<p>This probably sounds really stupid, but it’s been bothering me.</p>
<p>If you want to pursue Ivy League, would it be acceptable to purposely not do things (like giving up a chance at being an officer of a club) to give yourself a break or relax over the summer?</p>
<p>Like my family travels a lot in the summer so i don’t really take summer courses or really anything productive except for summer homework :P</p>
<p>Thank you all :)</p>
<p>If there is nothing interesting you do in the summer, you will not get in. You can take a break without taking all summer off. I did about 6 weeks of stuff per summer, usually. My key (junior -> senior) summer, I did a 3-week Egyptology program at UChicago, which was absolutely fantastic, and then spent 2 weeks at home/this half-day camp thing, then a week at Latin convention. And then I think I had three or four weeks of just plain vacation time. So yes, you can take time off. But you cannot take as nearly as much time off as you seem to want to. (My guideline would be that at least a month of your summer should be “productive”: one four-week course or something.)</p>
<p>What if you can’t afford it/ parents won’t bother to pay?
(Though I probably will do an internship at my uncle’s law firm)</p>
<p>And what if I don’t take all the opportunities available to me during the school year?</p>
<p>Thanks btw :)</p>
<p>To clarify: if the summer is a blank, you will not get in. But “blank” means “blank,” not “had to get a summer job at McDonald’s to help pay family’s bills”: I know somebody who did that, and obviously the admissions people don’t discriminate against people without cash to burn on buying plane tickets to go build houses in Costa Rica or whatever. Additionally, the best summer school programs give at least some FA (everything I did offered some/full scholarships for the cost) or are always free (TASP, if you do science, I think). Or you could volunteer, which shouldn’t cost you anything (beyond gas to drive there/money for public transportation), or get a summer job.</p>
<p>The internship is ok if you want to do law/if it connects to what you do during the school year, but does it? Whatever you do in the summer should help you fulfill some goal of yours, whether it be academic, or financial, or giving back to the community. Basically, are you excited about it/will it help your family? If you’re just taking a blah internship for three or four weeks so you can say that you did something rather than nothing over the summer, that is not all that much better than doing nothing. On the other hand, if you’re excited to see law in practice/apply what you learn to your club memberships during the school year/use that internship to get more responsibility in whatever/spend significant time there, that’s probably a pretty good summer.</p>
<p>Oh sorry I didn’t mention I wanted to go to law school 
The plan is I will work for my uncle later on in life. </p>
<p>Thanks so much for your advice!!! :D</p>
<p>What about during the school year? There’s this club that I potentially could be an officer for next year, but I don’t know and I may want some time to just relax.</p>
<p>Do these ivy league kids ever relax a lot during the school year?</p>
<p>For the sort of student who would be successful and happy at an Ivy League, “officer of a club” and “some time to relax” are not mutually exclusive. They’re efficient enough to be able to handle significant leadership positions and significant schoolwork in less than 20 hours of the day.</p>
<p>Thanks :)</p>
<p>I decided to quit the club by the way. it wasn’t really my thing.</p>