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Why your kid should get a summer job instead of going to an academic program
Massmomm
4245 replies85 threads Senior Member
I thought this was a very thought-provoking essay:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/04/24/if-you-think-these-elite-summer-programs-will-get-your-kid-into-college-guess-again/?tid=hybrid_collaborative_2_na
Here's the text, in case the link doesn't work:
Getting into a well-regarded college is an obsession with many parents. They develop their own ideas of what admissions offices are looking for and try to “enhance” their child’s résumé by pushing them into summer programs that they believe are so prestigious that participation will give their kids a leg up on the competition. The reason they think these programs are so elite — and so helpful to their child’s admissions chances — is that they are often hosted, or at least located — at the most elite colleges.
The problem is that these programs won’t do much, if anything, to help. Here to explain why is Raymond Ravaglia, the former associate dean for pre-collegiate studies at Stanford University and is currently the director of pre-college programs at The School of The New York Times. He is also the founder of the world’s first online high school for gifted students, The Stanford Online High School.
By Raymond Ravaglia
Like baseball and cherry blossoms, articles and anxiety about college admission are once again in season. They feed upon years of practice by parents seeking the “best” and most prestigious college summer programs, since “everyone knows” that getting into the right college requires this prerequisite. Wrong!
Time and time again during the 15 years I directed pre-collegiate programs at Stanford University, I saw parents laboring under two fundamental misconceptions – “truths” garnered from other parents and popular wisdom that drove decisions they believed would help their children “get in,” but which, instead served only to accelerate the anxiety treadmill.
These misunderstandings are pervasive, causing many parents to deprive their children of a fulfilling summer of personal growth, rest, and recovery that would, in fact, be truly helpful in the highly competitive college admissions process.
The first misconceives the actual nature of summer programs.
Belief 1: “If my daughter attends ‘Dream College’ Summer Session and does well, it means she is competitive with ‘Dream College’ students and every college will want her.”
Reality: ‘Dream College’ isn’t ‘Dream College’ over the summer.
Summer students at “Dream” are taught by visitors and graduate students, while the regular students go home and regular faculty largely pursue research. Success here does not signal anything to admissions officers about academic competitiveness. Furthermore, if a high school student can think of nothing better to do in the summer than continue to be a traditional student in a classroom for another two months, isn’t that more likely to suggest a lack of imagination than intellectual vitality?
The second misconstrues the very reason why summer programs exist.
Belief 2: “Summer programs reflect a school’s official thinking about what students should be doing to get ready for college and for that college in particular.”
Reality: Nothing could be further from the truth!
The reason such programs are so common is not because colleges are worried about empty heads, they are worried about empty beds. Since undergraduates go home in the summer, colleges invite all manner of independent programs to campus, simply to fill the dorms. This disconnect can be hard to see because colleges will maintain a patina of official sponsorship — not because the admissions office or the undergraduate deans want to see how students in the program are doing, but because without such sponsorship the revenue generated might not be tax exempt.
Summer in the high school years should be a time for students to escape the classroom, to discover and explore their interests and to distinguish between passions, fads and passing fancies, because college will offer more options than even the most engaged of them can ever hope to master. Unless they have learned to focus their attention and prune their interests, this can be overwhelming and counterproductive.
The purpose of college is not to create perpetual students; it is to make young people ready to enter the world.
Students who have begun to encounter the fullness of life and have explored a sense of direction are inherently more appealing to colleges and universities than those hot house flowers who have only demonstrated their ability to be good students. Truth be told, there are plenty of those; while students who have explored their creative instincts and honed their critical skills are far fewer.
Even the most orthodox of liberal arts colleges understand that they do best when they admit young people who know what they are good at, what talents they wish to develop and what they wish to cast aside. Having a passion clarifies the mind.
This is why these two misconceptions about summer programs are so counterproductive. They seduce parents into co-opting what should be a time of growth and exploration, transforming it into just more of the same. Parents need to understand that as interested as colleges and universities are in attracting good students, they are even more interested in graduating alumni who will be successful in the world and make lasting contributions to society.
High school summers at their best when they prepare young people for the discovery of success in life itself.
48 replies https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/04/24/if-you-think-these-elite-summer-programs-will-get-your-kid-into-college-guess-again/?tid=hybrid_collaborative_2_na
Here's the text, in case the link doesn't work:
Getting into a well-regarded college is an obsession with many parents. They develop their own ideas of what admissions offices are looking for and try to “enhance” their child’s résumé by pushing them into summer programs that they believe are so prestigious that participation will give their kids a leg up on the competition. The reason they think these programs are so elite — and so helpful to their child’s admissions chances — is that they are often hosted, or at least located — at the most elite colleges.
The problem is that these programs won’t do much, if anything, to help. Here to explain why is Raymond Ravaglia, the former associate dean for pre-collegiate studies at Stanford University and is currently the director of pre-college programs at The School of The New York Times. He is also the founder of the world’s first online high school for gifted students, The Stanford Online High School.
By Raymond Ravaglia
Like baseball and cherry blossoms, articles and anxiety about college admission are once again in season. They feed upon years of practice by parents seeking the “best” and most prestigious college summer programs, since “everyone knows” that getting into the right college requires this prerequisite. Wrong!
Time and time again during the 15 years I directed pre-collegiate programs at Stanford University, I saw parents laboring under two fundamental misconceptions – “truths” garnered from other parents and popular wisdom that drove decisions they believed would help their children “get in,” but which, instead served only to accelerate the anxiety treadmill.
These misunderstandings are pervasive, causing many parents to deprive their children of a fulfilling summer of personal growth, rest, and recovery that would, in fact, be truly helpful in the highly competitive college admissions process.
The first misconceives the actual nature of summer programs.
Belief 1: “If my daughter attends ‘Dream College’ Summer Session and does well, it means she is competitive with ‘Dream College’ students and every college will want her.”
Reality: ‘Dream College’ isn’t ‘Dream College’ over the summer.
Summer students at “Dream” are taught by visitors and graduate students, while the regular students go home and regular faculty largely pursue research. Success here does not signal anything to admissions officers about academic competitiveness. Furthermore, if a high school student can think of nothing better to do in the summer than continue to be a traditional student in a classroom for another two months, isn’t that more likely to suggest a lack of imagination than intellectual vitality?
The second misconstrues the very reason why summer programs exist.
Belief 2: “Summer programs reflect a school’s official thinking about what students should be doing to get ready for college and for that college in particular.”
Reality: Nothing could be further from the truth!
The reason such programs are so common is not because colleges are worried about empty heads, they are worried about empty beds. Since undergraduates go home in the summer, colleges invite all manner of independent programs to campus, simply to fill the dorms. This disconnect can be hard to see because colleges will maintain a patina of official sponsorship — not because the admissions office or the undergraduate deans want to see how students in the program are doing, but because without such sponsorship the revenue generated might not be tax exempt.
Summer in the high school years should be a time for students to escape the classroom, to discover and explore their interests and to distinguish between passions, fads and passing fancies, because college will offer more options than even the most engaged of them can ever hope to master. Unless they have learned to focus their attention and prune their interests, this can be overwhelming and counterproductive.
The purpose of college is not to create perpetual students; it is to make young people ready to enter the world.
Students who have begun to encounter the fullness of life and have explored a sense of direction are inherently more appealing to colleges and universities than those hot house flowers who have only demonstrated their ability to be good students. Truth be told, there are plenty of those; while students who have explored their creative instincts and honed their critical skills are far fewer.
Even the most orthodox of liberal arts colleges understand that they do best when they admit young people who know what they are good at, what talents they wish to develop and what they wish to cast aside. Having a passion clarifies the mind.
This is why these two misconceptions about summer programs are so counterproductive. They seduce parents into co-opting what should be a time of growth and exploration, transforming it into just more of the same. Parents need to understand that as interested as colleges and universities are in attracting good students, they are even more interested in graduating alumni who will be successful in the world and make lasting contributions to society.
High school summers at their best when they prepare young people for the discovery of success in life itself.
This discussion has been closed.
Replies to: Why your kid should get a summer job instead of going to an academic program
OTOH - my sisters' D was invited to a leadership camp and she has no interest in going. She prefers to stay home in the summer and work at her part time job. Which is just as good a choice.
They are both excellent students so I like them doing something completely different over the summers. Camp was 7 weeks so they still had some down time and time for family vacations.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1881785-why-do-parents-insist-teens-get-summer-jobs-vs-working-on-academics-p1.html
And comments like this one:
Unfortunately the kids who are in failing schools and who would benefit from additional academic experience over the summer are also likely to need the income from a summer job.
Academic camps can be great for kids who want that as their summer experience - but they are not the answer to elite admissions.
While I agree with this statement, I don't agree that summer programs can't facilitate "encountering the fullness of life and exploring a sense of direction" - it did for my D for sure as she was able to study things not available to her locally and also explore new cities and people from all over.
FWIW, she also worked during the year and summers.
But, somewhat ironically, I'm pretty sure that the summer programs might have been a factor in getting one of the jobs she'll have this summer—as a counselor in the pre-college program for high-school students run by the college she goes to.
In the end, I didn't end up getting in to the school, dispite doing well in the program.
BUT, I did have a great time, meet great people, and recieve excellent instruction (by actual professors, not grad students.)
So I would say if it's something you want to do because it interests you, like this program did for me, then go for it. But don't expect it to have any benefit in the admissions process.
The summer programs my kids went to weren't for college admissions, but because we and they thought it was a good way for them to explore some areas that they might not get a chance to explore at school, and to potentially help them find some direction of interest before spinning their wheels in an expensive college while living in a campus environment with like minded peers. I see too many kids who never found themselves because they never looked. Before you know it, they are seniors locked into a major that no longer interests them, have have no sense of life direction.
I'm not saying kids need to know exactly what they want to be when they grow up, but some sampling of a broad range of areas over summers seemed far more valuable than serving ice cream at minimum wage or wiping noses at sleepaway camp.
In addition, DS and DD earned their college spending money...which was something we asked them to contribute. Books...and all discretionary spending.
And to be honest...if your kid went to some program, there were less than hugely paid staff especially in the housing and dining halls that made that possible.
It's a personal family choice to NOT have a student work in the summers.
For me, that job was Burger King, summer of 1980.
Wow, that's harsh. My kids did a lot more than wipe noses. The week before camp, they painted common buildings, repaired adirondacks and fences, cleared trails, and constructed new facilities such as shower houses to prepare for incoming campers. At different times they taught merit badges in first aid, marine biology, emergency preparedness, and nature studies. S worked in the trading post, eventually becoming assistant manager. D was director of the metalworking forge one summer. She later became assistant program director with most of the counselors reporting directly to her - she did the interviewing and hiring and provided performance reviews (and dealt with problem staff). She was responsible for building relationships with the scoutmasters from the visiting troops - including some who thought a girl had no place working at boy scout camp.
Academic programs can be great for kids. But so can real-world job experience. Just because a job is low pay such as a camp counselor doesn't mean it's mindless and demeaning. My kids can show on their resumes that each summer they were hired back at a position of higher responsibility. That looks good when applying for campus jobs or for internships. They didn't get paid much, but they were earning and managing their own money, working outdoors and learning valuable life skills. And for them, they wanted a break from academics. They still read a lot throughout the summers, but enjoyed the complete change of pace from the school year.
Why would they do that?