CUPERTINO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / December 29, 2022 / Back in the day, summer breaks in between high school years were meant for kids taking a long hiatus from school, hanging out with friends, getting a summer job or maybe or maybe going to sleepaway camp.
Those days are now long gone, especially for students who are interested in getting into one or more of the most prestigious and competitive schools in the country.
Now, high school students with great GPAs are much more likely to spend a large portion of their summer vacations during high school enrolled in some kind of summer program that may help them get into the colleges of their dreams.
While there are hundreds of summer activities that students can gain valuable experiences from, there is a fairly restricted list of programs that are thought to have a quantifiable impact when it comes to getting into schools like Yale, Stanford or Harvard.
Some of those highly impactful summer programs that AdmissionSight, a top tier college admissions consulting company, has helped students gain acceptance to include:
- Research Science Institute
- Garcia Summer Scholars in Stonybrook
- Simons Research Program in Stonybrook
- Stanford Institute for Medical Research
- Summer Science Program
- Boston University RISE
- Summer Science Program
- UCSB Research Mentorship Program
- Stanford Humanities Summer Program
- Iowa Young Writer's Studio
- Kenyon Young Writer's Workshop
- Telluride Association
- COSMOS
- UPenn Summer Academy and Engineering Program
- MIT Launch
As you probably noticed, many of these programs are directly connected to some of the best universities in the country. That is no coincidence.
Often, high school students will specifically target summer programs for high schools that are connected to universities that they are interested in attending once they graduate.
With all that being said, it is really important for high schoolers - and their parents - to know that these prestigious and impressive summer programs are only getting more difficult to get into. There are a number of reasons why.
Top schools moving away from the SAT and ACT
Throughout the years, an incredible amount of importance was placed upon a student's standardized test scores. At one point, the SAT and ACT were seen as a way for students to be compared to one another despite which school they went to.
That way, a student who attended a school with an easier curriculum could still prove that they were worthy of a spot at an Ivy League through great test scores.
In recent years, major questions about the efficacy of these tests have been brought into question. Schools were already leaning to no longer requiring these tests for applicants and the COVID-19 pandemic may prove to be the catalyst for this change.
For that reason, students are looking for other ways to prove that they're ready for the challenge of college. Along with taking harder classes and committing to impressive extracurriculars, summer programs are also playing a major role in filling that void.
More students are applying
Overall, more students are applying to these prestigious programs - just like this year marked record-highs for a lot of prestigious colleges in terms of student applications.
The more students that apply to these kinds of summer programs, the less open spots there are when the time comes for acceptance letters to be sent out. In fact, it is now recommended that students apply to programs in which they have already shown an ability to excel in.
Whether that means embarking on scientific research or immersing in philosophy and ethics, the choice is yours to make! It's important to remain strategic about which summer programs that a student applies to in order to improve the chances of actually getting into them as well.
How AdmissionSight Can Help
Just like when it comes to college applications, many high school students have elected to work with a college admissions consultants like AdmissionSight that specialize in helping students get into top tier universities.
Founder and CEO Eric Eng and his team of experienced consultants work with their students to help them get into the best summer programs in the world, dramatically improving the chance that they will ultimately gain admission to the college or university of their dreams.
Media Contact:
AdmissionSight Inc.
(650) 338-8226
SOURCE: AdmissionSight