TheUnbearableLightness

Hey guys. Long-time lurker, first time poster. This site is invaluable for navigating visa stuff. I'm a Canadian citizen on an F-1 student visa, about to finish my Bachelor's this spring. I'm loving the Optional Practical Training you can do on this visa: easy work authorization, and I don't even have force my employer through a bunch of confusing forms? Awesome. I'd like to use OPT to work as a research assistant before graduate school, because it doesn't hurt to have a little more experience and a little more money. The timing kind of sucks, though: OPT is only for twelve months, unless I use my one-time, 17-month STEM extension. That means if I start working right after I graduate in May 2016, my work authorization ends in May 2017, months before I would start any graduate program in the fall. The US government does give me a 60-day window to get myself out of the states, but unless I find a program that starts at the end of July, that's not enough time. I could use my STEM extension, but for only three months, that seems like a waste. I suppose I could start graduate school during summer. How uncommon is that? Has anyone else taken a gap year to use their OPT like this? How did you make it happen?