Maximizing Your Summer: How to Build Your College Applications

Webinar Transcription

2023-04-24 – Maximizing Your Summer: How to Boost Your College Applications

Hello everyone. Welcome to CollegeAdvisors Webinar, “Maximizing Your Summer: How to Boost Your College Applications.” To Orient everyone with a webinar timing, we’re gonna be begin first with a presentation, and then we’ll be able to answer your questions in a live q and a. But first, before we get into the presentation, let’s meet our panelists.

Hi, how are you doing? My name’s Jamie Williams. I’m a senior advisor with CollegeAdvisor.com, and I’ve been doing college advising for about 12 years now. I’ve worked with a lot of students both in person and online, and seen a lot of different scenarios, and one thing that holds constant throughout.

All of those different student partnerships has been the importance of using summer to develop interests, to get ahead in academics, to perfect the approach to standardized testing. Summer, it’s not a break. It, it’s time to delve deeper and. Make some progress that maybe isn’t as possible during the academic year.

So we’ll talk about that today and hopefully be able to answer any questions that you have about how to make the best use of your summer. Great. Great. Thank you Jamie. So before we get into how to make the best use of your summer, we wanna get a sense of what grade you are in. So we have launched the poll.

It’s really helpful for us cause it allows us the opportunity to ensure that we’re speaking directly, you know, to our audience this evening. Okay, so I see the responses that are coming in and we have 60% of our attendees are in the 11th grade, 25%, 10th grade. We also have a small group of eighth and ninth grade students, and just a reminder to everyone, this webinar will be recorded and so you will be able to receive a copy of it after the webinar.

Okay? So I’ll turn it over to you, Jamie. Okay. Thank you.

So I think the first thing that’s important in thinking about how to use your summer to best advantage is to take a step back and think about what admissions criteria are most important to colleges so you can align your efforts over the summer with those things that will have the most impact. So obviously academics are a prime importance.

Class rank is significant GPA and taking a rigorous curriculum, so I always advise students, you know, if you have the ability, take the most rigorous curriculum that your school offers relative to the areas of interest that, that you’re expressing. Schools. Take a lot of time to, to look at that factor and see, you know, are students really choosing rigor or are they looking to inflate their GPA by taking maybe an easier course load?

A and then that comes back when they’re looking at, at rankings and about at who they might admit. Another area is extracurricular activities. So, Choose activities that can demonstrate more than just an interest, so that activities that show your passion, maybe reveal your talents show your leadership skills or, or help you to hone leadership skills.

Show a commitment in those extracurricular activities so you’re not just kind of sampling and moving on, you’re, you’re searching and exploring, but then finding things that are meaningful to you and committing to them over a number of years. Things that are collaborative. Collaboration is so central to success in life.

If you learn how to collaborate effectively with people while you’re in high school, it makes all of life easier. Extracurricular activities that allow you to show initiative a and things that have an impact in your community. Whether that’s, you know, tutoring middle school kids or starting a foundation to help people who have been impacted by by you know, local fires or flooding or, or something on, on that area.

Extracurriculars. Are, are really an opportunity to show your values through action. Standardized test scores, of course, are important. Your S A T or a c t and advanced placement, and even at schools that are now test optional or, or some like the ucs who don’t accept test scores at all, at most schools, being able to offer a strong test score is only going to help you.

Letters of recommendation. Of course, they bring your application to life. They validate the things that you’re saying about yourself through the perspective of your teachers and recommenders. And then finally, how you spend your time during high school. So are you doing things that are purposeful are, you know, kind of planning your engagement with things or are you just kind of bouncing around?

Do you show an sustained engagement in those activities? Do you demonstrate in increasing difficulty, complexity, or focus over a number of years? Do you show community mindedness in the way you spend your time? And are you committed to a continuous learning process or when the bell rings, does the mind shut off and overall, Summer vacations, which some people can see as downtime.

Are you continuing to stretch yourself a and and pursue those intellectual pursuits that, that are valuable to you during the summer vacations?

So, There are a number of different types of summer activities, so academic things like enrichment classes advanced academic experiences. There are exploratory opportunities opportunities to try out new activities or new interests. There are college preparatory activities standardized test prep.

College counseling conducting research I in an area of interest. And then there’s career development oriented activities. Things like employment or internships or even job shadowing to get a sense of what it might be like to be in a particular career path.

So one way to use your. Your summer vacation well is to participate in a specialized high school program, so, These are held at college campuses all over the country. I, I’m sure you’ve received all sorts of direct mailings about opportunities that have identified you as somebody who might benefit from that activity.

A couple examples are MIT launch, where high school students start real companies in the summer program. So students interested in going into business, that can be a great opportunity to exercise those skills and really learn what being an entrepreneur is all about. At the UCLA Mock Trial Summer Institute you get some training in public speaking and you learn how attorneys prepare cases for trial.

There’s also National Student Leadership Conference that offers all sorts of leadership programs on campuses like the Harvard Medical School or Georgia Tech, where students can explore a future career, develop leadership skills, and also get a taste of college life. Get a sense of what that college experience might be like, which can.

Which can be rewarding in terms of helping you pick a college environment that’s gonna be most conducive to learning for you. There’s another factor in these specialized high school programs. There’s kind of a hierarchy of good. So the free or sponsored activities That are set up by universities and colleges, particularly those that involve university faculty tend to be regarded as the most kind of rigorous, the most valued type of experience overpaid activities or ones that might be hosted at a college, but don’t necessarily involve any of the faculty.

So that’s something to be aware of. It’s not to say that those, those paid opportunities, Are not valuable. But when admissions officers are looking at these different programs they definitely weigh those sponsored or free activities with university faculty as more rigorous, maybe more valuable programs than, than some of the paid ones.

But like I said, the paid ones can be a great way to get an introduction to an area.

Another way to spend your summer, take a college class. So, a lot of colleges offer summer programs where high school students can come to campus and take courses live and live in the dorms. Others are taught by, you know, they’re taught by real professors. The classes. Are often very competitive for high school students to get into.

There’s usually an application with essays and letters of recommendation involved. It, it’s kind of a mini. College application process. And so in that way, also valuable in terms of giving you some initial experience with that process and helping you develop the materials that you’re going to use later on in the college application process.

You can also attend a summer program. At a local school or community college or even take an online class if there aren’t opportunities available for you in person. Some summer programs can be expensive and instead of living in the dorm or traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles away, you can stay at home, stay engaged in the other things you’re doing, and.

And still benefit from the instruction of taking, of taking a college class. Oops. I’m having trouble getting to the, there we go. There are great sites for online learning like edX or Coursera. They offer free college courses. Some of them are taped and some of, and streamed by universities. They run the gamut.

Robotics, creative writing, pretty much any subject that you can think of. There’s something available. And often they involve lectures from professors, from top universities like Harvard or Stanford professors who really have some skill at engaging their students and, and conveying useful information.

Another possible use is to get a job. I, I think when students have an employment experience in high school, E, even if it’s not in a field that they ultimately intend to enter, it can really help them focus in on the importance of, of working hard in school and picking something that they’re really going to love doing as a career.

A lot of times, When students haven’t had any kind of experience earning money or working it, it’s all very abstract and it, it’s hard to see the benefit to all these years of hard work in education. But the first time you clean out a, a grease trap at a fast food restaurant or, you know, deal with an angry customer, it’s easy to see how the choices that education.

Can give you in terms of how you earn a living are really valuable. You can also start your own business collaborate with friends, and it doesn’t have to be, you know, the next Facebook, it, it can be something as simple as walking dogs in your community or tutoring kids in your community or, you know, pet care or.

They’re teaching, teaching the elderly how to use technology like Zoom or their latest cell phone. These are all things that, you know, high school students really have an an ability to provide a service in those areas that is valued by their potential customers.

There’s also a lot of opportunity to volunteer in the community. Most schools across the country have compulsory volunteer hours as part of graduation requirements. So colleges are expecting that there’s some community service in your background, but. Showing kind of longevity of commitment or continuity of commitment in a community service activity as opposed to more varied or intermittent involvement can really make you stand out.

And whatever year you are in high school starting now, and you can start slow a couple hours a week, if you can keep that going. All the way through your high school experience, it really speaks well of you and it establishes a pattern of engagement with your community that I, I think, will also bear fruit throughout your life.

Some examples I have a lot of students who’ve gone to nursing homes and done little things to, to entertain or, or speak with the residents there. You know, sometimes a couple days a week or sometimes on You know, just on weekends they might go and feed animals at the Humane Society. All these things are, are pretty accessible in most communities, and often there’s an application process, but it’s not terribly rigorous.

There might, they might require a recommendation from an adult, but it, it’s not like asking your teachers for college recommendations. The, these are more accessible I think.

You can apply for internships or find ways that you can participate in research. So internships are kind of structured work opportunities. Sometimes there’s a stipend, but they’re typically unpaid. And they can be at a company, a lab, a government agency and they usually have a set duration. Some of them are very competitive.

For high school students, but there are a lot of opportunities. Figure out what area interests you the most. If you’re a computer science person, maybe you want to be part of Google for a summer. Maybe you want an internship at well, I don’t know. A company that’s developing the latest chips for computers there’s a lot of opportunity if you know where to look and you’re diligent about pursuing opportunities.

Another great opportunity for, for summer programs is doing some research in a lab. It used to be unusual that undergraduate students had any kind of research experience, but now it’s really becoming the norm. High school students, many high school students are also finding opportunities to engage in research in high school, which is very important.

Impressive. It, it shows a level of intellectual engagement, a and engagement in the scientific process that I think speaks well of their ability to thrive in a college environment. Now the caveat here is that sometimes these research opportunities can be very hard to come by. So if that’s the direction you want to go with this summer, e expect a cold call, cold call professors.

Leverage every connection that your family can come up with to somebody who runs a research lab. Anybody who’s connected with the university and see if they can give you a name of somebody to contact. And when you’re getting these kind of opportunities, remember it’s an incremental process.

You’re gonna start out. Doing grunt work, cleaning slides, cleaning the floor, cleaning animal cages. But if you stick with it and it becomes a multi-year engagement, you are gonna advance quickly and you may start college in a position where you’re ready to take on a research project of your own with an advisor.

You know, it’s an awesome way to pursue your intellectual interests and, you know, even gain some publications you know, On your resume.

Job shadowing. Another great thing to do during the summer. Job shadowing has been the norm in some career paths like medicine for quite a while. But I think the benefits to job shadowing really extend beyond that, that narrow kind of health area. Knowing what to expect as a professional in a particular career path, I think helps students determine what path they want to take.

And it also maybe gives them a realistic idea of what being in that career path will be like for them so that they can course correct and, and find the right type of opportunity to connect with given their academic interests. Again, leveraging family connections is a great way to, to find these opportunities and there’s both in-person and online shadowing opportunities in, in most areas these days.

Many companies actually have specific programs for job shadowing to in inspire high school students to go into, you know, science or engineering or. I bet even the humanities ones are out there. It’s just a matter of, of mounting a search and talking to the right people to find those opportunities.

So SAT prep or ACT prep and college visits are another great way to leverage your summer. It’s a time when you don’t normally have the academic pressures of the academic year. So spending some structured time working on PSAT, SAT or ACT prep or just ramping up an existing test prep schedule.

Get a book, take a course online. Get a test prep tutor if, if you’re somebody who responds better to in-person support. Or resources like Khan Academy or Method Test Prep have excellent instructions and practice tests that can help you get the most out of solo practice. Summer’s also a great time to plan a college trip.

I, I really think that there’s value in seeing a campus firsthand talking to some of the students who were there sitting in on a couple classes. Now, the downside to doing the actual visit during the summer is that you’re gonna miss out on the students. And I think a lot of the benefit to visiting colleges is, is the ability to ask students about their experience.

So my recommendation is plan the visits in the summer. Take the trips during the academic year so that you have a chance to see college students in their element, see the dorms, go to classes you know, visit the campuses when the academic year is in process.

So, Design a custom project. If none of these things appeal to you, or there are are hurdles or barriers that feel insurmountable, figure out how to turn your passions or your talents into a summer project. So if you’re musically inclined, start a band. Do some local gigs with friends. If you’re interested in computer science, Take a self-paced class and learn to code and maybe collaborate with some other people on a project.

You could do creative writing, submit your work to journals that are willing to publish high school students, write editorials and send them to the newspaper. Do a summer art project with friends and help. Beautify the community or you know, it could be something as simple as picking up trash in the local park every Sunday and getting people excited about what you’re doing.

There are so many tools at your disposal these days. You know, find ways to take what you enjoy doing or things that you in and get others to join you. And then add a social media aspect to it so that there’s some promotional benefit and other people want to get involved. You’ll see these kind of custom projects can blossom and all of a sudden you, you have a small movement of people wanting to follow in your footsteps a and take action on this area where you started out doing things individually.

It can really be transformational if you define your project well and you stick to it. Colleges love to see collaboration, so if you can engage other people in this all the better. Oops.

Okay, so where do you find all these summer opportunities? So CollegeAdvisor has a searchable extracurricular opportunities database. On the student portal, that’s a great place to start. For summer learning and internships, teen Life is a great venue. They have lots of different opportunities segmented by geographical area and type of opportunity.

I like volunteer match for volunteering, although there are many religious organizations often have well-developed volunteer programs. Different community groups could definitely point you in the right direction or engage you in what they’re already doing. Online classes through edX or Coursera or other online learning establishments.

Leadership development. I mentioned the National Student Leadership Conference, but this is just a small sampling. There are many, many more, but you gotta go online and, and look and, you know, do a little searching. You sometimes you have to dig a couple layers down before you see, okay, are these valuable opportunities are or is it more clickbait?

Okay, how do you apply? What materials do you need for these summer opportunities for the, the competitive ones? Personal statement, sometimes additional essays or resume, high school transcript. Sometimes samples of previous work. Some even require interviews. Now that’s on one extreme. And like I said before, these can feel like many college applications.

But other opportunities in the summer, particularly those paid introductory experiences, most students are accepted to those, and especially at the introductory level. I. It’s a good place to start cuz you get a good comprehensive view usually of the area. You meet some other people who are curious and interested in that area.

And often the learning is focused on a project that kind of allows you to apply what you’ve learned in the, in the camp or experience and have some tangible output from it.

So how do you use these summer experiences to boost your college application? So they help to differentiate your applications from other students with great grades and test scores who maybe have not taken the initiative to pursue their academic interests over the summer. They can be used to highlight personal characteristics and values that colleges are looking for in incoming freshmen.

Passion, initiative, commitment, leadership impact, collaboration and talent. Those are all things that colleges are, are, are seeking because those are are factors that speak to a student’s potential and their likelihood of success in that college environment. Seek out new experiences that can help create a greater focus in college in the future.

So these might be things like you know, taking the next step in an academic area. Maybe it’s beyond the scope of what your school’s curriculum offers. And it’s preparing you for an even more advanced class. It can be things like maybe trying out a new sport or, you know, finding a new community of people who share an interest with you.

Maybe you love to bake. There are really no limits to this and I, I think finding those experiences and finding value in them and things that you want to continue, you know, that that’s a great way. It’s a great thing to reflect on your college application. Consider summer activities that will translate into a well-rounded college application.

So particularly for students who have a clear idea of what they wanna study in college, get you know, pre-medical studies or engineering or, you know, music or humanities. Being able to show that you have, you know, many facets to your interests, that’s exciting to schools. Now you don’t want to drown out the, the strong commitments that you have in certain areas, but compliment them.

So you, you appear as a student with a lot of interests, a lot of, you know, taking a lot of effort to explore the opportunities at your disposal. And I always recommend start searching for summer activities in the fall and then apply early in the new year to those experiences. So there are still many things available for this summer, but we are getting, you know, pretty close to summer.

So if you haven’t found what you’re going to be engaged in, it’s a good time to. You know, redouble your efforts and search a little harder so you can apply and, or set things up so that going into summer, it, it’s a smooth transition and you know what you’re gonna be doing. Don’t wait.

Okay. And here I’ve tried to lay out the process for all four years in, in one little chart. So, The general goal as a freshman is to seek introductory experiences to explore interests and careers. As a sophomore, you want to develop your interests and find multiple paths to gain experience in those ways.

So if you’re passionate about math, don’t stop the math education when the bell rings in school. Find ways to engage with math in other areas, like maybe a summer camp and applied mathematics. Maybe take a college course of a math course that you’re, you’re not able to get in in your high school. You know, read the autobiography or the biography of a mathematician that.

Might help to give you another type of insight into that, into that world of mathematicians. Don’t be satisfied with one path. Like pursue multiple paths simultaneously as a junior. Look for more advanced opportunities, internships, research and as a senior you’re really looking to have some sort of culminating experience that highlights.

The learning and achievements you’ve had throughout high school. Now I realize that what you do the summer after senior year is not likely to have much of an impact on your college education in terms of the application, but it will help, help you keep moving forward pursuing these interests so that the bridge into college is smoother.

And then academics for freshmen. These are enrichment or introductory courses. Community service. Find, find a focus for your volunteer activities, college prep. Start that initial academic focus and start exploring potential schools. Figure out what you like and you don’t like and career development.

Explore your interests through employment and or shadowing Sophomore year. We’re looking to diversify and find a commitment. So continue. You’re making academic progress and aiming for academic rigor. Continue any volunteer work that you started or if you haven’t found that thing that you find really satisfying, keep looking.

You, you definitely wanna find something that you enjoy. It, it, it shouldn’t be a, a burden, it should be a privilege. College prep. Start your s a t and a c t prep and start aligning your extracurriculars. Not all of them have to relate to, to a direction in college and academic direction, but start to find ones that support your academic interests.

Career development, continue any employment situation or. Seek some career mentorship. Maybe you’ve had a boss that you have a good relationship with. What does that person have to say about maybe the next steps for you or, or opportunities for greater learning and development as a junior? Try to show learning beyond your school curriculum, so make that initial step beyond your high school.

Find ways to enhance your impact, engage other people. Use your ability to communicate through social media or through clubs or organizations to enhance the impact that you’re able to have within your community service in college prep Plan your application process. Think about the essays that you’re gonna be writing.

Nail down your recommendations. And then in terms of career development, continue any employment situation, find internship or research opportunities. And then as a senior, you’re looking for multiple paths to pursue your interests. You’re gonna demonstrate service leadership, hopefully in your community service activities.

You’re gonna complete your essays and applications. So not just. Preparation for that, but you’ll complete the application process and then continue to build employment, internship, and research experiences to help bridge you into that college level experience when you make that transition in the fall.

Okay, so now we’re gonna thank you, Jamie. Now we’re gonna move into our question and answers. That was a really great presentation that you shared with our audience, and we’re excited to get ready to answer some of the questions that you all may have for Jamie. So, moving into our first question let’s see.

What would make something that can’t be verified, like tutoring stand out because anyone could say that they’ve, you know, done X amount of tutoring hours. Mm-hmm. So there are a couple ways to think about that. So it’s true, like to say that you’ve done x amount of tutoring hours. There aren’t a lot of ways for colleges to validate that, and for the most part, There’s a certain level of honor code that’s applied in the application process.

I would say the amount of, of confirmation that you need to provide is relative to the importance of that activity. So if you are leveraging. Your tutoring as a central part of who you are and your college application, I would say find a recommender who can say something about that tutoring. Maybe, you know, maybe as a supplementary recommendation, there’s a note from a parent whose student you’ve worked with and with whom you’ve had a great impact.

You can use your recommendations strategically that way, so you know that you’re gonna have to have academic ones as your primary two. But most schools will accept a supplementary recommendation, sometimes two or three supplementary recommendations. And that’s a good way to validate that. Another possible route to demonstrate that what you’re claiming is accurate might be through social media like.

It, it’s the, the flip side to that, that old adage that anything online lives forever. Well, that’s true about good things and bad things. So if you set up a webpage you know, advertising your tutoring, maybe put some, some testimonials on there from your clients that could, that can be a great way to plant a flag to say, Hey, look, you know, this is something that.

That I’ve really been doing, here’s some feedback about my work. You know, maybe put together some pages that highlight student outcomes so it’s not just, yeah, I was sitting with this student for an hour every week and working on this particular subject, like I was working with this student and these outcomes are positive.

And, you know, look, they even took the trouble to write something nice about the experience, so, I, I would look to those sorts of opportunities. Colleges are, are rarely, if ever going to approach you and say, can you prove that? You know, gi give me the, the number of a parent who you, you’ve helped. They don’t have the time for that.

So if you’re able to, to kind of show some of these other things, either through the recommendation or through. Some sort of public media. It, it can really help validate those activities. Awesome. Thank you so much for answering that. Our next question reads if an applicant has a continued interest and commitment to volunteering slash community service.

But hasn’t stuck with the same organization slash club more than a year. What does that tell admission officers? Okay, so that’s a great question cuz I, I definitely think that longevity is important. Now that said, I, I think there’s some nuance to understanding that. So just because you haven’t been with the same, excuse me, organization for the whole time, but you have been engaged in, in volunteer work.

There could be a number of reasons behind that. May maybe, you know, maybe that organization itself wasn’t a good fit, but you enjoyed what you’re doing. Maybe you were still kind of shopping around figuring out what type of, of volunteer activity, you know, was most rewarding to you and therefore sustainable.

There are opportunities, you know, to write about it either as part of. Of personal statement or maybe as part of a supplemental essay. It’s something like if you really feel like there’s a significant, there’s a significant potential that it’s misinterpreted you can also. Also put like a brief explanation into the additional information section of your college applications.

I think pretty much every school offers some form of that additional information and Common App definitely does. And just explain, you know, I, I have a commitment and a desire to serve my community, but. It took me a while to figure out the right organization and the right function where I could really feel like I was having an impact and, and where I felt excited to go and, and volunteer my time.

So it may appear that it’s somewhat fragmented, but really it’s all part of one kind of genuine calling toward community service.

Okay. Can you share tips on where high school students can find internship opportunities? Sure. So it, it depends on the type of internship opportunity. They can break down into, into more kind of professionally focused. Opportunities like being an intern at a business where you know, maybe you’re proofreading documents and, you know, doing social media posts and, and that sort of thing.

Just kind of getting some general experience in the area. Or you can have more academically focused internships where maybe working with. With a mentor in a particular area, like maybe a biologist, and you’re doing kind of introductory level work, cleaning test tubes and, and preparing for whatever research or, or activity is being done in the lab, so they can really run the gamut.

One of the best ways I find it depends on the, the nature of the opportunity. Having connections to a local college or university where that type of research is being done, or family, friends who are in that area or who, who have a business. In the case of more of a business focused internship those are all great ways to get the inside track.

There are also many sites online where you can find kind of lists of more formal internship opportunities. And those tend to be organized based on who’s providing them. So there are many within the federal government you know, just about any large corporation has some form of, of internship. I think you’ll find that.

You know, with some of the more technical ones, like engineering companies, they’re not really so interested in high school students. Like they’re interested in that. They, they want to inspire and keep you moving along that, that pathway that will make you a potential employee for them, like a useful resource in the future.

But if, if they’re doing engineering, they’re really looking for college graduates, maybe people starting master’s programs. And that’s okay. Like, you know, It shows you that internship opportunities are not necessarily all for one period in your development. There are those internship opportunities in high school that, you know, if you’re able to get one that has a technical aspect to it, that’s, that can be really impressive.

But just having that experience in the workforce, having somebody who’s a professional mentor is valuable regardless of the area. Yes, absolutely. Very, very valuable. Thank you Jamie. We’re gonna take a short pause for me to share with everyone a little bit more about the work that we do within CollegeAdvisor.

And Jamie, I heard you earlier, you made a reference to the work that we do with our one-on-one advising. So for those who are in the room who aren’t already working with us, we know how overwhelming the admission process can be, especially for competitive applicants like yourselves. Our team of over 300 former admission officers and admission experts are ready to help you and your family navigate all in one-on-one advising sessions.

Take the next step in your college admission journey by signing up for a free consultation using the QR code on the screen. During the consultation, a member of our team will review your current extracurricular list, discuss how it align it with your college goals, and help you find opportunities for growth and leadership, and also discuss some additional ways to find Summer Act meaningful summer activities.

After scanning the QR code, you’ll be able to select a date and time for a phone conversation with the member from our team. Okay, so I will leave the QR code on the screen as we continue with our remaining questions. So our next question reads, as a high school sophomore, how can I make my resume stand out?

Okay, so. I’m assuming you mean your resume kind of in anticipation of your college application process. So that gives you a couple years where you can develop it. I would say as a sophomore, if you don’t already have a sense of what, what interests you or an academic passion to pursue. It’s a good opportunity to explore, to, to find that thing that just clicks for you.

Now it’s not that, that everybody enters college with a clear idea of what they, what they love to study, but if you can figure that out as a sophomore, it gives you all of junior year to pursue opportunities in that area and really build. A candidate profile that stands out because you’ve, you’ve found the thing that clicks and then you’ve spent some time developing that.

And so relative to other students who maybe haven’t found that thing that they’re passionate about and, and are kind of diffuse in their activities or their focus, you’ll be able to demonstrate a pretty clear focus. And I would say e even beyond that, there isn’t just one way to, to approach an interest, let’s say an interest in biology.

You know, look at, you know, research, look at entrepreneurship in biology, look at teaching biology, like open yourself up to the, the range of possibilities, and don’t be afraid to explore and say, you know what? Teaching is not for me. I no, I, I wanna apply my biology skills in some other way. That sort of of trial and error experience can teach you so much about what fits for you.

And, you know, also shows that you’re the type of, of student who isn’t just looking for successes. You know, it’s okay to fail. Failure is how we learn. So if you try that pathway and it doesn’t work for you, sometimes that’s worth writing about. Because I think schools will be impressed that, that you’re not afraid of failure.

You let it be a lesson that helps guide you toward the next thing that’s maybe a better fit. So the short answer is work on your candidate profile and find, find ways to build your, build your experiences, and your resume around those core interests.

Okay, so our next question what about athletic pursuits during the summer? For example, traveling to Europe to play soccer with a travel team in a tournament? Or are academic pursuits better for application purposes? Okay, that’s a great question and it, it really depends on the student. If you are a student who is, is an athlete and athletics are, are important to you.

Oh, and definitely if, if you have any intention of kind of playing in college or being recruited for your athletic skills, I, I think summer athletics are critical. And if you have an opportunity to travel and, you know, be involved in your athletics all the better. I, I think the important thing is maybe keeping everything in balance.

Like you, you want to make sure that. Athletics are represented and that you’re giving, you know, you’re giving your all in that area, but don’t let that eclipse your ability to invest in your academics as well. Like schools are looking for scholar athletes, at least the most competitive schools. So don’t forget about the scholarship side.

Just because you may be very successful on the athletics side, it, it has to be a balance. And that’ll serve you well in life, I think, as well as the college admissions process.

Awesome. Thank you so much. So now we act, that was actually our final question for our live q and a. Thank you Jamie, so much for this great presentation. And thank you to our audience for asking phenomenal questions. And just a reminder there will be a pop-up screen that will come up at the end if you’re interested in booking a free consultation so that you can continue to discuss summer plans and ways to continue to strengthen your profile and your resume as you get ready to prepare for college application process.

All righty. Thank you again everyone and have a great evening. Goodnight. Goodnight. Thank you so much. Thank you.