Students have worked hard in their classes all school year and hopefully have finished well. It’s great to have the summer to travel, visit family, go on vacation, get extra rest, enjoy an activity that you don’t get to spend as much time doing during the school year and even work more hours a week and make some more money. However, the summer can be a very important and profitable time when it comes to enhancing your college applications. One thing that is important to understand is that there is no perfect formula. Some students think if they do X, Y and Z they will have a better chance of getting in to the college(s) they want to apply to. That’s when it can get tricky. You take a course over the summer or attend a week or longer camp at a college, but this doesn’t mean you will have a “leg up” in the application process. Below are tips to follow as you head into the summer and make plans:
1) Be productive- Yes, summer is an opportunity to get some more sleep and have some more down time but if that is all you do (except for a couple weeks), it will not benefit you at all in the college application process. Colleges want to see how you use the time you have when you are not having to spend a large amount of time in school and doing homework. Now colleges can get a “glimpse” of what you do in your “free time” which can be important to them when evaluating your application. It gives them a great idea of how you will spend your time on their campus when you are not in class or studying because they do not want students who just go to class and study. They want students who are going to benefit the school community beyond the classroom.
2) Do what you love to do– The last thing I would want a student to do in the summer is sign up or attend something that they don’t really want to do but they think it will help build their resume or get into a college. I get the question sometimes, “If I attend a camp at ______ college will it help my chances of getting in”? My answer to that is first, ask the college for the most accurate answer, but when I have asked that question, it is always “no”. Why? Can you imagine a college charging a good amount of money to come to a camp at their college and then saying students who attend the camp have an advantage in the application process? In my opinion, they will have a lot of equity and fairness issues to deal with. These camps at colleges are there for you to get a feel for college life, get a great idea of what life on a certain college campus will be like, get a great idea of whether you should major in a certain area and also to learn, grow, make new friends. Now, it is definitely not going to hurt you but it won’t help in most cases either. However, if you were able to get to know any counselors in the admissions office, that can only help as well because they now can put a face to the name. This also goes for taking academic courses over the summer. I encourage students not to think that if they continue to “do school” all summer colleges will be impressed. If you do take a course or two over the summer, do it because you want to and would love it. I would encourage you not to only do this and be unproductive in other non-academic areas.
3) What if I want or have to work to make money? Great! In my perspective, having a job can be one of the most beneficial experiences for a teenager. You are meeting and have to work with people you don’t normally associate with. You have to do tasks that you particularly don’t enjoy at times. You have to learn the disciplines of being on time, covering for someone who is out, getting evaluated, etc. These are things that you will most likely face in the future wherever you work after college. You also get to make some money and hopefully learn how to be a good steward of the money God has provided for you. Colleges understand that students want to and/or need to work in the summer. The big questions they will ask are:
- What did you learn at your job?
- How did you grow individually?
- How long did you work there?
- Were you able to take on more responsibility and/or leadership opportunities while you worked there?
4) Serve others! In my perspective, the summer is an opportunity to show colleges that you want to serve others. This is a responsibility we have as believers in Christ. 1 Peter 4:10 says, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in various forms.” This should be our main motivation on why we serve others. Colleges also like to see applicants who have used their gifts to benefit others and not themselves. The more competitive admission colleges are great at picking these things out because you did it naturally and not intentionally.
I will tell you my own story as an example. I went to an overnight Christian camp for one week each year from when I was ages 8-16. I loved and looked forward to that week of camp each year. At the end of my junior year in high school they asked if I would considering being a counselor, I said yes! It was a lot of time (middle of June to middle of August) but I enjoyed every minute of it. I didn’t get paid much but I didn’t care. I was a counselor after my senior year and then was asked to be the Boys Head Counselor/Assistant Program Director the summer after my freshman and sophomore years of college. I still graduated with a degree in Public Administration and looked for government and public policy jobs after graduation. However, God’s plan for me was to work with kids all along and he provided an opportunity to do so out of the blue at a small Christian high school in San Francisco the summer after I graduated. I look back on my summer’s now and think that they benefitted me for my future career more than anything I did during the school year. I worked at Wendy’s and a small mom and pop ice cream and barbecue place as well when I could but it was the investment I made when working at the camp serving kids that prepared me all along.
In conclusion, I will say it again, there is no perfect formula. Don’t get caught up in how many things you are doing in the summer wondering if it is enough. Don’t ask yourself, “will colleges want to see me doing something specific in the summer to have a better chance of being accepted at their school?”. Just be productive with your time, do what you love and serve others and you will be fine!
