I’m a high school junior looking for fulfilling and impressive things to do this summer, and it seems like I might potentially be able to do a summer internship with a distant cousin who runs an audio systems company in another city. This field is relevant to several of my areas of interests and would provide about as optimal an opportunity for work experience in the audio (and engineering) field as I could possibly hope to get during high school.
The only problem is, this guy is notoriously sketchy about his work, and infamous for strongly exaggerating (if not outright lying) about his accomplishments. He claims, according to his company site etc, to have designed the sound systems for several huge stadiums and other leading venues in the area (which is already downplayed significantly from his boasts to family members of being basically the leading sound system designer in the city); therefore, I’m not entirely convinced that the scope of his business is even remotely similar to what he claims. This would not actually impact how useful the internship would be. However, I’m concerned about what would happen if I put this on my college application and my explanation of what the business is turned out to be untruthful.
Is this the kind of thing that colleges would be likely to (or even able to) screen for validity? Since most of the activities I would list in my app are primarily intrinsically motivated endeavors that I have few concrete accomplishments to show for, I’m assuming it’s very important for all of the concrete activities like internships that I mention to not have red flags regarding their legitimacy. Does anyone have any advice regarding this situation?
I mean colleges likely won’t google it and they aren’t going to track down his business- you don’t even have to mention it in the app just say that you had an internship at a sound system designer or something along those lines. While you are at the internship I would try really hard to find out what’s true and what’s not. If it turns out to be true that the business is at great as he says great! You can now mention all the leading industry stuff, but if it isn’t just mention the internship with a sound system designer and leave it at that. Either way you can probably mention the specific company if you would like as you said the company sites backed up your uncles claims.
Oh and I’d take the internship no matter if he is being untruthful or not. If the company isn’t as great as he says so what? You still have basically the same internship(minus some bragging rights)
You would be using this internship on your applications to talk about your actual (“concrete”) experiences and gains- NOT the potentially inflated claims of your cousin. This is a big difference legally. So you don’t write “I worked for a company that put in audio at the Meadowlands” but “I developed and installed audio for a high school auditorium that seats 2500.”
@Oregon2016 good point, although I doubt I would have the opportunity to independently manage and complete an entire project such as that, as opposed to developing smaller components of many projects.
Forget doing something impressive. Most high school students lack skills to be impressive. Instead focus on showing basic common sense. Don’t involved yourself with people whose character you already question.
The most important question you can ask is what you will be doing. If you are just going to be fetching coffee for the sound engineers, then you may be better off getting a job at a day camp or as a lifeguard or as a busser at a restaurant since then you will have more exposure to real world experiences. However, if you will get to play a role in actual projects, then it is worth looking into!
Also, is your distant cousin planning to pay you for your work? If not, then turn around and RUN. “Internships” have very little impact on college applications unless they are legitimate, and even if they are legitimate, they still have little impact.
Right so my question is how will colleges know how legitimate it is? Like, this isn’t a regular internship program so who would they even ask? Does legitimacy have to entail a certain length of time or a certain quality of work or what?
It seems like I would be able to actually do work on projects, and I could probably get him to pay me to some degree but probably not enough to be worthwhile for the money alone. The main contribution this would have to my application wouldn’t be getting the job itself but the degree to which it happens to tie to the progression of my interests (since this specific area is not really my primary focus, I might not have an opportunity to write about it extensively in essays).
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough - colleges don’t care about internships you do because it is so rare that an internship for a high school student is worthwhile that it isn’t worth their time to investigate any more than it would be for them to look into what you did as president of the debate club.
When I talk about payment, I am talking about getting paid for services rendered. Realistically, chances are that you have not yet developed the skills to succeed at a true internship - although internships are all about developing skills, you need a foundation of what work responsibilities are, even if they are basic responsibilities. At this stage, you are looking for that foundation, which means doing some of the more basic elements of work and, therefore, getting paid accordingly. It’s difficult for a high schooler’s job to be worthwhile based on the money alone, so don’t worry about that.
Right now you are doing exactly what I did when I was in your shoes - you are thinking about the task in front of you, which is getting into college. But getting into college isn’t your ultimate goal - finding a career is. If you have an opportunity to do work in an industry that you are considering entering, then you have an amazing opportunity, not for college, but for your career post-college. Thinking about it in terms of how it will help your college application is shortsighted; think instead about how it will help your resume. If you have the chance to learn how someone comes up with a design or how audio systems are installed, then you will have an immediate advantage down the line. You probably won’t be on a team actually creating a design, and you probably won’t have the responsibility of actually installing an audio system, but that’s OK.
Another way to think about this… let’s say you’re looking to buy your first car. You’re going to look at how much it costs, what color it is, what its gas mileage, what material the seats are, etc. All of these things are critical to whether you want to buy the car. You’ll probably also notice what style of speedometer the car has, but you probably won’t decide to buy the car based on the style of speedometer unless that is the ONLY differentiating factor between two cars. For a college admissions committee, having an “internship” versus a job versus heavy commitment in extracurricular activities is just a different style of speedometer.
Agree that HS interns are rarely more than gophers because they have so few useful skills. I think colleges view most HS “internships” as of limited value. Maybe you spent some time at a company and got an idea of whether you’d want to work in that industry. Maybe you got a small project to do or did done grunt work on a bigger projects. But it is no magic EC. Do it if you think it will help you think about careers or build dome skills in an area of interest.
How would you say an internship like this would compare for college purposes to, say, an unpaid CIT program at an overnight camp?
Also, would it be a more helpful activity if I substantiated elsewhere in my app that I actually do sort of know what I’m doing in this field? That’s what makes this seem like it might be useful- although I’m not planning on entering this particular niche industry, I have significant experience and sustained interest in similar enough areas that it seems like, even if something like an internship doesn’t sound impressive in a vacuum, it might help sort of legitimize the extent of, and tie together, my areas of interest if nothing else (otherwise it would be reallllly hard to explain).
As you mentioned I am thinking of my resume as well; the thing is, an internship or similar activity of this little commitment is obviously a much greater burden on my time right now than it will be a year from now, especially since I plan to take a gap year. Due to sports schedules etc., I have extremely little time to do anything that requires a large time commitment during high school. I would probably be able to get this same job a year from now and it would be similarly useful to my resume, although I do have less employment options now than I will in a year.
Not quite sure what you’re saying, but if you are saying that you are already heavily burdened by your academic load and your extracurriculars, then it may not be wise to take on something new, especially if it is just to put a notch in your belt. Add an extra thing and you may see your grades slip, which would be much more damaging than the internship would be helpful.
Regarding the internship tying together experience, don’t put too much stock into it. Like I said, even if it is important to you, it will be of limited value to getting into college.
With that said, when I was a freshman, one of my hallmates had started his own company while in high school. That company absolutely helped him to get into the business school at my university, but he wasn’t interested in using the company to get into school; he was interested in using the school to help his company. As a freshman, he spent ALL of his free time working on his company, and by senior year he was ready to sell it. He did so, for a profit, and has moved on to other entrepreneurial pursuits.
It’s a subtle but critical difference. If a university sees that you are working toward something and that the university has a defined role in that plan, then you are approaching your application from a position of strength. If a university sees that you are working toward getting admitted to the university (which they will, in your case, no matter how you try to frame it!), your application will blend in with the 35,000 other applications they got.