WHAT TO DO DURING SUMMER VACATION
While you are enjoying your summer vacation - and we think you should take a well-deserved break after a long year of studying - it’s possible that your thoughts might be thinking of the road ahead. Whether you’re a rising junior or senior, there are some things you can do during the summer to help solidify your college plans.
Visit a College Campus Both juniors and seniors could utilize the summer break to visit various campuses. In fact, we think that school visits should be on every senior’s “to do” list! While you won’t be able to visit with students during the summer, you will be able to get a good “snapshot” of the college scene by visiting. Here are some tips to make your visit the most productive it can be:
•Call ahead or go online and make an appointment. Don’t just “show up” at a campus’ doorstep and expect to receive a first-class tour! Call - or email - the Office of Admissions to inquire about summer visiting hours. When you call, ask just what your visit will entail [a tour? a formal presentation? an information exchange between you and an admission officer?] and how long your visit will take. In this way, you might be able to plan to visit two colleges in one day.
•Do some “external” homework before your visit. Use the college’s website to read up on the school’s mission, admission procedures, academic programs, and social life.
•Do some “internal” homework as well! Know what classes you’ve taken, what classes you’re planning on taking next year, your grade point average, any test scores you’ve earned, plus make a list of any activities that really matter to you. If an admission officer on a campus asked you to tell them something about you, what would you say?
•Make a list of questions you need answered [or consult our Countdown to College document, located on the right rail of our webpage.] You might be especially interested in a school’s academic advising program, might need clarification of admission procedures, might need special services on campus, might want to know something about career advisement. Bring those questions with you so that you can get the answers for them while on campus.
•Dress comfortably - but neatly! No one expects you to arrive on campus in a three-piece wool suit during the dog days of summer, so wear comfortable clothes and especially comfortable shoes. Do remember that you are making a first impression, so you might want to leave those baggy sweats and Metallica t-shirt at home.
Create An Activities Chart This is something both rising juniors and seniors can do during the summer months. Many colleges today ask students to create a chart which details their extra-curricular activities. We suggest that you start your own “personal database” of all the activities in which you’ve been involved while in high school. Your activity chart should include the following information:
--the name of the activity
--a brief description of just exactly what the activity entails [For example, no college will know what GIVE or TYMP is unless you explain it to them!]
--the year(s) in school in which you’ve participated
--the number of hours per week you devote to the activity
--any positions of leadership or awards you’ve won as a result of your involvement.
Be sure to include both extra-curricular activities sponsored by Stevenson as well as community or religious activities in which you’ve participated. Any paid or unpaid work experience should be included as well.
Use our Naviance software and look at the resume tab; it provides a wonderful template for you! Don’t worry about editing this chart during the summer; simply include any and all activities and experiences you’ve enjoyed during high school.
Think About Those College Essays While this section is intended for members of the Class of 2013, rising juniors (2014) can certainly get a glimpse of what lies ahead for them in the college search process, so feel free to read on!
A number of highly selective schools - including the University of Illinois, for example - require students to write personal essays as part of their college application. For many students, this is the most daunting part of completing the application, and it needn’t be so overwhelming. [Some colleges even archive their essay questions on their websites for future applicants to peruse.] Let us offer you some food for thought as you think about creating personal statements to attach to your college applications.
Every type of writing sample on a college application requires the same type of internal self-appraisal before pen ever touches paper - or fingers ever touch keyboards! Rather than try to write the final version of an essay over the summer, we’d encourage rising seniors to spend time answering the following question: What is the “surprise” you can share with the college in your essay?
Exactly what do we mean by that? Well, we encourage you to think of your application like a pie, with each section of the application serving as an individual piece of that pie. Think about what each section of your application will reveal about you. Your personal information will tell schools where you live, how many siblings you have, where you attended high school, when you took the ACT or SAT, etc. Your transcript will reveal your academic history and performance - what courses you elected to take and how well you achieved in each of those courses. Your extra-curricular activity chart will detail how you spend your time outside of the classroom. Teacher recommendations will reveal what kind of student you are and what you add to a classroom, while your counselor’s recommendation will speak about how you fit into the total Stevenson educational community.
And your essay is the last piece of this application “pie”. Don’t waste the opportunity to share something unique and unmentioned in other places of your application - think of how you can surprise an admission officer who reads your essay after reading the rest of your application? Are there any experiences which have really defined who you are? Has your family life experience really shaped your development in a special way? Are there one or two personality traits which you want to highlight? The answers to these questions will provide the “meat” of your essay. Don’t worry about the actual writing of the essay during the summer; rather, focus on just what you’d like a school to know about you.
We will offer an essay-writing workshop, “The Write Stuff” in early fall; visit our website in August for specific dates.
Check out the Common Application – but don’t start completing it til fall! Many seniors will use the Common Application when they apply to college, so familiarizing yourself with this document over the summer is a good idea. Nearly 500 schools now accept the Common App for admission. Go to to learn how this document can save you time in the application process. The essay questions you find there are identical to the questions on next year’s application, so you can try your hand at some of these essay prompts over the summer.
Please note: the application currently on the Common App website is NOT the one the Class of 2013 will use! The 2013 version will be uploaded in early August.
Search for Dollars Both seniors and their parents can use the summer months to begin planning how you’re going to pay for college. Parents can find a ballpark estimate of their estimated family contribution by going to on the Internet and completing the aid estimator. In a matter of minutes, parents can find out just “how poor they look on paper”, and receive an idea of what the federal government may calculate their need to be. Since you can’t file the official financial aid form until January of 2013, this estimator can provide you with some good background information.
Seniors who want to search for scholarship dollars can go to on the net and enter personal information into a database of 400,000 scholarship possibilities. Summertime is the best time to conduct this search so that students have a list of contacts they can pursue either during the summer or in early fall. We strongly urge all seniors to use Fastweb during the summer and not wait until fall. Between classes and college visits and completing applications, seniors have more than enough to do. Don’t put off your scholarship search!
Power Up For the Fall Use your summer vacation to help restore your spirits, renew your energy and reengage your commitment to college. The best preparation for a great new school year is using your vacation to recharge your batteries. Catch up on your sleep, try a new hobby, read a bestseller or a classic, visit with friends and family - do whatever it takes to refocus your energies. That way, you’ll come back in August, ready to take on the challenges of a new school year!