Community Choice Awards 2020: Gap Year

A gap year is many things to many people. Actually, it's likely that every person who takes a gap year has a completely unique reason for taking the gap year and what they hope to get out of it. When attempting to determine the best overall gap year providers, we looked at those who scored highly across every part of the gap year experience, from support and housing to fun, value, and safety. The following gap year providers had the top overall scores in 2020:

Whether a gap year means spending a year abroad in a single country living and working or a multi-country jaunt across one or more continents, housing is a pretty important part of the experience. We ask gap year alumni to rate the housing provided by their gap year provider; while there's some variance based on how many housing types they experience each year, the best providers offer quality, safe housing everywhere. The following providers had the top scores in the Housing category:

A gap year is a chance to really step outside the normal support structure you may know and feel comfortable with. That said, it's also a time where you still may need some support from time to time as you get your footing and take on the world. We ask gappers to rate the support they receive -- when they need it -- from their gap year program. The following programs had the top scores in the Support category:

We obviously think that taking a gap year should be a fun experience -- in fact, we ask every reviewer to tell us how much fun they had overseas, for almost every program they rate on our site. For gap year programs, we ask alumni to share what they rate the social scene for their gap year program. The following providers had the top scores in the Fun category:

Value is a tricky thing to score; everyone has a different idea of what they value and how much something is worth. Generally speaking, our goal in asking gappers to rate the value of a gap year program is for them to tell us whether they think the cost of their program translated into personal growth like they hoped it would. The following providers had top scores in the Value category:

Safety is one of the most important factors we ask reviewers to rate; almost every program on Go Overseas (even those that aren't in the gap year category) is rated on safety. In particular, we want to know how students felt about their level of safety throughout the gap year. The following providers had the top scores in the Safety category: