<p>Hey guys, how important is having an internship or impressive job during the summer for college admissions? Would it be less impressive if I did some vollunteer work or got a sort of grunt job like retail/grocery store? </p>
<p>Of course I would rather have been able to get into an impressive summer program or land a paid internship, but it never really worked out and I'm faced with volunteer work and getting a job at the local store.</p>
<p>Can you do both?</p>
<p>Lots of top school admittees “just” work over their summers. Don’t sweat it.</p>
<p>Something I do plan on doing though is besides bagging groceries or whatever, I’m going to be volunteering on sort of a rescue van- pretty much the organization takes socks, blankets, sandwiches, etc. and drives around the streets of Chicago and hands them out to the homeless.
I’m excited for that, but I just look at people who are helping out at summer camps or going to the residential programs or getting internships and I feel like I won’t be having as much fun or being as productive- so I was just wondering how important summer activities are.</p>
<p>As long as you’re doing something , anything productive, you’re fine…</p>
<p>I would also like to know this. I am doing nothing except taking a math class at a local community college, and volunteering once a week at a service agency for an hour…</p>