Some of the advantages of taking a year off between high school and college involve reviving your enthusiasm for learning through time off after several years in school and discerning your interests more clearly before entering a college-level program of study. Additionally, some colleges have a positive regard for students who have some kind of real-world experience before beginning their college studies. Students who enter degree programs in colleges that have a favorable perspective towards gap year experiences may enhance their attractiveness to one or more such academic institutions.
One disadvantage of resuming education after a gap year involves lack of access to advisers from your high school to assist you with curriculum planning. The risk also exists that taking a break at this time will increase the likelihood that you will decide against advancing your education at all. However, pursuing technical training may make a better fit for you and in such an instance the choice not to pursue further academic study may offer an advantage -- whereas for a student whose career objectives require college, the inclination to defer schooling further after such a gap year remains a disadvantage.
Traditionally, gap year activities involve such activities as community service, gaining volunteer experience in an area that interests you as a career, travel, independent study or getting a year of job experience. All of these traditional gap year experiences contribute to development of life skills and organizational skills that employers find more attractive in a job candidate than they do in someone with an exclusively academic background. Community service or travel can also give you greater insights into other cultures and into economic, social and global concerns. Employers also find this kind of expanded cultural awareness attractive because it plays an important role in fostering diversity within the workplace.
Depending on how you decide to spend your time off, a gap year can involve significant expense. Additionally, regardless of the potential advantages of a gap year, you will derive the most benefit from such a break in schooling through good planning. Depending on how you plan to spend the year, you may find effective planning of your gap year a difficult task to accomplish.