How to Make the Most of Summer – College Bound Mentor Podcast #23

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This is Episode #23 and you’ll hear how to make the most of your summer with your college application in mind. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re enjoying the show!

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College Bound Mentor Podcast Episode #23: How to Make the Most of Summer

Summer experiences can really make your college application pop. In this episode, Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie reveal how to make the most of your summer with your college application in mind. Hear the variety of academic programs offered over the summer, how to find summer programs, why getting a summer job is one of the best things you can do, whether it’s okay to keep going to summer camp, and how to focus on making your summers productive. This episode covers everything from summer internships to summer camp. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

  • What are some special interest programs you can do over the summer?
  • Should you do pay-to-play summer experiences?
  • What art programs can you do over the summer?
  • Why should you get a summer job?
  • Is it okay to use summer to re-energize yourself?

Subscribe to College Bound Mentor on your favorite podcast platform and learn more at CollegeBoundMentor.com.

Check out the episode and show notes below for much more detail.

Show Notes

  • How to Make the Most of Summer

What is the College Bound Mentor podcast?

Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie know college. They also know students. With over 30 years combined experience mentoring young people, they’ll show you why understanding yourself is the key to finding the right college. Each episode, hear trends, case studies, and interviews with students who have gone through it all – giving you valuable insight to survive the college application process and beyond. Hosted by Lisa Bleich, Abby Power, and Stefanie Forman, Partners of College Bound Mentor.

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Abby Power 0:05
Every adult loves a kid who works.

Lisa Bleich 0:19
Hey, CBMers, welcome back to College Bound Mentor, where we help you survive the college application process and beyond. We are your co-hosts, Lisa, Abby, and Stefanie. And on today’s episode, we’re going to talk about how summer experiences can really make your application pop. We’re going to start off talking about the types of things you can do over the summer, and then we’re going to move into a few case studies of how students use their summers to their advantage. So without further ado, we’ll start talking about that. It’s been freezing here. I don’t know how it is in Michigan, but I was out for a walk today, and I was like, oh my god, the wind is just whipping. I had like my my coat all the way up over my face. So thinking of summer is a wonderful thing to do.

Abby Power 0:59
You east coasters are never going to get any empathy nor sympathy from I

Lisa Bleich 1:03
know, I know

Abby Power 1:04
about the weather, so it’s like violin. Forget it. Yeah.

Stefanie Forman 1:10
It was a wind field. What is it? The Shield feel or the wind? It was 70.

Abby Power 1:15
Oh, I’m so sad for you. Minus 40, yeah,

Lisa Bleich 1:20
alright, well, that’s why we that’s why we live where we live. But I’m telling you, girl at heart, so it doesn’t usually bother me, but this was pretty bad. So summer is actually a great thing to do right now, and you actually have to think about it now, because now you have to make your plans. Many of the applications are have even passed, or they’re usually due in in March. So let’s just look at the bigger picture and think about like, what are kind of the things you can do over the summer, and why it’s so important that you do something, because the summer really is the time that you can fill in gaps in your application the so I guess the first way that people think about spending their summer is to pursue something and either an intellectual interest or perhaps explore new interest. So let’s talk a little bit about some of those opportunities. Abby, you’re shaking your head, are there some that you’re thinking about, that you’ve had some students do

Abby Power 2:11
that have been helpful? I have had kids do, yeah, a lot of academic programs. And I mean, I actually have never had a client do one and not be happy with it, which is kind of surprising, right? I mean, so I’ve had a lot of kids do the Wharton programs. There’s one finance and one leadership. I’ve never had a and one sports business. I’ve never had a kid do the Moneyball one, which is the data science. So I’ve never had that anyone do that one. I’ve had a lot of kids do sports marketing and also business at Wake I’ve had kids do the Medical Academy and also business at Georgetown. I’ve had kids do these New York Times summer programs. Some of them are screenwriting and journalism and playwriting, and they’ve really liked those. Also, I’ve had a lot of kids do just liberal arts stuff at Brown which everybody always likes. I’ve had a couple kids do the Stanford Humanity and science institutes, those are more selective. And I’ve had kids apply. I had one kid do a Hopkins, a selected one at Hopkins. I’ve had a bunch of kids apply to the selected programs at MIT. No one ever get in. So I don’t know what to make of that, but

Lisa Bleich 3:22
yeah, there’s a bunch of really select ones that, you know, there’s MIT, there’s the RISE program at BU. I have had one student who got into that and ended up actually going into Stanford after that. So a lot of times people say, Well, what about the pay to play? So is that? I mean, a lot of those programs are pay to play. Some of them are selective. What’s your what’s your view on that term and on the way that colleges will view those programs?

Stefanie Forman 3:47
I think even though the pay to play phrase can be misleading, that there’s a little bit of a negative connotation, I think what Abby, what you just said before, even though you said not one of your students ever had a bad experience. So I think even if you do pay to play experience and you enjoyed it, and you were able to cultivate this passion and learn more about an interest, and that’s awesome. So I think in that regard, it’s great, but there are different tiers of selective, you know, selectivity when it comes to college programs, I think a great question to ask is, which faculty are running this program? Is it? Are there faculty associated with the school? Is the school running the program, or is it a program that has nothing to do with the specific university, and they’re kind of using it as a home base? That’s usually the first way to tell if, I think, If a program is more selective or something that’s a bit easier to get into,

Lisa Bleich 4:46
yeah, that’s a really good point. And the other thing just to think about is you have to realize, like, what’s the point of doing this program? So if your goal is to see, like, Hey, I think I’m interested in business, or I think I’m interested in. Becoming a creative writer. So I want to see whether or not that’s or engineering, because that’s a lot of times. I have a lot of kids that will do an engineering pre college program, because they don’t always have the opportunity to do that in their schools. So it’s really just to give them that opportunity when they have to answer that why major question or talk about an intellectual experience that you know that was interesting to you, it gives them that material so that they can explore it. So even if it is a pay to play, doesn’t mean that it can’t be valuable and useful. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to make because you did this program, you’re going to stand out above all others, but it’s going to give you opportunities to talk about things. And I actually think about my daughter, who now you know, she’s in her second year of residency, but over the summer, she did a Spanish Immersion program. And she wasn’t necessarily interested in being a Spanish major or minor, but she just was interested in learning Spanish better, and it was a great program. She became pretty much not, I wouldn’t say, fluent, but she improved her Spanish tremendously, and she still uses that Spanish today, like when she’s working with patients, and that it was because she went to that program. So even though it wasn’t necessarily, I don’t know if that helped her get into college, but it was certainly something that was valuable. So I think you have to just think about how you’re using it, and then I think research is one of those things that you can do it at different levels. There’s there are the pay to play opportunities, where you can pay someone to identify a research opportunity. There’s some very competitive programs where you’re paired with a mentorship. And then there’s, of course, just reaching out to professors locally. And it’s kind of a numbers game, just like applying for a job and just reaching out to as many professors as you can and seeing if somebody bites. And I’ve had students who have done that successfully. So there’s lots of ways that you can, you know, explore interests for doing that. What about cultivating a special talent, or athletic ability? Steph, how do you how have you seen kids do that? So

Stefanie Forman 6:52
with a special talent, there are so many specific programs, whether it’s studio art, whether it’s dance, whether it’s music, so there’s specific programs for that. So maybe it’s like a one week intensive camp, or maybe it’s just someone’s really into creative writing, and they reached out to the local newspaper, and they were able to intern and learn about some editing at the local basis. And for sports, there’s so many different opportunities as well. You can do a recruitment camp. You can just focus on recruiting in general and just outreach to different coaches. You can coach kids in the neighborhood. So even if it’s not, I guess playing the sport specifically, there’s also, like so many opportunities for mentorship, which is another way to cultivate those talents as well. So I think it could be from both sides. No, definitely.

Lisa Bleich 7:49
You know, I think for the special talent, one, a lot of times people say, hey, if I do a summer program at Brown or I do want to, you know, Cornell or Wharton, is that going to help me get into the school? I would say the only time I have seen there be an advantage is if you’re doing a creative arts program at a college where you think you might want to go. Because oftentimes, as you mentioned before, Steph, if the professors in that special talent, like in art or music, are actually teaching the summer programs, and they’re the ones who are viewing your portfolio, then they’re able to see how teachable you are. And so I have had instances where students have done summer programs like the portfolio program at Michigan or the film program at USC, and because of that, it’s actually helped them get in from that special talent perspective. So that’s something else. And similar with the coaching, when you do those showcases, you get to be in front of the coaches, so that’s where it can be an advantage. In terms of art, I’ve

Abby Power 8:47
had kids do portfolio classes, so where they’re creating their portfolio to submit to the colleges in the summer, so that they don’t have to worry about it during the year, and then the class. Most of the time. For me, it’s been at local the schools affiliated with local museums, like in Chicago, the Art Institute and in Minneapolis, and I had a kid do it in LA also. And so they do these kind of eight week programs, and they get their portfolio done. So that’s pretty efficient,

Lisa Bleich 9:22
definitely. Yeah, Michigan has a portfolio program like that as well. So yeah, that’s a really good idea in the local areas. The other, another thing that students will often do over the summer is, especially if they’re super busy during the year and they just don’t have time to do community service or develop leadership, is they’ll use that as an opportunity. I know Abby, you’ve had a really good job of, like, basically telling kids you have to do this community service over the summer. So how have you, how have you found opportunities for them, and how has it helped them in life? Applications? Well,

Abby Power 9:52
I have to say, you know, I have kids all over the country. I’d say I’m split between the Midwest and then the East Coast and West Coast and. It’s a lot easier to find opportunities in the Midwest. I just find like in LA and New York, you know, there’s just more people going for it. But that said, my main rule about it is that it needs to be something that you’re psyched to do, so your mom doesn’t have to want, you know, nag you to get out the door. So I have a lot of kids who help kids with disabilities, with sports. This is a little bit of a hot tip for this year, since the Olympics are in LA in 28 and they’re going to have the Special Olympics there too, apparently. I mean, I actually know this is true for sure in Detroit and Chicago and Minneapolis, the all of the Unified or Special Olympics local groups are really kind of beefing up their efforts to train participants for the Olympics, because, you know, it’s much harder to leave the country, so there’s going to be a big, a big presence from the US. So, yeah, so that’s like a hot tip. I’ve had kids call their local unified places, and they’re like, oh, yeah, we’re expanding the program. You know, we’re doing all this great stuff. So that’s good. There’s a lot of beach cleanup in the summer for kids in New York. A lot of kids in New York spend their summers at the beach. There’s a lot of environmental beach stuff. You know, where there are lakes, there’s environmental like water testing, river testing, Lake testing, stuff I’ve had kids do working with kids. Are tons of summer camps. A lot of public parks have summer camps, either free or, you know, reduce tuition and you can volunteer there. But yeah, I mean, I really encourage all of my clients to at least double or triple their hourly, their weekly community service during the summer, because everyone has that time. And you know, better, if you do it with friends, you know, even more fun you do it with friends, all good. I have kids working at a lot of kids working at senior place, senior living places, because, you know, in the winter they can’t get out, so in the summer they get out. They have walking clubs, or kids just volunteer and sit outside and read to seniors. I mean, it can be anything, but I do think that, as you said, Lisa, it’s the time to do it because you don’t have the stress of school on you.

Lisa Bleich 12:04
I have a lot of kids, especially the pre marriage or the pre Health Science kids, that want to do EMT, and that’s a really intensive training program. And so a lot of them will do it over the summer, so they’ll get all of that training done over the summer, and then they can continue doing it into the school year without having just like one shift a week or something like that. So that’s a time where they’ll they’ll do something like that. And also, a lot of kids will work in food banks over the summer. That could be a good, good opportunity. There’s a number of local camps. There’s some camps for like kids with either like kids with diabetes or kids with kids who have cancer, kids would have health issues or that they can be counselors for that. So there’s lots of opportunities over the summer, and you just want to, again, use that in a good way.

Stefanie Forman 12:47
And more that’s been trending with my students, whether they’re local or, you know, wherever they are, for some reason a lot of my students, which makes me happy as a former English teacher, they’ve been volunteering at the library, and they’ve been working with so many different like, I have different communities there. So I have had a few students who worked with some senior communities and helping with technology. That seems to be something, hey, that’s

Lisa Bleich 13:11
what I case study. Oh, I didn’t

Stefanie Forman 13:15
anyway. And then I have a lot of students, especially over the summer, they work with younger kids who are not even at Camp yet, like, not even at, like, local day camp, so, like, three, four, kind of like the preschool time and they and the cool thing about that too, like, they get to explore their interests that way. So I’ve had students who have created science experiments that they get to do with kids, or, like, some art projects that they’ve done with kids, because the libraries love volunteers. So it’s been some Yeah? So that I’ve seen that on the rise with my students, right?

Lisa Bleich 13:43
And some museums also have that as well, which is cool, yeah, liberty, science museum, or, you know, different things like that. So that’s also another great opportunity, stuff,

Abby Power 13:51
yeah? My Swarthmore kid this year volunteered at a library, and he was telling me that they were desperate for volunteers. So if you’re in a in New York City or in Chicago or in LA, I think that’s right, the I think that’s a great tip. And, yeah, I’ve had kids work at the science museums, kids who are interested in engineering or research and kind of lead experiments with kids, one at Liberty in New Jersey. Yeah,

Lisa Bleich 14:17
there’s a lot. I mean, there’s a lot of platelets, and the kids actually love it. I mean, they they have a really good time when they’re doing it. So as as Abby said, find something that you really enjoy and then just share it with the world, and that’s the best way to do it, right? The other thing that maybe isn’t so much fun, it’s like a lot of times, students will use this summer to bolster their academics, or their or study, you know, study for their test scores. So I’ve seen this when students need to either address a deficit, if they were perhaps had a bump in the year there maybe there were some health issues that they needed to focus in on, on an area and either retake a class or if they want to get ahead for the next year. So a lot of times this happens in. Math. I’ve seen where students, a lot of schools, will track you for math, and if you don’t get on the right track at that first time, you may not end up where you want to be. So like, I had a student who wanted to do engineering, and he wasn’t on track to get into calculus by his senior year for whatever reason. Did something happened during his middle school? So he used the summer to take one of the math classes over the summer so we could jump back and get back on track. I’ve also had students who wanted to jump even more ahead, so they’ve done that, or they could take some like prerequisite or requisites that they need to take, like some like financial literacy in New Jersey, that’s a class that students have to take. So there’s lots of things that you can do to get ahead. And then, of course, studying for the SAT, A, C T’s. Again, you have a chunk of time. So a lot of typically, between sophomore and junior year, they’ll study for the SATs or a C T’s. So that’s another thing to think about for that alright, earn money, get a job. That is my favorite thing. So what I did over the summer is when I way back when. So why are jobs so important, and why do you think they’re so overlooked?

Abby Power 16:01
Every adult loves a kid who works. You know, when I meet my my son’s friends, and they are telling me about themselves, and they’re like, oh, yeah, I work at a restaurant, or I work, you know what is at a hardware store, it just tells me that they are responsible. You know, they know what it’s like to deal with customers. They know what it’s like to deal with a boss. It just says something about them. So I’m with you. That’s my that is my number one favorite thing that kids do. I’ve had kids get amazing letters of recommendation, amazing experience. I had a kid in Minneapolis who started out as a checkout kid at a grocery store and ended up managing the produce department. It’s amazing. It just says so much about him. He doesn’t even have to write about what that means. That means that someone whose livelihood depends on him trusts him to you know, I had a young woman last year. She’s at a really highly selective school. She worked in retail in New York City. She was 16 years old, okay, a very like high end store, and she was given the responsibility to open and close the store. Could you imagine giving a 16 year old with with hundreds and hundreds of $1,000 worth of merchandise, the responsibility to close up your store? It just says something about you? Yeah,

Lisa Bleich 17:16
absolutely. I had the same thing. I had this one girl who I remember this essay. It was so funny. She she was working at a yogurt store. Frozen Yogurt store owner called her up because the toilet was overflowing it she’s like, why are you calling me? And it was because he just had so much faith in her that she was, like, the only one that could get things done when he wasn’t around. And so she actually kind of wrote her, wrote her essay about just like how it just showed her responsibility for doing that. And I had another girl who worked at a like, a very high end ice cream store, and she ended up working that was one of the main things that she did. But she ended up a similar becoming an assistant manager and training new people and just moving up the ranks. And she used that to talk about hospitality and how, how much she learned about business from that, and also just about the different people. Some people were there that was their primary job, and how she learned about economics and class, and she got into Cornell hotel school with that. You know, really focusing a lot on that, on that

Stefanie Forman 18:17
experience. You both mentioned this, that so many great stories come from jobs and just the transformation like I feel like we’ve all had these discussions. I see my students transform when, like, from the start of the summer to post summer after, after certain job experience and resilience and grit and great character and responsibility and all these things that colleges say are so important to them again are just beautifully displayed through these personal stories. And back to another story about an ice cream shop, a memorable one. I have a student who overcame her anxiety. She had debilitating anxiety, yeah, yeah. And then I had a student this year who I think this is not verbatim, but the idea is, I love waking up at 430 for my job at my bagel store, but for school, I can’t, I can’t get up just because, yeah, just so important

Lisa Bleich 19:14
for school. I don’t mean it like that. It’s just like they thrive in the workplace, and so in school, if they have to do things, they don’t really want to do it, but in a job environment, they just come alive, as you said, and I’ve seen that happen so many times. They build their confidence, they recognize that they’re actually really good and really responsible in a way that they’re not getting recognition sometimes in the academic setting. So I think jobs are super important for people. And then, okay, so there’s the the job, working in the ice cream store, the working of the camp counselor, those types of jobs. But then there’s also, if you can get them, but they’re harder to get, and it’s usually if you know someone is exploring a potential career or getting a major and getting an internship. So what have you seen within. Internships, and how easy are those to get, and what’s been the benefit from those?

Abby Power 20:05
As you said, you normally have to have a connection, right? Because what company wants to hire a 1617, year old to do their works? But that said, if you have a good opportunity, and there’s an opportunity for you to learn, you know, maybe present to people in the company, learn Excel skills, research skills, maybe data science skills, statistics, statistical analysis skills. It’s great, I guess, the way I think about it, you guys could tell me, if you disagree, I don’t think an applicant is going to get credit for getting the internship, you know, because everyone knows that they would have gotten it through connections for the most part. I mean, 99% of the time, it’s really what you learn, what you bring, what you can say. I had a young woman this year who is just like what you described, school is just not her thing. Work is her thing. She had an internship in an environmental group at a utility company, and just excelled. I mean, just killed it again. Got a really good letter of recommendation, where they said you would not have any idea she was a student. She seemed like she worked here. So, I mean, it literally became the anchor of her application, because she she got so clear on what she wanted to do, so clear on the skills she developed and how she needed to grow further. I mean, it was really good. So yes, I mean, you are super lucky if you have that kind of opportunity. I wouldn’t turn it down, but I also wouldn’t feel bad. You’re not gonna be penalized for not having it. And I also don’t think it matters the prestige of the company. You know, you can work at a little local something. It doesn’t matter, just as it’s functionally what are you learning? What is your experience that’s really all that matters? Yeah,

Lisa Bleich 21:47
I totally agree with that. And then I guess the last thing, in terms of big bucket items, is this idea of reconnecting with family and friends and really using the summer just to re Energize. So what do we think about that? And how have you seen students do that in a positive way?

Stefanie Forman 22:02
Yeah, I think sometimes, like a myth is no to sleep away camp, or you can’t go to camp, or you can’t go on this trip, and I’m like, No, you had do that. Like, that’s what makes you happy. That’s what re energizes you to be with your friends that you haven’t seen or to reconnect with them once a year, like go for that your year is so busy. Should that be coupled maybe with community service and maybe some babysitting hours towards the end of the summer, or some academic focusing on s, a T or a C, T, prep, sure, but of course, yeah, I it’s really hard when parents and students say, well, this isn’t going to look good for college to go on this big family trip, or it’s not going to look good for my daughter to work at the same sleep away camp the summer before senior year instead of doing an internship, but it’s also a job at the end of the day too, like all the things you have to do as a camp counselor. My goodness, that is not easy work by any means. So I don’t know if that excites a student and that’s something they’re passionate about and that makes them happy. Yeah, go for it. About

Abby Power 23:21
camp, you have the opportunity to have, you know, be re hot, so you’re a CIT, then you’re hired to be a counselor and talking about jobs before it’s even better, more validating if you’re rehired, you know, if you have the same job two years in a row, because that means they really valued you as an employee. So that’s the thing about camp. It’s like, you form this community, you’ve you’ve earned trust. And I have the same thing. I have a lot of a lot of parents going, Oh, they can’t go to camp. I’m like, I don’t know. They’re being paid. They have a lot of counselors. Also have the opportunity to do community service. It’s part of the program at camp, at sleepway camp, and parents and the camp director are trusting you with their most precious, you know, belonging. So I feel like it’s very validating to be a camp counselor.

Lisa Bleich 24:09
Yeah, no, it’s interesting. I this is a little bit like after the college process, but I was just brainstorming with one of my medical school students, and we were talking about the most meaningful and he started telling me this story about how he was a counselor for one of those, like, Outward Bound programs. And it was essentially he and this other counselor were responsible for 12 or 15 middle schoolers completely on their own during COVID and and we were, you know, talking about all the different things. And then it turns out that one of the counts, one of the campers, had got developed COVID, and then he was struck with this, this decision of like, well, what do I do? Do I test? Do I test everyone else? And he had to kind of walk through the whole thing. So it became this really, really great fodder for the and he didn’t even really think about it in that way. I was like, oh my god, this is great. It’s like, this is like, really good responsibility. So there’s a lot of things that you just. Don’t realize that you’re doing when, when you’re doing that. And it’s also great to reconnect with friends. And then I also have a lot of families that are where the parents were not born in the US. And so they might want to use that summer, and they do use that summer to travel back and reconnect with family in India or in Brazil or France, you know, lots of things. And those have also been great experiences for the family to stay connected, but also can yield some good experiences for the students. So really, the the point is, there’s so many things you could do over the summer, just do something, just do something that that speaks to you and that makes sense. There’s not one thing that’s better than another, it’s just whatever makes sense for you. So we thought we would go through and do some case studies. And so I have a case study, and then Steph is going to do a case study. So I’ll start with Franny, who’s the technology whisperer. So Franny transferred high schools after her freshman year, and so she didn’t have a lot of activities coming into her sophomore year. And that’s that’s essentially when I met her. She was interested in computer science, and she hadn’t really done a ton of it before, but she was also interested in how technology gets implemented on the user side. So over the summer, this was probably after her sophomore year, She interned for a family member. But nonetheless, She interned, and she was able to at this manufacturing company. And what she realized, or what she saw, was that her boss didn’t really know how to use the technology that was available to her to make her systems work better, so she taught her how to use the technology to make her workflow more efficient, to better track her inventory. So she got a start of like, learning how to share and educate people on technology. And then she also took a class, because she wanted to learn more about computer science, and she took a class at Stanford, and she learned how to do computer science. She did really well in that class. And so the following summer, or the following year, they actually asked her to teach the class for other students. And they weren’t just, there wasn’t a high school class, it was actually a Stanford class. So that was something that was was exciting for her. And then she also designed lessons over the summer at a summer camp for a steam camp. So she again started teaching kids. So as Stephanie had mentioned about, working in a library, volunteering at library, what she started doing her sophomore year and junior year was she started teaching technology skills to seniors at her local library. And she became really connected with a lot of these, these senior citizens. She went to their house sometimes and would help them set things up. And so it was this theme that she started from that initial summer internship, and then learning about computer science, of how do you bring technology to the user? And then she realized that she had this thread, and so she started, or became part of her high school’s digital innovators group, and that was examined, how do you use and interact with technology? And so everything was really started from that first summer where she saw how someone had all this technology but didn’t know how to use it. And then little by little, she realized that she had this ability to teach hard things, and it also had the ability to do hard things. Because one of her essay was her main essay was about how she made the decision to go from this small, essentially startup school with about 15 people to go to this other, much more challenging academic school, because she realized that she had a lot more to grow and learn. And that was really the message that she would teach all of the people that she imparted her information to, was that you can push yourself and you can learn things. And she’s had this way of doing it, of breaking it down for them. And so I think the summer programs really connected with her interests and provided a really strong jumping off to show her strong desire to create user friendly technologies, which really were threaded throughout her whole application for Cornell. And so that was Granny, my technology whisperer, the staff. You were going to talk about one of your students?

Stefanie Forman 28:51
Yeah, I’m going to talk about Harper. So Harper is actually a current senior gotten to her first choice, early decision. It’s good. My memory is sharp with this one. So So Harper and I met Harper kind of recently. I met her maybe in the spring of her junior year, and the things that I knew about Harper, that she was very clear about from the beginning is that she loves ceramics, and it wasn’t necessarily at this point, when I first met her, it wasn’t something that maybe that she was going to study in college, but it was something that helped her stay present and just kind of decompress from the day, because she’s very open. She had did multiple learning differences. So so this escape meant everything to her. So every day, when she was done with her work, with her schoolwork or any school responsibilities, she would spend the rest of her night. She also went to a boarding school. She would spend like the rest of her night, like hours in the ceramic studio. She was also art club member. Her, and she found herself mentoring other, her peers, with with the pottery wheel and mixed media, just because it was something that she loved so much. She’s just also a natural leader. So she had a lot of leadership, like, a lot of like, really, like, revered positions in the school. But again, she just kept coming back to ceramics, so it’s summer times another, the other thing that she usually did in the summers was she she’s a rower, so she trained and but besides that, and a little community service, she was looking for her first job, and she was very open about it, and she didn’t know if she could handle a job, because executive functioning was something that she was working on. So she did a lot of, I know we said this before, with internships or jobs or research opportunities, that cold calling is sometimes gives you the best results, and that’s what she did. So she just like, Googled local she lives outside of a major city. So she Googled, like local pottery studios, and just was very resilient about it, and persevered. And she was offered an internship, so a non paying internship, and she was there for two weeks, and she loved it. And so I also I knew her during this time, because we were working on the college essays at this point. This is this this past summer, the summer before her senior year. And when I say, like she got dirty, like I learned about reclaiming clay, I didn’t know what that does. I don’t know if you guys know what that is. So basically reclaiming clay in this art studio that’s like, open to the public for classes to rent wheels, so all the clay that was not used. They would put like, so she would like, her nails were grown, like she would show me. So she’d like, get it out of the sink, get it from the floors, put it back into like, this huge vat with water. So it was something that they could use the next day, she was like, in the bathroom. She was mopping the floor. She did not care. She loved it, because, again, she she had this new sense of responsibility. And after two weeks, they’re like, We want to give you a job. You have proved yourself. You have worked really hard. They paid her, and she just she lit up, like, again, she did not care that she was exhausted by the end of the day, that she could not function by the time that she came home and it was also a female run company, and I think that was a really cool experience for her too, that she never knew something like that was possible. And they were just so encouraging to her. They would ask about her college essays. They would ask about, you know, how her weekend was, and they did not look at her like, Abby, you said this before. They didn’t look at her as a student. They didn’t make her feel like a student. They just made her feel like one of them and talk about transformative and so the reason all and how did this play into her her college application? So we usually start with the personal statement that’s like the first thing that our students have to write, and then we go to the supplemental essays. So that didn’t happen in this case. So we tried. We started with the personal statement. She wrote something, she had an idea, and it was good. And I think we all agreed that it, it could be better, that this girl just had all these gifts, and it was not representing her, it was not representing Harper. And so we went to the supplements, because they came a little bit easier, went to the activity section, and then we tried something else, and it just didn’t feel like Harper, and she’s also humble, so I think it was actually her mom said to me, like this experience changed her and Harper didn’t like she would talk about it like it was a natural part of her job. But then when we really dug deep, and again, this was she, she would have been, she wouldn’t have been able to write about it in the beginning of the summer, when we started with the personal statement, compared to probably too late, but, but probably early in the fall, when, she actually, when we actually ended up just just getting it done and writing it, she didn’t have that reflection. And I don’t think she even realized that it showed all of her strengths, that it showed that, you know, maybe she wasn’t so confident herself because of some of these learning differences that she had. I mean, I could go on and on, so I’m going to stop but, you know, it’s hard to show character sometimes in college application in the process, and it’s hard to show leadership sometimes, because the activity section doesn’t, you don’t have a lot of words, and if you can’t interview for the school. So this essay showed all of these strengths using this experience. So I’m going to stop talking now. But again, it was, it was just really cool to kind of see something embody all of these things that she wanted to do. And she’s now going to minor in in art. Yeah,

Lisa Bleich 34:49
no, it sounds like it was a transformative experience for her. And the summers actually can be like that, because if you get the right combination of activities, it can really be something that. Changes you and sometimes kids are not ready to write to your point until after that summer, because that summer ends up informing their essays. So if it’s not, if you’re starting, I know we’re not, this isn’t really about essays, but if you’re starting to write your essay, like I have, sometimes people say, Oh, we want to start writing the essay in March of junior year. I’m like, No, they’re not ready for that. I’m not ready for that. That’s not going to happen. It’s they’re not in a head space to do it. And so if you start trying to write it too soon, sometimes it can backfire, because that you need that summer to get through, and that summer before senior year. So think that’s good. So any myths or truths that you want to throw out there before we wrap this one up, I

Abby Power 35:41
really think the biggest myth is that summer camp is is not worthwhile. That’s the one I hear the most. And I think we all three totally disagree

Lisa Bleich 35:50
with that. I got, I had a student get into Penn writing about summer camp, and it was, and at first, you know, that’s the type of, Oh, don’t write about summer camp. But then when we did the exercise, and we’re like, well, all of these, all of your qualities come through this one experience about and not even summer camp, but color war, which is, like, really a taboo, but all came out in that particular thing. And so, yeah, I mean, there. So that’s definitely a myth, is that you shouldn’t do, didn’t do summer camp. Any other myths, I think we

Stefanie Forman 36:21
kind of touched on it just how important a job is. I think again, sometimes students are like, No, I should do something academic, or I should show something that shows this interest, or an internship. But just, I think we don’t need to mention, again, how valuable jobs are and what they can convey about a student. So

Lisa Bleich 36:38
yeah, right. And then I think the truth is, just make your summer productive. I mean, that is the truth. The summers do need to be productive. If you have all like, I feel like the summer after ninth grade, that’s probably fine if you don’t do something super productive there, but after 10th and 11th grade, they’re going to want to know how you spend your summers. And so that’s a really wonderful chunk of time to do something that is productive Enriching is just going to make you get a little bit more insight into who you are, all right. Well, thank you, CBMers, for tuning in and thank you for listening to this episode. To catch more episodes of College Bound Mentor, make sure to Follow or Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and tell a fellow parent or student about the podcast. To learn more, Visit CollegeBoundMentor.com Until next time, you got this!

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