Join today and bring your questions!

Most juniors right now are scrambling to find a summer program that "looks good" on an application. That is backwards thinking, and it leads to a generic profile that blends in with thousands of other applicants. Your summer should solve a specific problem in your application. That means you need to know what your profile is missing before you commit to anything. Here is how I think about it. If your ECs are deep but narrow, your summer should show range or leadership in a new context. If your ECs are scattered, your summer should double down on your strongest thread and make it undeniable. If you have strong academics but weak initiative, this summer needs to show you building something, not just attending something. A research program is not automatically impressive. A pre college program at a brand name school is not automatically impressive. What is impressive is when your summer activity connects logically to the rest of your story and adds a dimension that was not there before. Before you apply to anything, write down the three strongest threads in your profile and ask yourself what is the weakest link. Your summer should address that link directly. Drop your intended major and your top 2 ECs below. I will tell you what kind of summer move actually strengthens your application.

I am a single disabled mom trying to help her junior daughter narrow down colleges to apply to and help her with the college application process. She attends a math and science academy where she lives on campus in dorms so I don’t have much time with her. We did just tour New York City and she really fell in love with Columbia and Barnard. She skipped 10th grade going from her traditional high school to the stem Academy. Because of this, her activities are missing a year but she is currently working in research at an R1 Institute and will be shadowing a surgeon this summer. I’m just curious how many activities and volunteer work and projects a person needs to have to actually be considered worthy of these schools. It’s been hard for her because she’s just now 16 and I am unable to drive so she’s basically been taking care of me. She’s very independent and the school she attends is actually at a four year university and she has been doing great in her classes. I’m just worried that having one less year of activities might hurt her also because she changed schools her activities changed. Because we’re low income she doesn’t want me spending money on a college advisor, but I feel like she deserves all the benefits kids with money have. I just want to find some way to level a plane field. If you have any advice to help her, it would be greatly appreciated it. Her name is Skye Johnson. She wants to study genetics and become a doctor. The reason she wants to do genetics is because I am disabled due to a genetic disorder. She most likely has the genetic disorder, but it cost too much to get tested for it. She also wants to become a doctor because she has seen how women are often gaslit by the medical community and ignored. She wants to see this change by having more focus on female care and more female doctors.

Hello everyone - I am a current junior in the Philadelphia area seeking to improve my college applications to the furthest extent.