What should high school students do in the summer to stand out to college admissions committees?
For many parents of high-achieving children, summer breaks are difficult beasts to manage. Sure, you want to give your child a chance to enjoy sunshine, the pool, and friends. But alongside the idyllic visions of summer is the urgent need to ensure your child is productive, which likely leaves you wondering: what summer activities should a teenager seek out?
If you and your child are planning ahead for summer break, you may be looking into summer programs to expand your child’s horizons and hopefully give them a leg up in the college admissions process.
Summer programs for high school students, particularly pre-college summer programs located on college campuses, have greatly proliferated in numbers over the past few decades to the point where there are now hundreds of programs to choose from. Some are quite the opposite of the classic bunk-beds-and-mosquitoes summer camp adventure, delivering an intense, heads-down experience. Many others promise to meld the best of a (safe and supervised!) teenage summer with opportunities that can challenge your child and add texture to their Common App essay and other college essays.
But with so many to choose from, how do you know which are truly worth the often-extensive application process and frequently high price tag?
Here, I will review the benefits and drawbacks of participating in pre-college summer programs everywhere from Cambridge to Palo Alto, including the question on everybody’s minds: do these programs actually help your child get into college?
Pros and cons of attending a pre-college summer program
Your child could spend their summer in a wilderness program, on volunteering trips abroad, attending an arts camp, or participating in a specialized summer institute for an extracurricular activity at which they excel, like an academic team, robotics, or debate.
Typically, these programs aim to approximate the college experience by holding classes taught by professors or visiting scholars, while housing students in campus dorms. Programs frequently incorporate lectures, networking events, and opportunities to socialize with fellow attendees, and they can range anywhere from one to eight weeks in length.
Pros of attending a pre-college program
Your child may get the chance to study a subject and/or get hands-on experience beyond what their high school offers.
Your child will be able to get a firsthand feel for what college life is like, which may make transitioning to college easier when the time comes.
Your child will get exposure to a specific campus and type of environment, which will help them make an informed decision about what kind of school they could best succeed at (e.g., an urban setting vs. a rural one, or a large research university vs. a small liberal arts college).
Your child might be able to earn college credit or use a course to place into a higher level in college or high school.
Your child might develop a relationship with an instructor who would be willing to write them a letter of recommendation for college.
Your child will be able to meet and befriend like-minded peers.
Cons of attending a pre-college program
Pre-college summer programs are frequently very expensive.
The selectivity, prestige, and academic rigor of programs can vary quite a bit and don’t always correspond to the academic reputation of the host college.
Contrary to many parents’ optimistic beliefs, with the exception of the most prestigious programs, attending a pre-college summer program probably won’t directly help your child get into college. Don’t spend money just because you want your child to be able to drop “Yale” or “Stanford” in a college app. We’ll go into more detail on this, including some exceptions, a little later.
The reality of pre-college summer programs
Though pre-college summer programs can be found at most elite colleges these days, their own selectivity and rigor vary quite a bit.
It’s important to understand that, in many cases, colleges lend their names and campuses to programs run by outside, for-profit companies in order to make money off of otherwise vacant facilities over the summer. In some other cases, programs are organized by an individual university department or division, such as a school of professional studies, that has little connection to undergraduate academic standards and certainly doesn’t have a direct line to the admissions office.
While the quality of education may still be excellent, the chances of acceptance into some of these programs will be quite high for most students with solid academic records and the ability to pay full-price tuition. Less competition may be good news, but it also means that attending a summer program at, say, Harvard doesn’t confer nearly as much prestige or achievement as getting into Harvard itself.
Will attending a summer program at a university help your child get into that college?
The short answer: probably not, at least not directly. The vast majority of pre-college summer programs have no bearing on their host college’s undergraduate admissions practices and should definitely not be viewed as a backdoor into that school.
On top of this, college admissions officers are well aware of the high acceptance rates and price tags of many pre-college programs and, with the exception of the most prestigious programs, won’t necessarily view acceptance into one as a significant achievement.
Nevertheless, attending a pre-college program may still be worth your child’s time. Remember that many summer programs draw their instructors from their host college’s faculty and may still be academically challenging, even at less selective programs. Plus, if your child has the opportunity to take a course that’s in line with their existing interests and specializations, this will underscore their commitment to that subject and enhance the profile they are trying to build in their college applications.
For example, if your child is obsessed with Russian and has been teaching themselves the language because their high school doesn’t offer it, taking an intensive course at Bryn Mawr’s Russian Language Institute would be a worthwhile pursuit, so long as your family can afford it.
More important than simply attending the program, though, is that your child capitalize on the experience personally and in their college applications. Their college essays during application season should reflect that passion rather than the “achievement” of attending one of these programs.
On that note, while this guide largely focuses on academic pre-college programs, we recommend taking a similar approach if your child is interested in attending a non-academic summer program. Whether they are looking into a service trip to a foreign country or an intensive drama course, the program your child chooses should reflect what they are already interested and active in.
In general, we strongly caution parents and students against investing in flashy, expensive activities unless those activities are thoughtfully chosen and connect to the student’s interests and specializations.
Summer volunteering—abroad or otherwise
Volunteering can be another great way for your child to spend their summer if (and this should come as no surprise by now) their service reflects their genuine commitment and interest and doesn’t come across as a perfunctory attempt to seem like a good person.
Like pre-college summer programs, volunteering comes with its own set of complexities, particularly when it comes to service trips abroad. While these types of trips are understandably popular—international travel is undeniably exciting, and volunteering in a developing country often seems like a surefire way to stand out from the crowd—they run the risk of falling into the “flashy and expensive” trap we mentioned above. Not to mention that volunteer abroad trips for teens usually last only a few weeks, which is typically not long enough to make any real impact, raising moral concerns about how you should treat the situations of those less fortunate.
Generally speaking, if your child is looking to make community service one of their specialties, we usually recommend sticking close to home where they will have more opportunities to get involved in long-term projects. This will translate into them leaving a more profound, lasting impact on whatever cause they choose to work on.
However, if your child has the opportunity to go overseas to work on a cause that they are truly connected to, a service trip abroad may be worthwhile. This is doubly the case if a trip abroad provides them with opportunities that simply can’t be had in your local area.
For example, if your child is active in environmental cleanup activities and hopes to major in marine biology, they might apply to join a trip devoted to coral reef conservation in Mexico. Or if they are geopolitically-minded and are interested in studying international relations, perhaps they could volunteer with an NGO aiding refugee resettlement in Germany. A good volunteer abroad program should have clear objectives, be well-connected to and invested in the local community, and promote local self-sufficiency.
Final Thoughts
While participation in these programs won’t necessarily lead to your child’s acceptance into a top-tier university, they can still be quite selective and carry significant prestige. Furthermore, many of the skills required to get into a prestigious summer program translate over into university applications.
Attending a pre-college summer program can be a fantastic experience for your high schooler, so long as the program is challenging, within your family’s financial means, and not counted on as a backdoor into a prestigious college. There are also many other good options that your child can pursue to stay engaged and challenged over the summer. If your child is interested in attending a summer program, be sure to research the program’s quality and choose a subject that’s in line with their interests and specializations.
List of the top summer programs for high school students
Contact Planting the Ivy for a suggested list of programs!
