Summer is known as a student’s favorite time of the year: finally free to relax, have fun, and forget about all things academic. While taking a well-deserved break this summer is important, summer is also a good time to build your skills, gain experience, and prepare yourself for the rest of your education. Although I hate to be the one to ruin this perfect sipping-lemonade-on-a-beach-summer fantasy, I promise it is for your own good. Each high school class has different focuses that should be taken into account this summer, which will be outlined in this article. You’ll thank me eventually if you listen and wish you had listened if you don’t.

Attention all juniors! Buckle up because you have important work to get started on this summer. College applications are due early next school year, especially if you are applying for early decision, early admission, or early action. It is advised by many credible counselors and application-experienced seniors that juniors should start working on their college applications the summer before senior year. Eugenia Lee (12) offers words of wisdom “Don’t procrastinate and ask others who are attending college to peer edit. Also, get letters of recommendation done early!” One of the main parts of the college application that is encouraged to be started this summer is your main personal essay/common app essay. A typical schedule of what this would look like would be brainstorming in June, writing drafts in July, and editing in August. When you are just starting to brainstorm, write down/type any essay idea that you think of: you can make lists of ideas and categorize them based on what part of yourself they reflect. With a list of well-thought-out essay ideas, the writing process will be much easier. As for the actual writing, the key is to write multiple raw drafts: this way you can decide which idea you want to go with before putting a lot of time and effort into one idea. Once you choose the topic you are focusing on, you can work on perfecting the essay. However, if you can’t yet decide, you can start editing the rough drafts that are most promising and decide later. Finally, the editing process can include asking a friend or family member to read your essay, contacting a teacher to read your essay, or submitting your essay to Paper.co. It is ok to have to make any changes during this process and even at times start over. Just by working on this one essay, you will be much more prepared and less stressed next fall. 

Juniors might also want to look into college programs that are going on this summer. Many colleges have on-campus college immersion experiences where you get to live on campus and see what college life is like. There are also many college classes that you can take, some for credit but some just for fun. If there is a college you particularly want to go to, attending their summer program, if they have one, is a great way to show you are interested in attending their school and could potentially help you during the admissions process. Even if you cannot go on campus for the summer program, there are many online options such as taking an online college class for credit or participating in virtual college programs that some schools over (including Georgetown, Stanford, UCLA, UC Berkeley, etc.). Check to see if colleges you are interested in have summer programs available by looking on their college website. As for sophomores and freshmen, there are some college programs that accept soph0mores and freshmen, but they might be harder to find. But as a sophomore or freshman, it might be more beneficial to use the summer to take a college-level class to earn some transferable credits. 

Speaking of sophomores and freshmen, the first not-so-fun task that comes to mind for the summer is test prep. Whether it is preparing for the SAT or ACT, the summer after freshman or sophomore year is the most common time to do it. Although UCs and Cal states no longer accept SAT or ACT scores, many other schools do or are test optional. Even if a school is test-optional, it might still be in your favor to send in your score. Not sending in a score for test-optional schools will not hurt you, but it could definitely help you. So how should you get started? Well, there are many methods of preparing including self-studying using resources such as college board and khan academy or there are also a few weeks SAT or ACT tutoring classes during the summer if you need an extra push from a teacher. Elite Prep does offer a summer SAT bootcamp from 6/19-8/11 for those that might be interested.

It is also a good idea to get a job or internship during the summer. This is valuable experience that will carry onto your resume even after college. Even doing some community service and receiving consistent volunteer hours is a helpful experience, not to mention will help with the high school graduation community service requirement. 

Hopefully, this did not make you too stressed about filling your summer with academic work and getting ahead. It is still important to take some time to relax and have fun this summer. But summer is two and a half months, and you can do a lot in two and a half months. Make the most out of your summer and balance your fun time with serious work time.