A gap year, also known as a sabbatical year, is a period of time when students take a break from their studies, usually after completing high school or before beginning graduate school. During this time, students engage in a variety of educational and developmental activities, such as traveling, working, volunteering, or taking courses. Gap years are not limited to a year-long break and can range from several months to a few years.

The activities undertaken during a gap year vary widely and depend on the individual's interests and goals. Some students may take courses to improve their academic skills in areas such as math or language studies, while others may learn a trade, pursue art, or participate in sports. Volunteer work is also a popular choice, as it allows students to give back to their communities and gain valuable experience. Students may also choose to work to save up money, either to fund their gap year activities or to prepare for future educational and personal expenses.

Research suggests that students who take a gap year tend to perform better academically than those who do not. However, some parents may worry that their children will continue deferring their education, rather than resuming studies at the end of the initially planned period.

A gap year is described as “a semester or year of experiential learning, typically taken after high school, and prior to career or post-secondary education, in order to deepen one’s practical, professional, and personal awareness.” During this time, students engage in various educational, work-related, and developmental activities such as internships, work experience, travel, volunteering, participation in cultural exchanges, studying art or learning a trade, etc. Though gap years come in many different formats – from structured programs to personal exploration – the purpose of taking a gap year is usually founded on the common needs of young people to gain deeper self-understanding, expand their worldview, and recharge between traditional academic experiences. On the other hand, rejected college or employment applications have also caused high school students to pursue a gap year.

Taking a gap year can have significant benefits to one's academic path as well as a career trajectory. This time taken off can help college students from “burning out” or turning to indulgent behaviors as a result of unhealthy stress. During this year, students can explore different interests while gaining experience and maturity before beginning college. It gives young people the time to make an informed choice about the path they wish to pursue, as well as the experience of real-world situations to match academic theories. Gap years and similar sabbatical experiences are popular around the world (as can be evidenced below per country), but are just beginning to become more popular in the United States. Studies conducted by American colleges are showing that the average GPA for students who have taken a gap year is significantly higher than the average GPA for students who have not. Amidst much evidence supporting the positive outcomes of taking a gap year, the room for improvement remains – as the gap year experience is largely geared primarily toward students with “means.” Some still argue an opposing view, as parents are among the concerned that taking a year off from school has the potential to break a student's focus and derail their path rather than recharge it. Ultimately though, the idea of a gap year is growing as it helps students gain the independence necessary for a smoother transition into adulthood.

Gap years first became common in the 1960s when the young, baby boom generation, wanted to get away from the severity of war from the silent generation. At first, the primary purpose of the gap year was for countries to exchange cultural ideals in the hope of preventing future wars.^{[dubious – discuss]} The outcome of this exchange was the growth of the gap year industry.

The introduction of gap-year companies in the 1960s and 1970s started the gap-year industry. With the long-term success of organizations like Topdeck, Flight Centre, and Raleigh International, the gap year industry developed rapidly. In 1967, Nicholas Maclean-Bristol created Project Trust, which sent three volunteers to Ethiopia from the UK. The goal of this was to help the nation develop, but also build the volunteers' own skills. In 1972, Gap Activity Projects (now Lattitude Global Volunteering) was started to send UK youth around the world on Gap Year experiences. Their participants, still called "Gappers", went a long way to branding the year between high school and university as a Gap Year. In 1973, Graham Turner innovated the gap year industry by purchasing a bus and selling tickets to Kathmandu. This led to Turner creating Topdeck and Flight Centre, which are successful gap-year companies today. In 1978, the Prince of Wales and Colonel John Blashford-Snell began Operation Drake which is now known as Raleigh International, an expedition voyage around the world following Sir Francis Drake's route.

In 1969, the first gap year organization was founded in Worcester, Massachusetts. The organization called Dynamy was founded with the intention of teaching young people self-confidence and the role they play in a large community. In the 1980s, the gap year idea was promoted by Cornelius H. Bull in the United States to allow students more time for individual growth. Cornelius saw that students needed a bridge between high school and college that would help develop more hands-on skills. To do this, he founded the Center for Interim Programs in 1980 which had goals of increasing self-awareness and developing new cultural perspectives.