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Gap Year Association

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Gap Year Association

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GYA is the only national nonprofit working to coordinate the growing gap year movement.

The Gap Year Association is a nonprofit membership community who share a vision of a future where gap year experiences are widely accessible and recognized as vital to personal, professional, and educational development. Recognized by the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission as the Standards Development Organization for gap year education, the Gap Year Association oversees a robust accreditation process for gap year providers and consultants. The Gap Year Association is the official Standards Development Organization in the US for gap year education, as recognized by the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. We continue to advance the field of gap year education by collaboratively pioneering research on its benefits, as well as serving as an information and advocacy hub for university admissions personnel and educational counselors. While our main goal is to focus on accreditation such that every student signing on with a GYA Member organization will have the best and safest experience available, we will not be accrediting individuals nor individual project sites.

11/03/2026

We closed out Gap Year Exploration Month this October with our Future Ready panel, moderated by Julia Rogers of and featuring four alums who brought the energy and wisdom we’ve come to expect from gap year students!

🐘 Danny lived in the Himalayas, restored coral reefs in Mexico, and led elephant walks in Thailand. Now he’s an engineering senior at Michigan State and serves on the GYA board.

🎨 Hope planned to study environmental science. Then a gap year in Italy sparked a love of art history. Today she works at the Whitney Museum in NYC (and her roommate is a friend from camping in the Sahara!).

⛵ Will trekked through Bolivia and Peru, then sailed from South Africa to Brazil. That semester on the ocean launched his path toward marine science.

🏔️ Grace scaled the Blue Ridge Mountains, paddled the Amazon, came home fluent in Spanish, and made it onto American Ninja Warrior. Twice.

Each of these young adults experienced their own unique gap year journey. But some commonalities emerged. Namely:
✅ Mindset is your superpower, honed through chosen challenge
✅ There’s no such thing as “falling behind”
✅ Gap year friends become lifelong family
✅ Employers notice the skills you build on gap time, and it becomes a distinct advantage

Thank you, Hope, Will, Danny, and Grace, for showing us what it looks like to be future ready. 🙌

Watch the full panel recording on GYA’s youtube chanel and at this link: https://tinyurl.com/gyempanel26

10/29/2026

That’s a wrap on Gap Year Exploration Month 2026! 🌍✨

Thank you to every student, family, educator, program, and advocate who shared stories, joined the conversation, and helped us show how gap years make students FUTURE READY. Your engagement this month means more students now know the gap year is a real option.

But we’re not done yet! Join us TONIGHT for our closing event: a live panel with 4 gap year alumni sharing how their gap years prepared them for college, careers, and personal growth.

🗓️ Tonight, Thursday, October 29
⏰ 7–8pm ET
📍 YouTube Live (link in bio)
🎤 Hosted by Julia Rogers of EnRoute Consulting

See you there! :)

10/28/2026

What happens when every part of your day, from ordering lunch to talking with professors, happens in your second language? Anaya arrived in Spain on her own with CIEE and had to build new connections in a foreign country. She shares the three biggest lessons from studying abroad: running your own schedule, finding your way in a new country, and connecting across cultures. Watch to hear the one piece of advice she’d give every friend heading from high school to college.

This video is part of our Gap Year Exploration Month video series, Future Ready: Skills for a Lifetime, spotlighting how gap years build the skills young people carry into college, careers and beyond. Stay tuned for more videos the entire month of October!

10/26/2026

Before her gap year, Alana was shy and had never hiked more than three miles. With Irish Gap Year, she lived with strangers, learned to surf, finished an 8-mile hike and pitched her own tent on a 3-day expedition. Now those conversations at work come naturally. Watch to hear what she’d tell her high school self about pausing, growing and getting ready for what’s next.

This video is part of our Gap Year Exploration Month video series, Future Ready: Skills for a Lifetime, spotlighting how gap years build the skills young people carry into college, careers and beyond. Stay tuned for more videos the entire month of October!

10/23/2026

Orly spent her gap year with Tivnu in Portland Oregon. There she built community with her peers, explored the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest and dedicated her time to interning with a local nonprofit and assisting with construction projects for the unhoused community in the city. These experiences directly informed her decision to go into social work. Orly is now pursuing a masters in social work and credits discovering her path early thanks to her gap time.

This video is part of our Gap Year Exploration Month video series, Future Ready: Skills for a Lifetime, spotlighting how gap years build the skills young people carry into college, careers and beyond. Stay tuned for more videos the entire month of October!

10/22/2026

Lauren’s video is short and makes one clear point: school builds knowledge, and a gap year gives you a chance to put it into practice. On her Spanish Gap Year, real-world confidence came from grocery shopping in another language and figuring out a bus card in a new city. Watch for a quick burst of the best kind of encouragement.

This video is part of our Gap Year Exploration Month video series, Future Ready: Skills for a Lifetime, spotlighting how gap years build the skills young people carry into college, careers and beyond. Stay tuned for more videos the entire month of October!

10/21/2026

At 21, with a computer science degree and a curiosity of what her next steps would be, Pragya moved from Nepal to New York City for Living City Project’s City Gap program. She studied how public spaces, policy and community care keep a city alive, and she ended up comparing New York with her hometown of Kathmandu. Along the way she found a new career passion and learned she can make a home anywhere. Watch to hear her invitation to figure yourself out in “unconventional, ambitious, and kind ways.”

This video is part of our Gap Year Exploration Month video series, Future Ready: Skills for a Lifetime, spotlighting how gap years build the skills young people carry into college, careers and beyond. Stay tuned for more videos the entire month of October!

10/20/2026

Employers are shifting from grades toward skills, and that’s good news for gap year students!

They want to know how you communicate, solve problems, work in a team, and step up when it counts.

Those are the skills a gap year builds:
– Explaining yourself to host families and supervisors, sometimes in a new language
– Figuring things out when the train is canceled or the plan falls apart
– Working with people you didn’t choose and making it work anyway
– Showing up on time because people are counting on you

The trick is learning to talk about those skills. Our new blog shares 5 ways to turn your gap year into a story employers want to hear.

🔗 Read it at the link in bio!

October is ! This year’s theme is FUTURE READY, and all month we’re sharing alumni stories about how gap years prepare students for college, careers, and beyond. Join our alumni panel on YouTube Live on Oct 29.

10/19/2026

JJ spent his gap year with Adventure Exp in Fraser, Colorado, hiking every weekend and falling hard for the mountains. Sharing a house with a lot of roommates took some getting used to, but the connections he made there are ones he’ll carry for years. Next up is a solo adventure in New Zealand. Watch to hear the one thing his gap year taught him that school never could.

This video is part of our Gap Year Exploration Month video series, Future Ready: Skills for a Lifetime, spotlighting how gap years build the skills young people carry into college, careers and beyond. Stay tuned for more videos the entire month of October!

10/16/2026

Madeline already thought of herself as a strong communicator. Her gap year with Carpe Diem Education took that further. Working with people from very different backgrounds taught her patience, both with others and with herself, and made her more empathetic and self-aware. Watch to hear how she learned lessons no classroom could teach, and why she thinks every young person deserves this experience.

This video is part of our Gap Year Exploration Month video series, Future Ready: Skills for a Lifetime, spotlighting how gap years build the skills young people carry into college, careers and beyond. Stay tuned for more videos the entire month of October!

Address

Missoula, MT
59807

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 4pm
Tuesday	9am - 4pm
Wednesday	9am - 4pm
Thursday	9am - 4pm
Friday	9am - 12pm

Telephone

+14062015389

Website

http://www.gapyearassociation.org/

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