Colleges don’t just care about what students do during the school year; they want to see how students spend their summers, what they choose to do with a broad swath of time all of their own. There is no single right way to spend a summer, but there are plenty of less than ideal ones. We understand the appeal of watching Youtube videos and eating chips all summer, but admissions officers are unlikely to be impressed by such a venture.
We work with students to identify their strengths and interests, then find them summer programs exactly tailored to those needs. With this done, we help them with the applications. For many programs, this falls somewhere between a job application and a mini version of a college application.
The absolute diversity of these programs is astonishing; students can pursue field research under the guidance of professors, work in actual laboratories, take college courses while living on college campuses, vie for success in international competitions, or strive to improve their skills in sports or the arts. This abundance of choice can be freeing or paralyzing; with so many options, how can you know which is the right one?
Ivy Scholars works to fit your summer programs into the broader story of you as a student, building a narrative that admissions officers will see and appreciate. The right programs put an emphasis on what you have already done, and can grow into even greater opportunities in the future.
One student we worked with was an aspiring pre med, but wanted to get actual research experience to build upon the theory she read in high school. We helped her apply to the Welch Scholars Program, and she secured a research internship working in a chemistry lab at UT Austin.
She spent six weeks learning lab techniques and contributing materially to ongoing polymers research, while also having time to do some investigations of her own. She already had a significant number of involvements with science, but being able to work in an actual laboratory and speak to that experience on her application about why she wanted to pursue her intended major added significant weight to what she said.
Another student was interested in engineering, so we helped him apply to the Research Science Institute, a program put on by MIT. This program partners students with mentors who guide them through original research projects in a number of fields, engineering being one of them.
The student had some engineering experience before; part of a team at his school participating in robotics competitions, working on his own to learn programming. The structured nature of mentorship and research at RSI, however, allowed him to take these pursuits to the next level. When it came time to apply to colleges, he was able to use this as a key example when writing about why he wanted to pursue a major in engineering, showcasing his past commitments to the field.
One student we worked with had a very strong set of extracurriculars already, but wanted some additional perspective, to get out of the town she’d spent most of her life in. We helped connect her with the Rotary Club’s exchange program, where she applied to and was accepted on an exchange trip to Germany for the summer.
This did not directly relate to her major interests, but was instead a chance for the student to gain a new global perspective, to meet the kinds of people she never would at home and learn from them things she otherwise would never encounter. Colleges don’t just care about what you want to major in, but who students are as people, and what experiences and backgrounds they will bring to campus. An experience like this shows a student is willing and eager to expand their point of view and try new things, and that’s something these schools often prize.
Ivy Scholars is the leading educational consultant in Sugar Land, Texas, providing admissions coaching, test prep, and more to help students enroll at top tier schools.
Call us now: +1 (281) 215-5148
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