By Susan Alaimo
While everyone needs a summer break, it’s important for students to use their time wisely., Colleges often ask students, as one of their application essay questions, “What did you do during the previous summer?” Impressive essays will include stories about volunteer work, internships, and other opportunities where students helped others and/or learned more about themselves., Students seeking academic enrichment have a vast array of options. Many high school students take courses at local community colleges where they are most welcome – and often offered a discounted tuition. Other students take courses online, where the opportunities are almost limitless. Edx.org and Coursera.org offer courses, including many from the world’s most elite colleges and universities, at a nominal cost. What college admissions officer wouldn’t be impressed with an essay written by a student who studied The Quantum World or Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies with a Harvard University professor?, Families who are vacationing during the summer might want to fit in one or more college tours during their travels. The more colleges and universities students visit, the better idea they will get of what they are really looking for in the ideal school., Students can also use their summer vacation to focus on a hobby or area of passion – particularly one that might evolve into a college major. Summer can provide the perfect time frame for students to create a portfolio of artistic work, hone musical skills, or writeand publish their own book. (Visit Amazon’s Createspace.com), The summer of 2017 is also a particularly good time for students to prepare for the SAT exam. For the first time ever, a summer SAT exam will be offered – on Saturday, August 26. Many students, and their parents, don’t realize that students can take the SAT as many times as they like and (most) colleges will never know how many times they take the test. The College Board grades, and records, all students’ test scores. When the time to apply to colleges rolls around, students go into their online College Board account and select which SAT scores (clearly the highest) to send to colleges., Many colleges allow students to Superscore, which means they can “mix and match” and send their highest math score from one test and their highest reading/writing score from another test. Since SAT scores can have such an incredible impact, not only in deciding college admissions but also in awarding scholarship money, students should start preparing early in order to ultimately get the highest scores they are able. The summer of 2017 may be the ideal time for students to carefully prepare for, and then take, this all-important test., While students should certainly enjoy their summer, they should also use the time wisely to prepare for success in the upcoming school year and beyond., Susan Alaimo is the founder and director of SAT Smart in Hillsborough that has been offering PSAT, SAT, and ACT preparation courses, as well as private tutoring by IVY-League educated instructors, for more than 20 years. Visit www.SATsmart.com.
