When we picture summer break the image that comes to mind is one of the sun, friends, outdoor activities, and relaxation. However, as you get ever closer to high school graduation, you may want to think about doing something productive with your time off. Many colleges and organizations offer great summer programs where you can experience summer in a whole new way. Participating in one of these programs is particularly important if you want to attend a competitive college. For advice on whether a competitive summer program is for you and how to apply to check out today’s VLOG.
Transcription:
Welcome to another edition of the CollegeMapper VLOG. Today we’re talking about applying to competitive summer programs. Now while most teenagers are going to be doing something in the summertime, and when you’re thinking about your college application, you would probably want that something to be something other than just sleeping, playing video games, getting a tan.
While most teenagers will be doing something resume oriented for college in the summer, some of you are going to want to be kind of aggressive about it, because maybe you’re going to want to be applying to colleges that are very, very difficult to get into. So, if you think you are applying to a college that’s very, very difficult to get into, you know their names, I would recommend that you consider putting yourself forward for one of the very, very competitve summer programs.
Some of these include the Bank of America summer program, Telluride (the TASP program), COSMOS program. MIT has some, CalTech has some, Naval Academy summer seminar. Those are some examples of some very competitive summer programs. So, if you think you want to do that, or something like that, you should start researching that in the fall of your Junior year. You know, like, November-ish. October, maybe. Certainly, December, because the applications are going to be due in December. Some of them are due in January and February. So, you’ll need to be very much ahead of the game if you want to apply to one of these summer programs.
It goes without saying, kiddo, that the application to an extremely competitive summer program needs to shine. It needs to sparkle and shine. So you’re going to have to spend a lot of time working on it. You cannot dash it off the night before your A.P. U.S. paper is due, or something like that. You are going to spend a couple of weeks really working on it and having other people read it to make it amazing.
So, we have some resources on the site where you can see some of these competitive programs and read about them and see which one would work for you. They are available in every discipline imaginable: medicine, engineering, humanities. By the way, if you’re a writer, look at Kenyon in the summer. They have some great writing programs for those of you who are strong in that.
I do recommend that you apply for some sort of summer program. And if you are a competitive sort of bunny and you would like to apply for competitive programs I recommend that too. But, work hard on it and work in advance, that’s my best advice to you. So, good luck! And yay, college!
