<p>Just read through the responses quickly so much of this may be repetitive, but here's what worked for us. D did 3 things before she left for her summer job:
1) a close-to-final draft of her resume which DH and I tweaked over the summer. It was amazing how many things we overlooked in the first draft, so having the summer to mull it over was great.
2) a pretty solid list of schools - it was lengthy and several fell off through the application process, but it was easier and less stressful to delete than add ;)
3) she spoke to all the teachers from whom she wanted recs. At her HS teachers are not in the habit of writing recommendations over the summer, but just speaking to them early smoothed the process when she went back EARLY in the fall to make a formal request.</p>
<p>She didn't start her essays until she came home at the end of the summer, which still gave her plenty of time to have them reviewed by teachers, her GC, DH and me.</p>
<p>D's HS has the juniors do a college research project after AP exams are over. They completed the UC application, including the two personal essays, and wrote one essay from the common app prompts, and filled out their "brag sheets." That was extremely helpful. The essays were eventually tweaked a bit, but before the summer even started a good bit of legwork was done.</p>
<p>D's famous quote, "Mom, college apps will be done before school starts." But not one was.</p>
<p>If you can get them to do it, great. Our daughter was in no mood to do it, with other activities over the summer, and I didn't feel like pushing, since the kids are pushed so hard during the year.</p>
<p>Otherwise, I'd vote for getting the legwork done -- compile the resume, finalize the list of schools and set up a spreadsheet with various requirements and deadlines for submission, etc. </p>
<p>D did finish pretty much everything over Thanksgiving break, much to my surprise. She finished one scholarship application and one arts supplement over Christmas. They weren't done by the time school starts, but it all worked out ...</p>
<p>I would be thrilled if anything were done over the summer, but I'm not expecting it. I will remind him come spring to ask his teachers. I know the APUSH teacher is popular and will be one that he will probably want to get nailed down. I can imagine having at least some semblance of a list and a resume. Essays? I wish!</p>
<p>S1 had drafts of two essays by the end of the summer, one of which was tossed and the other became his big Chicago essay -- but not before he wrote a completely different version and then came back to the original.</p>
<p>If your student plans on submitting research to competitions in the fall of senior year, getting stuff done (on either apps or writing the project paper) is ABSOLUTELY critical.</p>
<p>S1 also scheduled took a slightly easier fall semester senior year anticipating the apps and research, and made up for it w/a really tough second semester senior year. He needed that slack in October and November. This works better if one's school offers one-semester courses for at least part of the workload.</p>
<p>Will any of this work with S2? I have no idea. My kids are apples and oranges. Both delightful, but with VERY different approaches and interests.</p>
<p>But know your kid--my DS is a procrastinator who always comes thru. I knew we would make ourselves miserable over the summer if we kept harping on essays so we didn't. He worked on them til the last minute, literally, but got them done and they were decent.</p>
<p>Definitely have you or him make a simple chart of activities, what year(s) he did them and an estimate of the time he spent on them. In and out of school.</p>
<p>Besides the other suggestions, here's something I found to do with nervous anxiety in the Spring of Junior year. Think of incidents and stories about your kid that typify their best qualities and jot them down. What 3-6 words would you use to describe your child and what are the stories that exemplify those qualities--very specifically. Keep this to yourself, but as they write, you this will be helpful in prompting them in describing themselves. It's hard to write alot about yourself and when my DS got stuck, we'd talk thru some examples. Often he would dismiss my ideas, but that would get him unstuck anyway.</p>
<p>My son did his apps over the summer. I can't imagine the angst if he'd tried to do them after waking up at 6 a.m. & putting in a full day of school, during the fall of his senior year. Many schools put up their apps on Aug 1, some July 1st, some Sept 1st.</p>
<p>I think it's a good plan to shoot for the summer.</p>
<p>I'd suggest letting your child lead the development of a timeline ... and that you not impose your style on your child. (I am not saying you are ... but the posting gave no indication the child wants to get going so soon ... the impression is the parent does).</p>
<p>If they are a procrastinator expecting them to have all the to-dos outlined and 10 of them checked off 6 months before things are due might be a tad optimistic ... even if that is what would make you comfortable ( ... it is also reasonable to get a procrastinator to have an idea of the work involved and some form of a plan for getting it done ... so, for example, writing a 3-4 essays the last week may be quite doable (and nerve wrecking) without major conflicts). I am a procrastinator and ALL my best work in done under time pressure ... if I wrote an essay 6 months in advance is would not be creative, it would not show passion, and it would fall flat.</p>
<p>If your child is a planner and wants to post the application schedule for a full-year on the fridge in the kitchen I'm all for supporting that also. I think supporting a planner kid as a procrastinator parent is MUCH-MUCH easier than the other mismatch of styles.</p>
<p>I highly recommend that college applicants do as much as they can the summer before school starts, even though completing everything may not always be possible, as in my S's case.</p>
<p>He applied to an instate flagship, two local LACs, two top 10 privates, and 3 out-of-state publics, including 2 honors programs. Only one of his schools accepted the common application. So he had an enormous number of different tasks, with different deadlines and requirements. </p>
<p>During the summer before senior year, he decided exactly where he would apply, made a few visits and did ahead of time as much as possible, including working on as many essays as he was able to find the questions for.</p>
<p>At his HS you were not allowed to get teacher or guidance counselor recs until senior year started. Some kids wait to complete applications for certain honors to be announced, such as National Merit, State Scholars and fall sports and activity achievements. Also, the application for one of his schools, a UC, was not even available to work on until Nov. 1. So he had plenty to do once school started, even though he had put in many hours over the summer before.</p>
<p>I was so happy to hear this week, that upon the return to school after break, the English III AP teacher assigned them a college essay to complete. They had to find the essay prompt for a school they think they'll apply to and write the essay. Of course, the rough draft is due tomorrow and DD says she'll do it in study hall tomorrow, but at least it's a start and it's not me nagging her :)</p>
<p>We spent some quality time over christmas break working on "the list." After getting her PSAT scores and realizing that she will probably be NMSF, a lot of schools on the first list got thrown out the window and we took a good look at who offers merit aid. The list went back up to 33 (!) but is now down to 22. Her school wants them leaving their junior year with 10-15 schools and wants them walking back in at the start of their senior year with 5; DD will probably have closer to 8 though as she's probably going to cast her net a little wide for merit. </p>
<p>How much will she really get done this summer? I don't know; she's waiting to hear about Governor's School (that's 5 weeks) and she has a week long school chorus trip between Memorial Day and the start of Governor's School. She does already know who she's going to ask for recs. </p>
<p>1st road trip to look at a school: next weekend.</p>
<p>If my D got her essays done in August, then I am sure yours can. I downloaded all of the supplements from her schools of interest and she discovered that so many of the questions were similar that she could recycle a lot of the responses. </p>
<p>She had them finished when school started and her English teacher read one and offered some good suggestions.</p>
<p>The Common App was relatively easy and she filled that out one evening while watching TV. Her college counselor read it and made suggestions (she had forgotten to list some of her ECs).</p>
<p>What was funny to my D was that she could create different versions of the Common App after submitting it initially to one school. She switched the essays around for a few.</p>
<p>In all, it was a good experience and she really liked the essay that she wrote for the school where she's attending.</p>
<p>S1 said one of the hardest things about wiritng the essays was getting comfortable with revelaing his thoughts and dreams to strangers. Even if those summer essays wind up in the recycling bin, the thought process and introspection that goes into them are very important. Writer's block for stuff like this is real.</p>
<p>S1 had his list of schools by April of junior year. He had some very specific considerations and did the legwork early. Most kids won't be done with a list that early. S2 won't, but he's an adaptable sort regarding schools, and I'm waiting for some self-motivation on his part, because I REALLY don't want battles next year.</p>
<p>My thoughts might not work for the OP, but perhaps they will be of use to someone else. This whole process is so personalized -- what works fabulously for one kid would be a disaster for another (and they both may live in the same house!).</p>
<p>If your D can have all of her testing done by June of junior year, it's nice not to have to deal with that piece of this process in the fall of senior year. </p>
<p>S2 and I have already checked SAT-II requirements at every school he is potentially considering. Only one school requires three, so if he can decide if that one makes the cut before the beginning of May, he can take another subject test that coincides with his coursework in June. This way he can avoid lots of test prep, since he will already be taking the corresponding AP and IB exams and course final! (Why colleges want to see an SAt-II exam in a subject for which a student has already taken an AP is beyond me, and is the subject for another thread.)</p>
<p>I'm the mother of a hard-core procrastinator. Pretty much everything she did in the way of college applications was done at the last minute. Express Mail became our new best friend. In hindsight, I don't know if I would have been able to get her to do everything the summer before, because of her nature, and because she was away for most of the summer at an extremely intensive summer program. But I somehow thought that the application process would not be as hard as it ended up being. </p>
<p>If your daughter is saying that she will do some of it this summer, have her make a timeline for it. The Common App is really very simple, as someone said. Other than the essay, it really only takes a few hours. We had to dig up some dates and she had to remember all of her ECs from four years of HS, but other than that, not a problem. And I think doing it early gives them a sense of accomplishment and momentum.</p>
<p>The essays were the problem for my D, who late in the process completely blocked on them. (And this is a straight A writer.) In hindsight it would have been better for her to write them in her Junior year, or some versions that she could later tweak. It was exhausting.</p>
<p>Many Common Ap schools also want a supplemental essay or two. The prompts for these may not be available until fall, however many of these are essentially; "Why do you want to go to our school". If your child has time over the summer, spending some of it navigating the school's web site and googling interesting programs/faculty etc. could give her good ammunition for these essays.</p>
<p>My own kid always had better things to do that hang out on the internet randomly doing 'research' on some mythical college .... not sure she's genetically related to me... but anyways, thought I'd mention this as a viable summer project for rising seniors.</p>