Many students want to choose summer activities that will “impress” a college. Since application readers are humans with distinct personalities and preferences, there is no prescriptive list of activities that will make you stand out. Colleges don’t want to advantage students from wealthy families, so they try not to favor activities that are expensive—a trip to the Galapagos to save the sea turtles, a service trip to build a sport court in a remote village of Peru, a six week summer program at Oxford. While these are amazing experiences, you should only pick them if you have ample financial resources and because they are something you truly want to do. No college will be particularly impressed, and some admissions officers will joke that you are another applicant with a bad case of “affluenza”.
Some students feel stressed if they are unable to get a summer internship or research position. Research with a professor at a local college is a fantastic way to deeply explore an area of interest, but these positions are hard to find and often unpaid. Internships are another opportunity to try out a field that’s intriguing. You help a company or non-profit accomplish a task of importance to them and gain great experience, but these too are often unpaid and hard to secure. An alternative to these options sounds like old-fashioned advice: get a job!
Why would a college admissions rep be impressed if you flip burgers at a local fast food joint, or teach swim lessons at the neighborhood pool, or sell athletic wear in the mall?
Successfully getting and keeping a job tells the admissions officer a lot about your “grit” (which is a trendy descriptor for the willingness to stick with something even when it is tough). It is challenging to get a summer job because there’s lots of competition for open positions. If you have one it is logical to assume that you wrote a good resume, filled out multiple applications, followed through with the potential employer, dressed and acted appropriately for your interview, and made a good impression. You have demonstrated these characteristics: attention to detail, organization, persistence, solid written and verbal communication skills, and social awareness.
If you keep your job for the summer an admissions officer can logically guess that you showed up on time and had good attendance, performed to the expected standards, got along reasonably well with your co-workers, and took direction from your boss. At college those behaviors equate to getting out of bed and showing up for class, turning in your assignments, working well on group projects, and showing up during office hours to talk with your professor or at the writing center to get help on a paper.
Sure, you can tell an admissions officer what type of student you intend to be, but proving you have valued characteristics by holding down a summer job is much more impressive.
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