Why do parents insist on summer jobs? Because they love you.
Because they love you enough to want to start you down the path to adulthood, which involves making and spending your own money. When this happens is going to depend on the family. I decided I loved mine enough at 15. Sometimes, the “love” comes later because there’s other business that needs to be attended to first.
Because they love you enough to know there are some things they just can’t teach you on their own. As pool manager, my youngest (who is also a racial minority) had to ask the nice man with the swastika tattoo to cover it up or leave the pool. No way I can give my kid that experience.
Another reason to insist on summer jobs: so kids won’t ask questions like “Why would parents insist their kids work?”
Increasingly, the upper third, lower third, and middle third of the US by SES are segregated, by choice or by necessity. It’s easy to live in a bubble without seeing how much of the country lives. If I had to guess, I’d say a majority of CC users hail from the upper third - where white-collar jobs are more common than jobs that’ll leave you with an ache somewhere at day’s end.* That’s one metric a social scientist recently used to quantify how “in the bubble” survey-takers were.
*Back pain from sitting for long periods doesn’t count. Standing a lot (like a teacher, cashier, etc.) does.
It’s less easy to look down on manual labor when you’ve held a physically demanding job. I’ll always be glad I spent a summer pulling up weeds in my neighbors’ gardens. It’s given me a healthy dose of respect for menial laborers. If I found a summer of weeding (with “bosses” who wouldn’t hear a word about my working when temperatures hit 90) to be hard work, who am I to look down on those who pick strawberries or tend gardens in far harsher conditions?
Summer academic programs help you become a better writer, prep for SAT retake, and take intro courses you plan to take in the future.
My summer program helped my essays, improved my SAT score, and helped me breeze through an online psych course last fall.
My friends that stayed home were academically idle all summer. They were just shy of qualifying for the colleges they wanted to attend, so a little boost could have put them over the edge.
As for helping or not in admissions. At the very least it shows you’re academically inclined and outgoing. This is anecdotal, but everyone I know that attended a summer program was admitted to great colleges. So I think it skews towards polished and ambitious students. Versus a summer job like my friends who just drank beers after work and were offered marijuana at a place staffed with slackers.
Even using your anecdotal evidence, it would seem that most student would do better in the admissions process than folks who like to party more than do schoolwork. Not that the summer program helped.
My kids lost all interest in summer programs at about 14, saying it was like sending them to summer camp with school attached, and they were too old for camp!
Anywhooooo…how do I fundraise a free trip to Cambridge for the summer? Do tell!
If costly summer school/academic enhancement opportunities were randomly assigned across ambitious and slacker students, we could get a good understanding of the effect of these opportunities on college admission outcomes. Here, the less ambitious students don’t participate while the higher-performing student does. I don’t think we can isolate the effect of the purchased opportunity on admissions outcomes from this.
The students who stayed home and worked could also have taken SAT prep courses or taken a summer class at a CC and worked. So the relevant choice for most students isn’t costly summer program at Harvard vs ice cream job at home with no plans for test prep, etc. Working didn’t prevent these other students from doing the things that the OP thinks would have gotten them into better schools.
Not only do I insist that my teen get a summer job, but I insist that she work during the school year. She has also done summer programs, and will do some this summer as well (all free, as I refuse to spend thousands on a summer program), but she will work as well. Rather than listing all the reasons why I insist that she work (which others have already done), all I will say is this: working builds character. She makes great money and is responsible for her car insurance, spending money, and any overages on her cell phone bill.
You seem a little defensive about this @futureNU16 . Your initial question was’t what’s better for college admissions but rather why parents want kids to work. And I think you’ve gotten some good answers to that question.
As I said earlier, my kid did 3 summer programs in HS (on scholarship, they were 3 week programs) and also worked (both the rest of those summers and during the school year).
IMO a combination is probably best for college admissions, rather than one or the other.
I think summer academic programs do say something about the kids who do them. Not many kids want to study anything in the summer. It was my D’s experience also that the kids she met through them went on to very selective colleges. But i’d suggest it’s not because of the program itself but rather than programs like that attract a certain type of kid.
But if I were reading an app as a college admissions person OR hiring for an internship, I would wonder why a kid hadn’t ever had a job unless I saw extremely time-consuming ECs. In the case of an internship, I’m not even sure what would go on a resume but maybe relevant coursework in college and the like…no work experience leaves a pretty big hole.
You didn’t “win” when your parents let you take a summer program rather than get a job. They are actually on your side. Perhaps you should ask them why they felt having a job was better for you than taking summer classes.
Damn right! No-good slackers smoking their joints and getting ready to live on the dole! They need some proper education, strong discipline, and a double helping of bootstraps!
You seem intent on defining your friends as lazy and unmotivated, contrasting those who work with the “academically inclined and outgoing” students who attend summer programs. In another thread, you call members of a given sorority “pretentious rich girls” and “desperate to show skin for attention.”
Putting others down for choices that indicate personal preference and not personal virtue won’t make you better off, and it’s not a very healthy mindset. People who work, as your friends did, are statistically more successful by far than those who stay at home all summer, so the friends you’re disparaging have made better choices than many. Perhaps they value the practical skills gained from work as much as the “book learning” of a summer program. The world has its serious issues - why look for problems where none exist?
It might shock you to learn that (a) some kids both work AND do academic programs and manage it all very well; and (b) some kids have jobs that are prestigious, intellectual and provide many academic benefits. My daughter was paid through high school as a writer for a well-known publication, and we know kids who do similar things. Maybe the problem is your own failure of imagination. What you perceive as being the whole picture isn’t even a big part of the whole, and is certainly not the same part that’s known by the tippy-top, superstar kids.
Remember that the ultimate goal of going to college is to someday get and hold a job. I am stunned sometimes at the skills that new graduates or interns from top colleges DON’T seem to have in the workplace. They come late, think some policies are optional for them, don’t write things down and have to ask the same questions multiple times (that one makes me CRAZY), have no idea how business works and makes money, and what is important to the business in that regard. And that sometimes the newbie thinks they have a better idea (or a better idea of how they should be spending their time), but it is not a feasible idea (or not what the business needs them to be doing at that moment and is paying them for).
You can spend a ton of time in the classroom and have great test scores, but if you can’t do that stuff when you get into the workplace, you will be considered a PURE (Previously Undetected Recruiting Error), and have higher odds of washing out of your job, whatever it is.
A job in high school is a pretty low profile way to learn some hard lessons that are useful in the workplace. Students who never work earlier often don’t have a clue when they actually start working for their first internship or real paycheck out of school. Do you want to blow that experience when it comes? Better get some practice ahead of time.
Lol. I can count the number of people I know at top schools who don’t smoke weed probably on one hand.
OP, because you are putting out such an air of superiority, it’s been my experience that the very cream of the crop can both hold down a job and participate in academic enrichment activities.
And oh the horror of wanting to relax after work. Can’t have that now, can we?
@futureNU2016 You still haven’t answered the question about how you “fund raised.”
I get those Go Fund Me requests. Mainly from an acquaintance who has a son the same age as mine. It’s really arrogant to send out those group requests to fund your snowflakes special experience especially when it’s a kid who does not work during summers. The kid spends his time at sports camps and travelling. The family is of the same income level as ours, i.e. full pay. They do not need charity.
Couple of posts, but not a word on how you fundraised the $12K. I’m quite interested in how a hs student could raise that kind of money for going to an expensive summer school.
I would not want my kids to be what my husband (two advanced degrees from state schools, worked his way through both while living at his mom’s house) often calls a “brain in a jar.” Book smart, but not able to navigate daily life. Like someone above said, we want our kids to have real world experiences because we love them. It is my job to help my daughters be successful in life, not just college. Having a job - and learning how to show up on time, manage money, etc - goes a long way in teaching that.
I’m not saying someone who never has a part-time or summer job will never succeed in life. But I think it’s a grounding experience that can serve as a great lesson on the world. Even though we are middle class, my family is privileged compared to most of the world. I often tell my daughters stories about my work in the poorest area of the nation, places that you wouldn’t think exist in the United States. You don’t know about how some people live in grinding, abject poverty - not a Third World nation, but right here - until you see it. And you don’t know how to navigate the work force until you are in it - and it’s better to have some inkling before you start interviewing for jobs before college graduation.
I really question the summer job strategy. I think it can be good for some kids, but for others I think it is a big mistake.
We expected DD1 to work on academics in the summer, and consistently received disapproving looks and disparaging comments from family about how her cousins were working at Chicken Shack by 15 or 16, and she was 18 and still hadn’t had a job. They basically told us we were failing as parents.
We felt like she was working when she was taking college classes and studying in the summer. She also had 3 or 4 hours per day of swim practice. I think that she learned a lot from her summer experiences. Before she got to college as a freshman she had been participating in summer college programs and classes for 4 years. Last summer and this summer, she has been able to find jobs that relate to her major, so we are out of the doghouse with the family for now.
I am sure the academic approach isn’t right for every kid, but I don’t think that working during the summer is right for every kid either.
@futureNU16 , what an empathetic and pampered soul you are. You refuse to see any merit in working at what you deem to be a useless job over the summer. When you are living in your very expensive glass house, spare a thought for the useless construction worker who built it. The loser factory workers who created all the appliances in your home, the probable illegal immigrant worker who is mowing your lawn, the probable illegal immigrant who picked the strawberry you just ate. The poor sucker that is your high school bio teacher, slaving away for a quite frankly too low salary, just to ensure that YOU are educated. All these people, working to make your life better, so you can “fundraise” and go on expensive academic courses, because Duh! Only losers don’t do what you do in the summer.
And your assertion that academic summer courses show that you are academic and socially outgoing (huh?) So no people who work summer jobs are academic? Only people who spend the summer doing academic stuff are socially outgoing? I can think of several extremely successful people (a lot more successful than you,) who had awful summer jobs, but still managed to get degrees and have ended up doing pretty darn well for themselves. Matthew McConnaughey cleaned out chicken coops, but managed to get a degree from UT Austin. Jon Hamm was a set decorator on PORN films, but got a degree and taught school before becoming an actor. Orlando Bloom had to clean up clay pigeons at a shooting range, but managed to get a degree in music and drama. And Hugh Jackman, bless his heart, had to be a clown. Yes, a clown at kid’s parties. Yet, by some miracle, he got a degree from the Uni of Technology in Sydney. So, you see, some fortunate souls can survive the indignity of having lame summer jobs and still go to college.
One final thought for when you go off to your ivory tower in a few months time: do remember that even the janitor who cleans your toilets has the same colored…well you know what…as you.
@Much2learn , is a summer job a strategy? Surely it’s more of way for kids who don’t have rich parents to pay for stuff. Or even for kids who do have rich parents.
“7. An 18-year old must be able to earn and manage money.
The crutch: They don’t hold part time jobs; they recieve money from us for whatever they want or need; thus, kids don’t develop a sense of responsibility for completing job tasks, accountability to a boss who doesn’t inherently love them, or an appreciation for the cost of things and how to manage money.”