A year between leaving college and entering University where students pursue a range of activities from travelling and voluntary service overseas to gaining valuable industry experience. The University of Portsmouth welcomes applications from students wishing to defer entry.

A year spent between school and higher education, usually combining work experience and travel.

The term gap year (also known as "year out", "deferring", "Overseas Experience") is a prolonged period (often, but not always, a year) between a student's completion of secondary school and matriculation in university or college or also between college and graduate school or a profession. It is generally a practice undertaken by young people from anglophone nations with a great proportion of gap year students from one country effectively swapping with gap year students from another.