Dear High School Juniors:
What are you planning to do this summer?
If you ever wanted to strengthen your college applications by volunteering for Habitat for Humanity or doing a sandwich run for a shelter or volunteering at a position related to your career aspirations or visiting every Major League stadium in the country, do you realize how many summers you have left to do it?
One. This one.
If you ever wanted to participate in American Legion ball and/or a Summer Travel team, become a lifeguard, learn CPR or shadow a CPA and, thereby, show your college suitors why you would make a great athlete, Allied Health major or Accounting student, do you know how many summers you have left before you start filling out college applications, gathering recommendation letters and preparing personal essays?
That’s right. One. This one.
And if you’ve already done one (or some) of these things, do you want to stop now and leave those same admissions counselors wondering, “How come Brad didn’t continue with that? Why did Caitlin stop right before she became a black belt? Maybe they aren’t good at completing tasks. Hmmm.”
Some of you may be very familiar with utilizing your summers to advance your admissions credentials or further your professional interests. Others may be more familiar with using summer to improve your results on Call of Duty or Beach Frisbee. Whichever best describes you, this is your summer of admissions.
But Call of Duty and Beach Frisbee are my professional interests…
I have a feeling your Mom disagrees, Justin.
But, Mr. Szarek, aren’t my grades and my High School curriculum more important to those admissions folks?
Ah, you listen well, Ashley.
Courses taken and grades received certainly carry the heaviest load in the College Admissions process. But, for the most part, July and August are an opportunity to influence other parts of the application process. Here are some thoughts, tips and ideas for a future college applicant to make the most of his or her summer months:
1) Volunteer. At least once. You won’t regret it.
2) Work. For the experience, for something to put on your resume and for the money. You’ll need more of all of these things real soon.
3) Take a summer course at a local community college. Saves $ and gives you a taste of college.
4) Take good notes when you travel. Those may become the outline of a great personal statement.
5) Read a great book that you always wanted to read. Personal Statement fodder and just a great thing to do.
6) Think about which adults really know you, like you AND respect you. You are about to ask a couple of them to write about you.
7) Look at a “These Words Appear Most on the SATs“ or “Key Tips to SAT Success” article. Once. Maybe twice.
8) Ask yourself, what DO I want to be when I grow up? Write the answer down and date it. Don’t worry too much if the answer has plenty of commas or plenty of white space.
9) Look at your Senior year list of courses. Are they the courses to best help you achieve your goals? If not, what is the high school’s process to make changes during the summer or during the first week of classes?
10) Write down your top five schools. (Six, four, eight or ten are also acceptable totals. 27 is NOT.) Check off which ones you’ve visited and highlight the rest.
11) Don’t forget to enjoy the summer, at least part of the time. It is a time to re-energize your academic batteries; make sure you do so.
And, now, for your listening pleasure, I give you a choice: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong – Summertime. Or, if you prefer: Kid Rock doing All Summer Long. Enjoy.
As always, I welcome your comments and questions. Please feel free to email me at info@cc4therestofus.com, call or text me at 908-403-3819, join me on Facebook on “College Counseling for the Rest of Us” and join me on Twitter at @MichaelCCR.
College Counseling for the Rest of Us 
May 20, 2011 @ 17:36:55
Michael,
Sound advice as usual. I would however like to expand on your #10. Write down your top five schools, highlight the ones you have visited and visit the ones you haven’t.
I took my son to visits colleges between his sophomore and junior year. During his junior year he decided he wanted to apply to two schools that we did not visit. He was willing to apply sight unseen. My advice to him was; you are going to invest at least four years of your life, you and I are going to be investing real money don’t you think it would be a good idea to find out if you can imagine yourself at these schools before you apply. He did see value in what I was saying and we visited those two schools. After the visits he decided not to apply because he did not “see himself” at those schools. Thus we saved him, me and the colleges some time, effort and money by not applying to schools in which he could not picture himself.
So you students do all the things on Michael’s list and then if at all possible visit the schools to which you are going to apply. I bet if more students resolved to see all the schools to which they were going to apply we would have fewer students applying to between 15 and 20 colleges.
Ed Schoenberg
Vice President, Enrollment Management
Otis College of Art and Design
9045 Lincoln Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90045
May 20, 2011 @ 18:08:42
Ed,
Thank you, for your thoughts and for sharing your personal experience.
Question: I’m a big believer in trying to visit during the Spring of Fall semester, and would tend to discourage a family from visiting schools in the summer, unless distance and/or time management made that limitation impractical. Do you feel that I am overemphasizing the difference between the Fall/Spring visit and the Summer visit?
Michael