Summer + College apps=Intentional
Summer is the sweetest. It’s a time for students to take a much needed break, enjoy the outdoors, play….and start thinking about college, right? Wait-hold your grimace. I promise you’ll be thanking me later for this gem. While it seems premature to start thinking about college prior to your senior year, I assure you it is NOT. Here’s a little ditty I like to call an intentional summer. It’s not just for soon to be seniors, it can totally of use to other high school grades as well.
If you are going to be a senior in the fall, thinking about and starting the application in the summer will provide you an amazing buffer from overwhelm of the process during your senior year. You don’t have much time to add to your activities, academic portfolio, etc. as early deadlines hit in November. By starting in the summer, you give yourself time to refine your college list, start your essay without the competition of homework and senior activities, and get a huge chunk of applications done. It also allows you more options than the grind of the process. For example, Bloom offers a college application summer camp that allows students to do all the work necessary, but also float on the lake and eat snow cones. That feels WAY good.
There is even more power in having intentional summers during early high school years. Did you notice above how the senior year was just about the application process? The earlier summers allow you to have intention about how to go about the building of activities you would like to reflect on your application, thinking about what you are good and passionate about and where to put it in society, learn about schools, etc. Community service? Summer. College tours? Summer. Understanding application requirements? Summer. Taking just a wee bit of time to be intentional early on can make your application full of really cool stuff as well as feel better to package it up.
Why you should think about your college applications during summer:
·By your senior year, you don’t have any more time to grow yourself for an application. Most colleges have November early action deadlines which means you are including things you have done through your junior year for consideration.
The process is, for lack of a better word, a bitch. Taking time before the fall of your senior year will save you panic and overwhelm. Be kind to yourself and allow yourself the opportunity to enjoy your senior year.
Summer doesn’t have as many competing priorities so will allow you to have great reflection, action, and intention about one of the most decisions of your life.