Why Take a Gap Year

1. You’ll perform better after arriving on campus.
2. A gap year will help you discover your interests and passions, and identify a future career path.
3. It will also provide you with unparalleled experiences for personal growth.
4. A gap year can help you hone essential interpersonal skills, including confidence, independence, compassion, self-awareness, communication, and more.
5. Top colleges and universities support gap years and even encourage incoming freshmen to defer for a year before beginning their college studies.

Supplement Traditional Classroom Learning with Experiential Education

You’ve been through the intense pressure to get into college. That’s important, but so is taking time to explore and learn outside of the classroom before making life-defining decisions. A gap year provides a welcome relief from the years of hard work it takes to get to graduation day. It also gives you life skills and experiences that will make you a stronger student in college and help you prepare to launch a satisfying career.

Arrive on Campus More Prepared for College

More universities are actively encouraging students to take structured gap years and many even subsidize gap year programs. That’s because independent studies of gap year alumni have shown that they return from their experiences more mature, confident, and with a better understanding of what they want to study and which career paths they plan to pursue.

Develop New Skills That Will Position You for Success

Educational institutions and employers value empathy, curiosity, resilience, maturity, and global understanding in their students and employees. These qualities correlate far more closely with future success and happiness than high grades alone. Gap year programs provide unmatched opportunities for building these strengths through real-world experiences.

Discover Your Passions While Experiencing the World

Interested in medicine? Explore developing countries and learn how preventable diseases still cause so much harm. Considering a career in law? Observe the rights of citizens in various countries across the world. Not sure of your career path? Immerse yourself in the global community and open yourself to options you may never have considered—or even known about—before.

• 98% of gap year students indicated that their gap year experience helped them grow as a person.
• 97% of gap year students indicated their experience helped them gain maturity and 96% answered that their experience on a gap year gave them more self-confidence.
• 75% of gap year alumni in the survey believed their gap year improved their preparation for college, impacted their career field, or helped them get a job.

*All Data from the American Gap Association 2015 National Gap Year Alumni Survey.

Ready to learn more about how taking a gap year works?