<p>Hi all, so i'm on my summer after junior year. With all the tests taken care of. I was wondering.... what do i do this summer besides the usual volunteering/working?
Is there anything i should get started on? I heard apps dont come out till late August? Or maybe i can get a headstart on that?
What do you guys suggest?
Thanks!</p>
<p>Have you decided where you are going to apply? If not, you may want to do some visits to colleges this summer.</p>
<p>The Common Application is available online on August 1. You should look over the essay prompts for this year, they don’t usually change much (if at all) and start brainstorming essay ideas. You will want to have someone review your essays and help you with editing/evaluating them (teacher? parent?), it might be a good idea to do a few different drafts – what seems like a good essay topic to you might not be quite the right thing. Working on your essays this summer would be great.</p>
<p>If you have a list of colleges that you plan to apply to, make up a spreadsheet of all the due dates for admissions materials, and what you need for each one. Do they take the Common App? How many recommendations and what types do you need? Have you had your scores sent to them? If any of them have rolling admissions, you will want to work on those apps first (it is great to have an acceptance in hand early in the process, you will feel MUCH less stress once you accomplish that).</p>
<p>Do you need scholarship money? Now is the time to start investigating scholarships from any organizations you are part of, from your parents’ employer, or from local organizations. Ask your guidance counselor if they have any advice on local scholarships; they usually know who has gotten scholarships in the past from your school, and might be able to help you with some you wouldn’t know about otherwise. You can also look online for more national scholarships, but the local ones can be easier to land.</p>