By Adiba Mirza
We all know how summer is a great opportunity to start preparing for your dream college. We all want to enjoy the summer, but summer is a great time to explore our interests and develop crucial skills. Don’t just lie around all day, summer is a time to expand your horizons and discover a new passion. You can begin some serious college-planning, like looking at some of the colleges you may be interested in. You can search colleges online ( some useful websites are Cappex.com and Zinch.com) or go to any local book store like Barnes and Nobles and buy books like “The Princeton Review’s Best 365 Colleges”. It is also a good idea to get an opinion of a particular college from someone who has attended and from counselors of the college, so summer time is great time to start networking with people who can help you get into your dream college.
You can also visit some college campus and see for yourself if that particular college is right for you. You can get a better understanding about the college campus which can inspire you to push ahead. You can also take a virtual tour of some colleges by visiting youniversitytv.com. You can take free pre-college classes at several colleges like Brown University and Cornell University. You can even volunteer at a local health clinic , animal shelter, or a public library. You can also get a summer job through programs like Summer Youth Employment Program( SYEP) or work at a summer camp. You may want to take PSAT from previous years before you take the real PSAT in October. By taking these early assessments, you can get a plenty of time to address your weaknesses.
In the summer, you can try to learn a new language or gain in-depth knowledge about a specific subject like engineering or architecture, those subjects that you don’t really have enough time to focus on during the school year. Summer is also a great opportunity to participate in clubs like a book club where you become comfortable sharing your thoughts in a group discussion, a common activity in college classes. Summer is also a great time to read books that you don’t get time to read during the school year. This will boost your writing and reading skills which will greatly help you write college-application essays and perform better in the SAT. During the summer, you can also start preparing for the SAT by taking either paid or free classes for the SAT. The best thing to do during the summer is to reflect upon your previous school year’s performance and plan improvements you can make during the new school year that starts on September. As Theophrastus said, “ Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend,” so don’t let your summer go to waste, use it wisely !
