High School Freshman — What should they do this summer?? Aspire to going to competitive college

[Anonymous]

My DC did 4 summers of residential CTY and 2 virtual summers up until the summer of 11th grade. So that's 6 summers total of CTY.
Loved it. Found his passion for writing and humanities there. CTY has shaped him in many ways.

He did not list it on his activities in his college application. Made no mention of it.
Just got into his first choice school ED.

[Anonymous]

Cure Cancer while landing on Mars, and solving global warming whilst you have a 35 ACT (36 you will be yield protected out) and of course no B since pre-school.l. Add stellar recommendations from Kindergarten teacher. That should get you waitlisted at Cornell and UVA (assuming in state but not Fairfax County).

[Anonymous]

Lifeguard and chase chicks. What he does the summer after his FRESHMAN YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL has no bearing on whether he gets into a good college, so let him be a normal 15-year-old.

[Anonymous]

What does she enjoy doing? The summer after 9th grade can be a bit tricky just due to age and experience. My daughter did a local CS camp for a week and then spent the rest of the time working on coding projects and also volunteered a nature camp for several weeks. We kind of left it up to her, which meant a lot of last-minute planning but it was a good lesson and had relatively little impact for later high school summers and college admissions. If you don't want to pay for pre-college programs (which is valid), volunteering might be the best option. My daughter also babysat and cat-sat.

[Anonymous]

My DD sounds a lot like yours. She’s at a T 10 college now. Here is what her high school summers looked like:
Freshman- debate camp, babysitting, drivers Ed, field hockey pre-season, organized a field hockey “ camp” for MS kids with friend
Sophomore- unpaid canvassing for a community based advocacy org, dishwashing job, FH preseason
Junior - Nothing and she left in July to spend her senior year of high school abroad
That’s it though. No fancy internships. Debate camp after freshman year was fun and helped her with an activity she really enjoyed but it wasn’t some thing that went on her college application it was just to help her develop skills. And the two things she did after sophomore summer were great growth and learning experiences and she was able to weave some interesting anecdotes from both of those into college app essays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD sounds a lot like yours. She’s at a T 10 college now. Here is what her high school summers looked like:
Freshman- debate camp, babysitting, drivers Ed, field hockey pre-season, organized a field hockey “ camp” for MS kids with friend
Sophomore- unpaid canvassing for a community based advocacy org, dishwashing job, FH preseason
Junior - Nothing and she left in July to spend her senior year of high school abroad
That’s it though. No fancy internships. Debate camp after freshman year was fun and helped her with an activity she really enjoyed but it wasn’t some thing that went on her college application it was just to help her develop skills. And the two things she did after sophomore summer were great growth and learning experiences and she was able to weave some interesting anecdotes from both of those into college app essays.

Thanks, maybe I can steer her into having more fun and not focusing so much on the end goal of college. We are DCUM poor, so I think that has motivated her somewhat to want to have a more comfortable life (she is ambivalent about boys and marrying at this point, so she knows its up to her) and she sees how stressed and squeezed we are as working parents. I suspect she will also not have kids, even though we love having kids it is hard for our generation with high housing costs, college costs, etc. And yes, we have talked about moving someplace cheaper, that means restarting our careers which only exist in urban places (and sadly not remote).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop obsessing over college admissions. What your kid does in the summer has very little impact.

1000%. This is not a good look, OP.

You don’t understand. SHE is the one driving the bus here. We would prefer she get a local job and volunteer over the summer, she wants to live somewhere else and learn/do something more novel.

She can do both OP.

Does her school require volunteer hours? Ours had a VERY specific guideline on what they would accept and a formal approval process. If she does have a requirement - have her talk with her school about what those are and to find something she likes that fits that - have it approved etc.

This way she can spend time volunteering (hopefully do ALL her hours this summer) and spend 2-3 weeks away in the academic program she is interested in.

But it's important on BOTH counts that she finds something SHE wants to do - something that will have meaning to her.

I would make sure she does not take academic courses to "get ahead" or for what it might look like to college admissions. (Not saying she is doing that). Our child liked to learn and took academic summer programs in areas to further explore their interests in ways that could not be done at their HS. These programs helped them determine what they might want to do (and not want to do) in college. They were only 2-3 weeks so plenty of time to volunteer while home and to go on a family vacation.

[Anonymous]

My DD volunteered at our local library, did a two week violin camp and was a lifeguard at our local beach.

[Anonymous]

My kid operated a deep fryer at a Mexican restaurant for 30 hours a week. She fried tortillas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cure Cancer while landing on Mars, and solving global warming whilst you have a 35 ACT (36 you will be yield protected out) and of course no B since pre-school.l. Add stellar recommendations from Kindergarten teacher. That should get you waitlisted at Cornell and UVA (assuming in state but not Fairfax County).

OMG I am on the floor laughing. Too good. Unfortunately, it may be true lol.

[Anonymous]

I think a couple weeks of a camp she's interested in + a job would be ideal. If she's finding things outside your budget than she needs to put $$ toward it. If that won't work for this summer, then make that the motivation to get a job this summer to save her contribution to what she wants to do.

FWIW, both my kids did a 1-week pre-college program the summer after sophomore year. That was good timing for them, already had an idea of what they might want to study, gave them a glimpse into life on a college campus before the rigors of junior year.

If you are in Virginia, she should look into the Governor's Residential Summer program. Those are free but it's a pretty rigorous application process. It might already be too late for this year and I don't know that a freshman would be very competitive anyway but something to work toward for a later year.
https://doe.virginia.gov/instruction/governors_school_programs/summer_residential/index.shtml

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop obsessing over college admissions. What your kid does in the summer has very little impact.

1000%. This is not a good look, OP.

You don’t understand. SHE is the one driving the bus here. We would prefer she get a local job and volunteer over the summer, she wants to live somewhere else and learn/do something more novel.

Your response doesn’t compute with your original post. You said “I can’t find internships” meaning you were doing the research. If she is driving the bus. You don’t need to do anything (unless she is applying to a program you can’t afford or doesn’t work for your family overall).

Well that’s the crux of it, the programs she finds are quite expensive, she wants an academic residential program — taking courses while living on college campus. We prefer an internship which would hopefully just cost room and board or maybe even pay something.

DP. Would you qualify for any financial aid? My kid did an amazing program that was 5K, and we asked for FA. They gave us 1k which helped. Our HHI is about 140K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid operated a deep fryer at a Mexican restaurant for 30 hours a week. She fried tortillas.

love it. Now I am hungry

[Anonymous]

Purely practical suggestion: If her school requires physical education sophomore year of high school (my DC's did -- they had to do PE freshman and sophomore years, it was not required of juniors and seniors):

If there is any option to take "summer PE" and get that credit out of the way, have her do it. In our case (FCPS), a lot of kids take summer PE the summer after freshman year so that the free up that class slot during sophomore year and can take another class in that slot, rather than a year of PE/health classes.

Summer PE in FCPS was self-directed. They met at one school to pick up heart monitors and get instructions, then did online health classes in summer and had to do a certain amount of physical activity. Some activities they already do (like certain sports and in DC's case, extensive daily dance classes) can be counted toward the physical activity requirements (but you have to obtain permissions for that).

Even if you're not in FCPS (and I have not read this whole thread), see if your kid is required to take sophomore PE and if so, how to get that out of the way the summer before sophomore year. Freeing up that class slot for other courses of vastly more interest is a FAR better use of that time. Not just for building up the GPA or taking tough classes, OP -- but because, frankly, it's such a bore for many kids to have to do PE in school. Get it over and done with even if your kid isn't enthusiastic. They'll be so glad they did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD sounds a lot like yours. She’s at a T 10 college now. Here is what her high school summers looked like:
Freshman- debate camp, babysitting, drivers Ed, field hockey pre-season, organized a field hockey “ camp” for MS kids with friend
Sophomore- unpaid canvassing for a community based advocacy org, dishwashing job, FH preseason
Junior - Nothing and she left in July to spend her senior year of high school abroad
That’s it though. No fancy internships. Debate camp after freshman year was fun and helped her with an activity she really enjoyed but it wasn’t some thing that went on her college application it was just to help her develop skills. And the two things she did after sophomore summer were great growth and learning experiences and she was able to weave some interesting anecdotes from both of those into college app essays.

You sound wealthy. Those are not your average MC/LMC experiences. Private school?