Wow, what a difference a year makes! I can’t remember the last time that expression meant more than it does this year. Each week, I am greeted by a happier, more excited student who was able to see their friends in class for the first time or resume activities that were previously on hold!
It’s wonderful that things are slowly starting to open up but I have to admit, it did take some of the pressure off students last year when all activities came to a halt and the question of “what should I be doing this summer?” was not a concern.
That’s why my answer, especially this year, is going to be: “What do you WANT to be doing this summer?”.
I’ve written before about how there are no “magic” activities that “look best” on a college application. The best choice of activities are ones that are chosen by the student out of interest, joy and desire. Whether it’s taking a test prep class or getting a job, the best choice is something they are motivated to do.
If your teen is focused on a major in STEM and the college(s) they want to apply to are competitive, or even if they are test-optional but are one of the “highly rejective” colleges (a term recently coined by Akil Bello) and they CHOOSE to spend the summer doing test prep, that’s great! Why? Because that’s what THEY have chosen they WANT to do. If your teen gets anxiety just thinking about testing, then forego test prep and choose colleges to apply to that are test-optional or test-blind and focus on other activities this summer.
So how to choose? One way is to ask yourself questions like: what did you miss most during the pandemic? Are you someone who loves to work and enjoys that extra cash? Is there something you hoped to do last summer that got cancelled? Are you thinking about several major areas of interest in college and want to learn more about them? How you answer helps you make choices based on things you want to do or learn more about.
Like the student who is working as a camp counselor at a camp they’ve gone to all their life to be with friends. Or the student who decides to take a community college class in Spanish to make room senior year for a course in kinesiology to see if they like it. Or the student who interns at a law office to learn more about the profession. And if you are unable to find ways to learn in person through a job shadow or internship, there are lots of opportunities available online, from internships to taking a course from Coursera or EdX to get the feel of what a college course is like.
Here's the thing. If the goal of the application is to help colleges learn more about the student so they can more fully assess how they will fit into their overall community, doesn’t it make sense that their application showcases things that they WANT to do and learn more about? And if the goal of colleges is to help the student explore their interests and talents to discover what it is they want to pursue; doesn’t it make sense that the student chooses their summer activities to help them explore more about what that looks like for them?
I think it “should”.