The Best Summer Plans for High School Students
Use Your Summers to Strengthen Your Resume
and College Applications
By Eileen Cody
Out of school for the summer? This might seem like a time for
kicking back and unwinding after the school year, but it’s actually a great
opportunity to start building that resume to help you impress the college of
your choice. Your plans can be more than simply getting a summer job; there are
a number of activities that can help you stay active and gain valuable
experience over the summer months.
Work
Employment is one of the most
practical ways to build your resume and impress colleges. Even if working
during the school year is not an option, there are often seasonal
establishments such as residential summer camps that look for help specifically
during the summer months. Any job is good, but working in a leadership position
or in an academic area would be ideal. The more a job challenges you, the more
it builds the skills that colleges and future employers are interested in
seeing in applicants.
Volunteer
Do good. Community service is
another great way to gain some valuable work and leadership experience.
Nonprofits such as soup kitchens and animal shelters are always looking for
volunteers, so it shouldn’t be difficult to find a volunteer organization near
you that could use an extra pair of hands for a few hours a week during the
summer.
Travel
While this may not be a viable
option for everyone, summer travel can be an exciting way to enrich your mind
while enhancing your resume. Visiting and exploring foreign places will broaden
your horizons, allowing you to expand your awareness of other peoples and
cultures. It’s also a great chance to develop language skills.
Take
Classes
'Summer school' doesn’t always
have to be a bad thing, and colleges may look kindly upon applicants who take
the initiative to further their education over the summer. There are a variety
of options available for high school students to take summer courses, both at
their own schools and at local colleges. If your high school offers summer
classes, this could be a great way to advance your math or language skills, two
areas that often fall short on college applications. Local community colleges
also offer credit-bearing summer courses for high school juniors and seniors on
a variety of introductory-level topics. This will not only look great on your
transcript, but it also provides an opportunity to get a jump start on general
education requirements for college and allows you to explore possible career
options.
Summer Enrichment Programs
Along with summer classes,
enrichment programs can be another valuable and educational summer experience.
Investigate the types of summer enrichment programs offered by local youth
groups or area colleges and universities. Many of these organizations have residential
or day camps for high school students focused on specific topics such as music,
creative writing, science, engineering and a variety of other areas of
interest. These programs are a good way to explore and gain experience in
fields you may want to study in college.
Visit
Colleges
It almost goes without saying that
campus visits should be part of any college applicant’s summer plans. Of
course, while these visits are a priority when considering which colleges to
apply to, it is important to remember that they should be just one part of your
summer equation. A few campus tours don’t constitute a summer’s worth of
experience; they should be included in your plans, along with other
resume-building activities and experiences, in order to set you apart from your
fellow applicants.
Beef Up Your SAT or ACT Skills
Don't waste a summer preparing for
a four-hour exam -- everything else on this list has more value for your
personal growth and college preparation. That said, standardized tests are an
important part of the admissions equation at most of the country's highly
selective colleges. If you've taken the SAT or ACT and your scores aren't what
you think you'll need to get into your top choice colleges, then the summer is
a great time to work through an exam preparation book or take a test prep
class.
