<p>As the title says, how important are summer activities in terms of college admissions? Personally, I'm really not somebody who does something just do look good on a college application, but I'm worried that if I don't join some program this summer then they would look negatively upon it (Just to clarify I'm talking about the Summer between the Junior and the Senior year).</p>
<p>If it were up to me, this is what my daily schedule would look like in the summer:</p>
<p>-Wake up, eat breakfast
-Study/Revise/Prepare for upcoming school year (Since I'm in a 2-year IB diploma program, classes carry over to the next year)
-Research/Write up Extended Essay (basically a college level paper that is also required for IB)
-Exercise-keeping my fitness up to prepare for the upcoming soccer season
-RELAX!!!
-Sleep</p>
<p>However, reading this forum and other threads on CC really has me worried that by not being part of a structured program (i.e. Summer school, camp, volunteering, job etc), it would disadvantage me in the applicant pool. Plus, wouldn't colleges think that since there is no way to verify whether or not I have actually been revising/researching/exercising, they would have to put me on a lower pedestal to someone who has been interning at some company?</p>
<p>What do you guys think? Should I be looking to find a something else or is my schedule ok? Oh and please state why! </p>
<p>I can’t really speak to how admissions officers view internships as compared to plans such as yours–but I can tell you that only one of the 8 colleges to which my daughter applied asked what she did last summer (and she was accepted there). Also, I wouldn’t worry about verification as long as you are truthful; colleges don’t seem to be verifying internships, either.</p>
<p>My D had two one-week events last summer, plus training for her sport and regular volunteering, that would have made it difficult to have summer-long plans. This is only one anecdote, but I really don’t think this disadvantaged her in any way.</p>
<p>That’s partly true–certainly such programs/service activities aren’t a disadvantage, but they look at applicants as whole people, not grading different aspects of your life.</p>
<p>The key is, of course, to make the most out of what you are involved in, summer programs or not. As you noted, doing something just to have a pretty college resume is worthless; what impresses adcoms is whether your experiences in anything you do–perhaps sports for you–contribute to your personal development, etc.</p>
<p>Sorry for several "etc."s, and have fun with IB … lol.</p>
<p>Thanks guys. I’m taking from these replies that although you don’t think my plans are worse, it would certainly help to have some sort of regular (or even one-off, but organised) activity.</p>
<p>So what if I were to have a one-week volunteering stint at some international convention center as a translator? Rest assured I’m not only doing this for my application as it’s part of my plan to visit my grandparents and it’s also something they want me to do. Would this look better or would it be of little significance?</p>
<p>Sounds to me like it would be a good activity to do if, and this is a big if in general, you can show your passion behind it. That’s honestly the same thing with all summer activities in general, just to find and show your passion.</p>
<p>I just want to clarify. It doesn’t matter whether the summer activity you do is structured; it matters whether you actually grow from whatever you do…right?</p>
<p>I regret not applying to more summer programs, and the only ones available to me now are either ones with questionable reputations or extremely expensive ones at prestigious colleges that are equally questionable. At the moment, my summer involves a month-long german enrichment class run by my own school (our foreign language department only offers german one for freshman, so IB german students such as myself have a lot of catching up to do), being a camp counselor for a week-long program (with monthly trainings from April until then), and spending time at the library to develop my creative writing skills and eventually craft a slam poetry CD by mid-August. This doesn’t include any of my IB work.</p>
<p>Would this be acceptable? I apologize if this isn’t the right place to ask…</p>