Want to Get Into Harvard? Get my Ultimate Guide to the Common App Today!

  • Learn the secrets to a truly unique application that makes Stanford say We HAVE to accept them!
  • Find out how to make your application rise above the perfect SAT scores and 4.0 GPAs...even if your scores and grades aren't perfect.
  • Discover the critical step that most A-students miss -  destroying their chances at an Ivy.
 

Get Your FREE Gifts!

 
 

Summer Isn’t Over

July 29, 2015 Jessica
0 Comment
Summer
It’s still summertime. Yay! I’m on a little bit of a vacation this week, visiting my hometown. It’s so easy to just sit back and relax for the three months you’re off. RESIST THE URGE! I want to make sure you’re using your time off the best way you can, so your application looks awesome come fall. So what should you be doing this summer? There are so many possibilities.

Plan a Volunteer Event or Non-Profit

The summer is a great time to do a lot of the leg work for planning a volunteer event or getting a non-profit off the ground. Think about what you love to do. Do you love playing the guitar? You can start a non-profit where you teach students the guitar or create a music camp. pend the next 15 minutes coming up with 5 ideas for events or organizations. Remember, it’s better to take action then come up with a million ideas. Once the 15 minutes is up, pick an idea and move forward. No matter what. Parents can work with their kids on this. The key is to pick something you will enjoy.
Besides coming up with an idea, there are a few things that are great to get out of the way early.
  1. Venue – For either an event or an organization, it’s important to figure out where things are happening first. A great way to do this is to partner with a school or several schools (middle or elementary are great) in an underserved area. You can also look into community centers, universities, and other non-profits. People want to help. I promise. Summer is a great time to contact people because the start of the school year can be a hectic time. Send a few emails and make a few phone calls and secure a venue for your event.
  2. Sponsors – Sponsors can make or break events. Sponsors can be as simple as donating some water bottles to giving you cash for supplies. The key is asking a lot of people and starting early. If you are putting together an Earth Day event, send emails to all the “green” companies you can think of. You will be so surprised by the number of companies willing to donate. Check out this previous post for some templates to make this even easier.
  3. Participants – And of course you want people to attend your event or participate with your organization. Here is where partnering with a school can really help (built in participants). Even if you’re not partnering, you can figure out ways to advertise your event. Call local schools that might be interested and see if you can get on their calendars or send out flyers.

Get Your Reading & Writing On

If you love reading, the summer is a great time to squeeze that in. You typically have more free time, so spend it doing what you love. Get through your summer reading list, and then add some extra. Read things you enjoy and try out different types of books and articles.
For writers the summer can be a great time to write. Try to write everyday. Start a blog. Work on a book. There are a million resources on the web for how to start a blog or self publish a book, so don’t be intimidated. Make a goal of writing 100 words a day or something you think is achievable right now. From now until the first day of school, try to hit that goal everyday. By the end of the summer, you’ll have written thousands of words.

Try a Summer Course

There are still some college courses or programs starting in August that you can try out. Look at your local community college for offerings. You can also check out online courses. There are tons of them. You want to learn a little computer programing before school starts? Check out MIT Open Courseware. Maybe you want to learn a language your high school doesn’t teach or just brush up before school starts. Check out the websites and apps for language learning. The summer is a great time to learn something new.

Action Steps

  1. Decide on an event or organization and starting planning for it today.
  2. Check out MIT Open Courseware.
  3. Email me at jyeager@post.harvard.edu if you need any help figuring out what to do this or next summer.
If you enjoyed this article, sign up for my newsletter. I’ll send you my FREE Ivy Application Toolkit as a thank you!
 

Summer
Summer

Comments are closed.