Summer can be a ton of fun – but it’s also a great time to get a headstart on the college admissions process! Read on as online tutor Natalie S. explains how…
It’s tempting to use the summer months as a time to check out and avoid doing productive activities. However, while setting aside free time is important, it’s also a good idea to balance out your free time with some academic prep or pre-college summer programs. Depending on what your goals are, there are all kinds of summer programs that are meant to help you learn, grow, and prep for college.
Here are five things a pre-college summer program can help you do:
1. Try new things. Pre-college summer programs are an ideal way to learn something new or try something you’ve never done before. For example, you could enroll in a program that focuses on art, music, or theater. These are subjects that will help you build self-confidence. They teach us how to open our minds, and they often force us to look at the world through a different perspective. As an added bonus, partaking in these types of courses will help you build a versatile extracurricular activity list that makes you more appealing to colleges.
2. Pursue your passions. Are you interested in writing? Do you love solving complex math equations? Do you wish you knew how to play the piano better? Enrolling in a pre-college summer program that fits your interests can help you foster your talents and decide whether or not you want to pursue them professionally. These programs also allow you to study and perfect those things you love to do but don’t often have the time to engage in during the school year.
3. Enjoy more individualized attention. Because many high school students take the summer off or choose to search for a seasonal job, pre-college summer programs have a much smaller teacher-to-student ratio. Take advantage of this rare opportunity to get individualized attention from your teacher or tutor. Get to know your instructor, and ask them for additional help in areas that you want to improve upon. If you build a good relationship with this person, you could also later consider asking them for a recommendation letter.
4. Enhance your resume and the extracurricular activities section for college applications. Whether your pre-college summer program is academic-based or artistically driven, pre-college summer programs can help to build both your resume and your college application by showing schools that you have a passion and desire to keep learning even during the summer. These programs can help put a personality behind your application and make you stand out from all of the others.
5. Stay in the school groove. If you totally shut down in the summer, it makes it much more difficult to get back into the groove just a few months later when school starts again. Taking one or two summer courses can help you stay on track, and keeps your mind fresh and focused!
There are many options for pre-college summer programs. If your goal is to improve academically, you can enroll in courses that will help you hone your skills in certain subject areas. If your goal is to learn something new or engage in an activity that you’ve always been curious about, you can try a class that is more artistically driven. There are even programs that allow you to live on campus for a few weeks, so you can test out what college life is really like. All of these options offer the benefit of becoming a versatile student who has a lot of experiences to write about, speak about, and learn from. These experiences will all make you a well-rounded student and an appealing candidate on college admissions applications.
Having trouble finding a summer program? Not sure where to start? Connect with a tutor through TakeLessons. Your tutor will customize your lessons based on what you want to learn, so you can use them as a way to receive more individualized attention in certain areas. Make the most of your summer months – you won’t regret it!
Natalie S. tutors online in English, ESL, History, Phonics, Reading, and Test Prep. She received her BA in English Education at the University of Delaware, and her MA in English Literature at San Diego State University. Learn more about Natalie here!
Photo by Dawn Ashley
Suzy S.