidence that the gap year phenomena runs parallel to the increasing number of students taking Advanced Placement courses and applying to elite colleges? For the most part, students say they want a reprieve, a chance to get away from bubble answer sheets, standardized exams and college admissions paranoia.

But the irony is that the gap year risks becoming like just another award studding the résumés of students on the elite academic track. Some colleges and universities are even starting to promote the gap year as a way to gain admission. Georgetown University occasionally asks a few students to take a gap year and defer enrollment so that the school can hang on to more of the best high school students after the incoming freshman class has reached its capacity. And on its admissions Web site, Harvard University acknowledges the usefulness of a gap year while sympathizing with the academic straitjackets of today's uber high-schooler. In an essay titled "Time Out or Burn Out for the Next Generation," the dean and director of admissions offer this tantalizing line: "Occasionally students are admitted to Harvard or other colleges in part because they accomplished something unusual during a year off."

But Stephen Bartlett, who teaches International Baccalaureate physics at George Marshall High School and who wrote one of Bill's recommendations to U-Va., believes a gap year can be of great value to high-achieving students if they use the opportunity to unwind and gain perspective. Most of his pupils still plan on moving straight from high school to an elite college, but "the gap year makes a stronger student in the longer run," he says.

"There's so much academic pressure on most of my IB kids to do well on exams, and I don't know if their parents make them feel that way or not," Bartlett says. "Last November, I had a student sliding off the rails, and we had a parent conference, and I suggested a gap year. The mother was a real go-getter type of woman, and she had a very stern look, like: 'Not my child. My child is going to college.' She had this all figured out."

BILL'S PARENTS FULLY SUPPORTED HIS TAKING A GAP YEAR TO PLAY HOCKEY. After all, they've been rearing him on the sport since he was a 9-year-old boy growing up in Rhode Island. Bill started off on roller skates, playing street hockey before starting lessons on the ice. He immediately felt a natural connection to the rink and liked the way the game makes you move your feet constantly.

"Even when you're away from the puck, you're always getting ready for the next move," Bill explains. "You're anticipating the next step. You're constantly thinking that if you're too late, they're going to score a goal."

The league Bill is playing in, the Atlantic Junior Hockey League (AJHL), is considered by many to be the fourth-best in USA Hockey, which oversees 14 junior leagues, with about 200 teams across the country. The AJHL sends about 10 players a year to NCAA Division I hockey schools. The top league is the United States Hockey League (USHL), which sends more than 100 players a year to Division I schools, says Dave Tyler, who retired in June as a vice president of USA Hockey. It's rare for a high school student to win a college hockey scholarship without playing in the junior leagues.

In some ways, the intense, goal-focused competition of the AJHL has helped Bill mature. He has a girlfriend for the first time and, on the side, is holding down a job analyzing blueprints at an electrical contracting company. But in other ways, the gap year has preserved him in a state of stagnated adolescence. He lives with his parents, who tend to him as if he were still a high-schooler, with his mom, Young Day, preparing meals or picking up new undershirts for him at the store. He still has to look out for his 16-year-old brother, Jimmy, who also plays for the Junior Nationals. And without serious academic work looming, he spends much of his free time watching television -- he loves "Seinfeld" reruns and "Entourage" -- and hanging out with friends.

That's partly because he's just 18. But like many gap year students, Bill says he's also redressing some of the stress he faced at Marshall High. In those days, he woke up at 6:30 a.m. so he could be at school by 7:20. By his senior year, his academic load of all IB courses was just as grueling as his hockey schedule. After four classes a day, some of which lasted 90 minutes, he would get home about 2:30 p.m. and eat an early dinner. By 3 p.m., he would head upstairs for a few hours of homework. Then, at 6:30, three nights a week, he had hockey practice. He wouldn't get home until about midnight, at which point he would do more homework, before finally getting some sleep.

As he looked over his high school transcript one day recently, Bill shook his head. "My parents, they were pretty strict academically," he says. "They were always on me, even if I got a B . . . they wanted a B-plus or an A, even though I'm happy if I got a B."

Driven hard by his parents, Bill focused almost entirely on competing academically and developed few passions outside of hockey. The gap year is allowing him to take that single passion as far as he can, even if it does happen to dovetail with his father's desire to see him at West Point.

ON A NOVEMBER MORNING, BEFORE HIS BIG GAME IN MINNESOTA, Bill is at his Vienna home, preparing for a crucial step in his courtship of Army's hockey team: an interview with West Point alumni at the Annandale office of Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who is considering Bill for a congressional nomination to the U.S. Military Academy. Nominations are needed to apply for most service academies -- Army, Naval, Merchant Marine and Air Force -- and Davis is allowed to offer 10 nominations per academy.

Here in the Days' two-story home, where a framed painting of Washington Hall at West Point hangs by the front door, Bill and his parents have gathered in the kitchen. His dad, Tom, is a senior vice president at the U.S. Postal Service, and his mother is a personal care assistant for the elderly. Dressed in light Polo chinos, blue shirt and red tie, Bill is flipping through the newspaper's sports section when his dad walks over and peers at the page.

"You see they opened a new Marine Corps museum? And the president announced that a Marine from Iraq won a Medal of Honor?" Tom Day asks his son.

"What did he do?" Bill asks. "I assume he's dead?"

"Yeah, he died," his father says.

After a short drive, Tom drops Bill off at the congressman's office on Annandale Road and waits in the car. In Suite 103, a few other students are waiting in chairs, surrounded by walls decorated with plaques and flags. Bill sits and starts tapping his right hand on his leg.

Then, Carol Ford, the congressman's service academy coordinator, comes in to explain how it works, which is akin to speed dating. Everyone meets with three West Point alumni for 15 minutes each.

"They're not trying to trick you," Ford tells them. "They'll ask you what your career plans are. What are your backups." Bill continues tapping his leg.

Soon, Bill begins his interviews, which are held in private, and each time he returns to the waiting room, he appears more confident. As he walks out, his demeanor has relaxed. "I think it went well," he says. "Just about every question, I prepared with Dad. Nothing was a surprise."

A FEW WEEKS LATER, IN DECEMBER, BILL WAKES UP EARLY FOR ANOTHER STEP IN HIS LIFE'S GAME PLAN: English and calculus classes at Northern Virginia Community College. He acknowledges that the work at NOVA is too easy for him, but the classes, he hopes, could gild his application to West Point, showing that he's not exploiting his year off for what could seem like simple play.

"In high school, I never got A's on one paper in English. Here, I get A's in every paper I turn in," he says.

Bill walks into a windowless, cinder-block classroom on the college's main campus in Annandale for his English course. While half the class is joking around about Ramen noodles and blowing up marshmallow Peeps in the microwave, Bill opens his copy of The Sun Also Rises, yawns and starts moving his jacket zipper up and down. He shrugs at Hemingway, saying there's not enough action to keep him engaged for long.

"Did anyone notice the name-dropping in this book?" asks the teacher, Ismail Saeed. "As in, 'Oh Mencken's a drunk. I went to school with Bishop Manning.' They're talking about literary characters as if they're friends."

No one responds.

"Anyone enjoy the bullfighting?" Saeed asks, pleadingly.

After class is over and Bill finishes another in calculus -- a course he considers on par with his high school Algebra II -- he texts his friend about going to see a Washington Capitals hockey game the next night. He begins contemplating life at West Point and concedes ambivalence.

"I'm not sure about West Point. I'm trying not to think about it. My mind always gets confused," he says. He tries to convince himself that the Iraq war will likely be over by the time he would graduate.

In January, Bill gets a phone call from West Point. Finally, he hears a verdict based on his performance in Minnesota. But the call does not go his way: The school wants Bill to play in the junior leagues for one more year -- in a better league, too -- and enroll as a 20-year-old freshman. He's told to withdraw his application and reapply. If he chooses to do that, he'll either have to persuade U-Va. to hold his spot for another year until he gets a new answer from West Point, or risk losing it.

He had planned on only one gap year -- one year off the track. Now he has to rethink his plan, he says.

"I am seriously thinking about going to U-Va. That's becoming more of an option," he says. "I don't want to sit out another year . . . All my friends are in college. They'd be juniors when I was a freshman."

A few days later, Bill is driving in his truck to meet a former hockey teammate, Shayne Pouliot, a freshman at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, who is in town for winter break. It's late morning, and Bill calls Shayne to see if he's running on time for their early lunch at the Buffalo Wing Factory & Pub in Ashburn. (It's 49-cent wing day, so Bill is eager.)

"Hello? Shayne, what's up? All right! I'll buy you Buffalo wings," Bill says, extending the free lunch after realizing he woke Shayne up. Bill ends the call and notes in disbelief that his friend is just waking up at 11:30 a.m. Even at college, Shayne's earliest classes are at 10 a.m., Bill says.

"I call 9:30 sleeping in," he says, sounding a bit miffed. Later, he explains that he sometimes feels irritated by the perception of some of his peers that he's spending his gap year lazing around. "People will ask my girlfriend, 'What is he doing?' and she says, 'Oh, he's playing hockey.' And they don't understand the full picture, what I'm doing when I'm not playing hockey." Initially, Bill says he was envious of the fun and freedom his friends were experiencing in college because the season hadn't gotten into full swing yet, and he was bored. But then he got a girlfriend, and he got the hang of his job, "and it all came into place," he says.

As Bill settles in with Shayne and another friend, Shayne starts giving his unsolicited opinion on Bill's future, saying he should consider a "postgraduate" year at a boarding school, a tactic than can net an Ivy League acceptance letter. "You could go to Yale," Shayne says. "Then we'd be 10 miles apart."

IN THE WASHINGTON AREA, INTEREST IN THE GAP YEAR is such that parents at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda recruited Bull from the Center for Interim Programs to help lead a seminar in March. The panel featured a 2001 Whitman alum, Lauren Clark, who spent her gap year in Ghana teaching English and in Italy studying art, before attending Tufts University. Now she is a communications manager for a Maryland investment firm that pours money into developing countries.

"I was burned out," Clark, 24, says, and her grades fell during her junior year. "I wasn't able to concentrate on school- work anymore."

She put aside the college application process during her senior year and spent all her time concentrating on her Advanced Placement courses to boost her grades. She knew she wanted a year off after high school, and she would deal with colleges then. But what would she do during her time off? Bull helped her map out a year in Africa and Italy.

"She asked me, 'If you could do anything in the world, what would you want to do?' " Clark recalls. "I knew I wanted to travel. I wanted to be outside the U.S. and do something community service oriented. I wanted to challenge myself and go outside my comfort zone."

Bull found a program called Global Routes that placed Clark in Ghana, where she lived with a host family and taught English to middle school students. Clark raised money to help build a one-room library for the community. During the second half of the year, she traveled with a London-based university program throughout Italy studying art history, an interest she credits to her father, a historic preservation lawyer, and mother, a ballet teacher. When Clark applied to college, she didn't have to think too hard about what she would write about for her essay.

"I got into every school I applied to except Stanford," Clark says. "I got a letter from Tufts commending me for my work. The dean of admissions wrote a note saying congratulations and 'What a great job you did in Ghana.' And that's where I ended up."

Sara Nawaz, a graduate of the private Potomac School in McLean, also decided to take a gap year abroad, deferring her admission to Swarthmore College last year so she could pick up Spanish by attending high school and college courses in Argentina. Sara cultivated a yen for foreign travel during childhood, when her parents took her on trips spanning several continents. Instead of using a gap year consultant, she researched on the Internet and settled on AFS Intercultural Programs (formerly American Field Service), an exchange program that places students in high schools and colleges around the world. She wanted total immersion, a chance to investigate and blend into another world.

"The idea of learning another language and living in another culture and getting into it more than just a tourist really appealed to me," Sara says from her host family's home in Salta, a city in northwestern Argentina.

But, she says, the program is not for everyone. "I know a lot of people that have come here, and it wasn't the best choice. They're way too immature," she says. "They're not outgoing enough. They're too shy."

Her mom, Kathleen, a senior project leader for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, has seen her daughter mature considerably over the last year. "She hasn't changed in a dramatic way, but she's more intellectually curious," she says. "She's become more solid in her values. She's a kinder, more sensitive person. That's what maturity is, getting away from self-focus."

AFTER MULLING WEST POINT'S SUGGESTION, Bill decides to try for a higher-level team in the junior leagues for a second gap year. He's getting recruitment letters from some powerhouses, including the Des Moines Buccaneers in the USHL, at the time the defending champions of the nation's best junior league. Bill isn't sure what's next for him after the junior leagues.

The prospect of Bill attending West Point is dispiriting to some of his Junior Nationals teammates. "None of us know what the deal with that is. I think his dad is pushing him to go," says Patrick Cullen, the team's highest scorer.

Tom readily concedes that he's influenced his son to attend West Point. When the Days lived in New York, they attended numerous hockey games at the school. He knows the rigor of West Point and believes that, if his sons are up for it, it's the best choice. "Would I like to see both of my sons go there? Yes, I would," Tom says. But "if it's not the right fit for Bill, and if it's not what he really wants to do, then, no. It can be an unforgiving place."

At a February home game at The Gardens Ice House in Laurel, Bill's parents' enthusiasm for West Point is on display. Bill's mother appears to have no qualms about the military service requirement.

"You cannot think about that -- 'Oh, my gosh, am I going to go to Iraq?' Just don't think about it," she says. "You have to think about your duty. Everybody has a car accident, and not everyone dies."

Tom chimes in. West Point "told Bill that they love his offensive vision, but they want to know if he can a handle a 6-foot-9, 180-pound guy."

A few minutes later, Bill pummels a guy into the boards -- the high wall fencing the rink. " That's what they're looking for," Tom says in a guttural voice. "He's got to do more of that. It's more of an attitude."

IN MID-MARCH, BILL AND HIS TEAMMATES HEAD TO THE AJHL PLAYOFFS AT CYCLONES ARENA IN HUDSON, N.H., which offer an enticing reward for the teams who win two games: a chance to play the following weekend at Harvard University in the league's final four, where numerous scouts from prominent schools will attend. The Junior Nationals score a big upset and make the cut.

But the next weekend, at Harvard's Bright Hockey Center, they lose. The season is officially over. Now, Bill's full attention is focused on whether he can land a spot on a USHL team in the spring. If he doesn't, would he play for a second- or third-ranked league such as the Eastern Junior Hockey League (EJHL)? And in case the leagues don't make a decision on him until late June, would U-Va. give him more time to decide whether to enroll this fall? And if he can't wait until summer, could he at least get a second year to defer?

At U-Va., dean Blackburn says that about 25 students out of 3,100 who matriculate as freshman request one-year deferrals, and most are granted. But only one or two students a year ask for a second year, he says, and those are mainly doing missionary work or completing military service requirements in other countries.

They're usually told to reapply. "It would be unusual for us not to approve a request for deferral a second time," Blackburn says. "But it seems to get a little tougher every year. On the other hand, we admitted this guy. We wanted him, so we'd probably say, 'Sure, let's go ahead.' "

Bill's persistence pays off. In mid-April, he receives a letter from Blackburn, who grants him until the end of December to decide whether he will enroll in the fall of 2008.

"By the end of the first [gap] year, the person really knows the ropes," Blackburn says. "So the second year would be more valuable, and the person would be more effective in what he or she is doing."

Other admissions officials say they might not have been so generous. "Is this student deferring because he wants to try and get in somewhere else?" asks Charles Deacon, the dean of admissions at Georgetown University. "Are you holding his spot so he can get into Harvard? I'll give this kid credit for his honesty, but he wants to have his cake and eat it, too."

IN EARLY MAY, WITH THE HOCKEY SEASON OVER, Bill has more time to concentrate on his part-time job in Vienna, where he works for Contemporary Electrical Services. Bill got the job through a hockey friend's father, who is the company's president, and he saves most of the $15-an-hour wage for whatever he may need in the future. His parents have already saved enough money for his college.

The company's offices are extremely quiet, except for the sound of a fax-machine beeping. On this day, Bill is using an array of highlighters to count the types of outlets needed for office spaces for the National Committee for Quality Assurance. With the floor blueprints before him, Bill is scrutinizing each mysterious-looking symbol on the page to determine what kind of electrical fixture it stands for. Once he's done, he asks his project manager, Michael Jamison, to make sure he did not miss anything.

"Let's see what we got here," Jamison says, as he is perusing Bill's work. "Oh! There are some type-'C' fixtures there . . . and one dedicated receptacle there."

Bill immediately pulls out an orange highlighter and dutifully colors in the symbol denoting the fixture. The job could be viewed as a glimpse into the kind of life Bill would have were he to chuck the idea of college. But there's no danger of that, he says. "From the way I was raised, from what my parents have taught me, you need to go . . . There's no other option. You need college to get a real job." Furthermore, "I know after college, I am not going to be able to play hockey," Bill says. "I'm going to have to go on and get a job. Maybe in business."

His gap year is winding down. Has it taught him anything? Has he matured in any way?

Bill replies that his job at the electrical company has helped him grasp how work can be painstaking, slow and not immediately rewarding. He sees his father's career at the Postal Service in a new light. "At my job, I kinda respected the work my dad does, how much time goes into it," he says. He also appreciates his mother more, he says. "When I was in school, I didn't see what she did, like do all the laundry and cook all the food. This year, I saw what she did and how she found time to do it."

His dad, however, says that Bill's year off would have been better if he had lived away from home, taking care of his own needs. But Bill has learned how to balance responsibilities and keep himself on track instead of relying on his parents, Tom says. If Bill plays hockey with another team next year, he'll gain the experience of living away from home before college. "We just ran into one of his friends from high school, and he dropped out of college. If they haven't learned about time management and discipline, you can go to college and just bomb out."

FROM: PATTY

any updates on the draft yet?

To: Patty

Nope

It's May 15 -- draft day for the USHL -- and Bill is busy text-messaging with his teammate Patrick Cullen. Right now, Cullen is taking an Advanced Placement exam and Bill is at work, looking at office blueprints and checking the USHL Web site to see how he is faring in the draft. If he doesn't get drafted, he knows he has a spot on the New Jersey Hitmen, a team in the EJHL. That league is more established, and since its teams are in the Northeast, he believes just as many elite college scouts will see him play.

But it's not the USHL, which he prefers, he says, because he wants to play with the country's very best hockey players and because its reputation leaves no doubt in the minds of college scouts that he is ready for a Division I team. Bill, somewhat agitated, if not slightly embarrassed, remains hopeful. "Chicago seems like where I could end up," he says. He believes the team there is looking for high-scoring defensemen like him. "They did awful last year."

Minutes into the draft, Cullen gets selected -- he's the fourth pick in the first of 18 rounds, a clear sign he'll be a prospect for the National Hockey League. Bill starts getting antsy, so he turns his attention to the blueprints on his desk. Atlantic Media Co. is building a new office at 600 New Hampshire Ave. NW, and Bill is using a green highlighter to mark all the circuits. "It's not the end of the world if I don't get drafted," he says, preparing himself for disappointment.

He can't sit still. Minutes later, he checks the computer again. Nothing. The second round closes, then the third. He sees someone get drafted by the Indiana Ice in the third round. "This kid," Bill says. "I played against him. He's not that good."

Round after round, Bill fields anxious text messages from his father and girlfriend, but every time he hits the "refresh" button, another guy's name from some other city pops up on the screen.

He leaves work early to go home, where his mother has made him sushi. He scarfs the rolls down with some milk. Then, he goes upstairs and checks the Web site again. It's the 10th round.

"God. This is hard to watch," he says. "It's just boring. It sucks. God. This is brutal. I gotta do something. I cannot sit around."

Bill takes off for the gym. But after the day is over, he learns that he was not picked after 18 rounds. A few days later, though, some USHL teams invite him to their tryouts in June. Bill accepts an offer to audition for the Ohio Junior Blue Jackets, but he knows his chances are slim. Out of about 24 defensemen invited, Bill says, the team will take about eight.

After he gets home from the tryout in June, Bill is somewhat mournful. "I got cut," he says. "I played my style. I didn't give up any goals. I know one of the kids who made it. I'm definitely better than him. I am trying to understand what the coaches are thinking."

And so, he's off to Wayne, N.J., home of the New Jersey Hitmen. It's not the best league or best team, but seven of its players this past season signed with Division I schools to play hockey for the coming season, including one who's going to Yale.

So, one gap year down, one to go.

Ian Shapira is a staff writer for The Post's Metro section. He can be reached at shapirai@washpost.com.

For advice on whether and how to take a gap year, see the article in today's Metro section and join Ian Shapira and others for a discussion Monday at noon at http://washingtonpost.com/liveonline. In addition, find back-to-school features, multimedia and discussions through the month of August at http://washingtonpost.com/backtoschool.