The country’s most ambitious high-schoolers now have one more thing to fret over: crafting their “summer story.”
Overachieving teenagers have long pursued a smorgasbord of résumé-polishing summer activities. But a range of impressive summer pursuits is no longer enough, some college advisers say. Students now feel pressure to specialize—as early as their freshman summer—in interests they want to pursue in college.
The idea, college advisers say, is to assemble a list of summer pursuits that show increasing mastery in a distinct specialty. That “narrative” can help students stand out in a sea of all-rounders, they say.
So many students now have high GPAs and strong test scores that the competition has extended to the summer, said Lisa Bain Carlton, a college counselor in Austin, Texas.
“A significant differentiator is: What have you done outside the classroom? And what does it tell us about what you’re going to do at our college?” Bain Carlton said. Summer activities have always played a role in college admissions, but now “it’s like a train that’s taken off and gotten faster and faster and faster,” she said.