<p>"If you are short on cash a job over the summer won't cover much at all. It might cover books and necesities like that but it won't really make a contribution."</p>
<p>^^^What are you talking about. I have managed to basically support myself during the summer through my summer jobs and if your family doesn't earn much to begin with summer earning can be a huge help to a family. Just because you don't think what you could earn in the summer is significant relative to your lifestyle and current family income doesn't mean it's not a good source of income for others.</p>
Take for example the infamous story of a former Harvard admission officer. Upon a mother asking him what research, mission trip, or school her daughter should do doing the summer, the officer says "cut grass"
you sure colleges want someone who spend their summer working as a bag boy or grass cutter over someone who goes to RSI for the summer?</p>
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I have friends who earn upwards of 3,000 dollars a summer, which actually can be pretty significant.
<p>Bobmallet, there actually are a lot of people who make that much. I work at a grocery store and I know people who make that in a summer as cashiers and various other positions, just by putting in a lot of hours. And no one was saying anything about jobs vs. RSI/TASP/etc. So that was kind of random. The point is admissions officers like applicants who hold steady jobs. It shows responsibility, independence and not being a spoiled brat, all excellent qualities :)</p>
<p>Even for minimum wage, let's say you get $7.5/hour, for a year that would be $15K, for the 3 summer months that would be, $15K/4= a little less than $4K. Yes you can earn that much over the summer with just 40 hours. If you want to work more, you probably can make $5K. It's doable.</p>
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This is how I see it. Community service looks way better than working. Like myself, I don't work I mostly volunteer. It looks better because it shows that I'm willing to help the community for FREE. Hey it's not easy working hard without really getting anything out of it. That's my philosophy.
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<p>Are you serious? What about the people who work to make ends meet?</p>
<p>Like most, I figured that as long as I was keeping busy with activities, that I wouldn't need to work simply for the purpose of enhancing my college app. </p>
<p>Then, I read a major story in the Boston Globe explaining that top schools want to see applicants who work, as doing so shows responsibility and proves the ability of the applicant to take orders. I guess getting a job is important...</p>
<p>yeah, and getting money doesn't suck either :)</p>
<p>although im really gonna need my job once i get a car, i have to pay for my own car, my insurance, my cell phone, my gas, aha. and then spending money</p>
<p>I dont think it really matters if you have been cutting grass, serving burgers, or cleaning garbage. Unless you don't do anything else, don't waste your time serving burgers</p>
<p>A job can make up for lesser test scores or grades.
If you are working 30 hours a week to help support your family, that is impressive. Colleges will see this and say, "what could this kid be doing if he didn't have this responsibility." It's all about the motives behind the job. If you're just looking for some extra cash, don't expect it to help you too much if you're not learning some valuable skills.</p>
<p>It's all context. Remember, ADCOMs are not rich people, they have sympathy for the kids working to support his family; they have feelings you know.</p>
<p>if you don't have to work (if you're lucky enough to not have to support your family) and you spend the time that you're not working on meaningful ECs, amazing test scores, high grades, great community service, etc. then not having work experience is not going to adversely affect your application.</p>
<p>however, if you don't work yet you still get mediocre grades, have so-so ECs, and not much community service, the Adcoms are gonna be wondering what you did with your time.</p>
<p>so, i guess what i'm saying is that, if you have the time to work (i sure as hell didn't) then you should either get a job or step up your ECs, academics, community service, whatever. the key is to not appear to have had loads of free time that you could have been using for various activities (working included).</p>
<p>No. No. No. A lot of foreign students in th U.S. -students who hold F2 visa- cannot work. It's voilation of law, and I;ve seen tons of them getting into top universities.</p>
<p>Your stats are so good that i dont think you should worry about it. Also, I found it hilarious that kollegkid attacked that harvard soph earlier in this thread about grammer and spelling. Its a freakin' cc post, everyone says "i" instead of "I," do you go through your post after you finish like its an english essay? Have u ever instant messaged? Or are u just threatened beacause he goes to harvard? LMAO</p>
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I'd much rather spend my summer at RSI than working at Mcdonalds, would you?
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<p>Again, no one was saying that having a job is better than RSI..I really dont know why this comes up? All that we're saying is that having a job can be impressive to adcoms because it shows responsibility and non-spoiledness(ha), etc. Why do people feel the need to enter these random things into the equation that have no relevance to the discussion at hand?</p>
<p>at the end of the day, it all comes down to what was available to you and what you made of it. if you didnt have the time to work due to other committments or because of other reasons (international students) thats ok, but if you did have the time to work and you made full use of it, kudos to you.</p>