^ #18: 5% also do mission trips*
Yes indeed. D eliminated engineering that way too!
D2’s counselor gave her a list of things she should consider to do over the summer, and doing academic program at a college was pretty far down on the list. He said to get into a competitive program (free because it is competitive) or do something to strengthen her ECs (dance, photography, language). He said the only valuable thing about doing a summer program at a school of interest is 1)shows interest, 2) can write a better “why college X.” Again, most elite colleges do not take interest into consideration when it comes to admission.
“95% of teens prioritize lounging on the couch or on the lake, working at an ice cream shop”
These are opposite options, and will be viewed in opposite terms by selective colleges. Any student working 40 hours a week over the summer has a great resume boost. Self-studying for the APs and getting SAT tutoring are not activities. You’re supposed to do that on your own time.
In China, test scores are everything, and studying must take precedence. This isn’t China, and this approach is a big mistake if you’re aiming for elite private schools.
If you’re a 4.0 student with a 99 percentile SAT, go ahead and work 30 hours a week at the ice cream shop, I guess. In my experience, the kids working at the ice cream shop are the kids who should be at academic programs, taking an online summer course for credit, maybe also SAT weekend prep. The kids who go to academic camps are the already bright, who create a wider and wider gap between them and their peers in their grade every summer.
The summer before sophomore year we gave our oldest the choice of going to CTY for an academic course or coming with us to Scotland for a couple of weeks. He chose CTY. The following summer he took a computer graphics course at Columbia and did some job shadowing at a computer firm. He ended up making himself useful for the few weeks he was there, and they hired him for the next summer and he continued to work part time during the school year as well. He also volunteered part time at the senior center one summer. (Doing computer stuff.) I am sure all these things contributed to the picture of who he was. (He never spent any significant time studying for the SATs.)
Younger son also did a variety of things. Music camp, working for my architecture firm, making jewelry that he sold at a local gallery and also volunteering at the senior center. (He taught an origami class and gave some solo concerts where he learned to play things that were popular when the seniors were young.)
@Karenk6 - I don’t think that when admissions officers are building a class they look for kids with no interests, activities, or experiences other than academics.
^ The students that I see going to summer academic programs have the most going for them – far from introverted grinds.
Working all summer is vastly underrated as an application booster. It is a differentiator, especially if in the field of interest.
@karenk6 “The kids who go to academic camps are the already bright, who create a wider and wider gap between them and their peers in their grade every summer.”
The kids attending summer programs may not be brighter, but they do work harder. They may be also doing a sport and test prep in their spare time. When students do this over multiple years, they gain a significant advantage over peers. In the end, everyone wonders why the performance disparity is so large. Hmmmm…
Goodness, a kid at a pay to.play academic program is working harder than a kid working 40 hours a week plus doing summer homework and a high school summer sports camp. Which is what my kid did last summer and she barely had any free time.
Colleges are making an effort to really honor kids who scoop ice cream and similar jobs in the summer.
None of my kids did summer academics though they did pursue natural interests. I did not offer these in the context of college admissions, but in order to explore an activity that had become important to them. They also worked, but made sure they had significant free time in the summer.
There are quite a few mental health issues cropping up at Ivies et al. I think some down time is a really really healthy thing.
nvm. Having problems posting.
Mostly those programs just tell colleges who can pay for them. I think colleges are not “wowed” by students going to summer programs at top colleges. Colleges want students who are interested and interesting. There are many paths to get there.
I’d say my kid who spent one summer amassing a large insect collection (and winning ribbons at the state fair with them), going to Quiz Bowl camp for one week and self-studying her favorite topics (lit, art, opera) at home so she could finish near the top of our state in competition the next year, and going to a short YMCA wilderness canoeing camp did herself as much good in the admissions process as the student whose parent paid for “Summer at X”. Her admissions results seemed to show it (and a summer spent wallowing in literature did not hurt her test scores!).
Many summer jobs, however menial, give kids a chance to interact with a wide range of adults as a peer. I think there’s a fair amount of value in that. And it’s not something they get in an academic setting. I wouldn’t discourage a kid who wanted to spend a summer this way. Not saying it’s the only way or the best way, but it’s a good way.
Upper income parent here.
One of my kids is waiting tables this summer, and the other has a construction job refinishing hardwood floors.
In college, yes, it’s important to get internships, but I’m going to stand by the value of “plain” work experience for a high school kid. DS has worked with adults who have chosen paths that are likely to differ from his but I wouldn’t call any of the “from the lower rungs of society”. Unless teachers who work over the summer or the owners of the business are such… He comes home every day with some interesting insight. That works for me.
Guess my daughter and her friends attending “elites” are out of touch and didn’t get the memo. Fortunately they weren’t left in the dust by Harvard, Duke, Penn, Chicago, Dartmouth, Brown, Vandy, etc. My only rule to my daughter was to do something, anything. It is your choice whether or not you would like to participate in the parenting olympics. I think colleges read between the lines. Most of the successful students I know are self-motivated, not manufactured.
High school student “internships” are not real internships, and colleges know it. A HS school student isn’t going to bring much to the workplace beyond being a gopher. The one exception could be a coding type position with a tech company. Colleges are very adept at seeing what summer activities are contrived or just paid for. I think mission trips are another overrated suggestion. I think ad coms snooze when they see a “I learned to appreciate my life so much more, and now want to help poor people” type essay that so often results from those trips.
I don’t know that it mattered for my D re: admissions, but it certainly helped her in a number of ways. The programs that she participated in she received scholarships to – which typically meant writing an essay, submitting grades, LORs, etc. – sort of a mini application. They were in different parts of the country, in different schools (research university, LAC), so she could see what differences there were between those schools. She also had a chance to delve a little deeper into programs that they did not have at her HS (premed program, bio-Chem program, leadership program, business/entrepreneurship). Lastly, she got to meet a lot of terrific kids and have experiences that just were not possible had she remained at home. Outside of these programs, she worked (a hobby that turned into a business), read a lot, trained for her fall sport, and hung out with friends. She did not use her summer for test prep.