For College Applicants, Pressure to Make Summers Count Has Gotten Even Worse

Teens scramble to specialize their summer pursuits early—to convey a ‘story’ to college admissions officers

By Jasmine Li of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Overachieving teenagers have long pursued a smorgasbord of résumé-polishing summer activities. But a range of impressive summer pursuits is no longer enough, some college advisers say. Students now feel pressure to specialize—as early as their freshman summer—in interests they want to pursue in college.

The idea, college advisers say, is to assemble a list of summer pursuits that show increasing mastery in a distinct specialty. That “narrative” can help students stand out"

"So many students now have high GPAs and strong test scores that the competition has extended to the summer"

[A Stanford freshman] "advises high-schoolers to choose between science and the humanities early on. By junior year of high school, she says, students should specialize within those fields and plan their extracurriculars around that specialty."

"Parents pay thousands of dollars and enlist college counselors to burnish their high-schoolers’ summer portfolios."

"The key is crafting a clear narrative about a student’s passions through their extracurriculars, essays and résumés." 

"Ben Bousquet, director of college consulting at Sierra Admissions and a former assistant admissions director at Vanderbilt University, said his strategy is to help narrow students’ academic interests down to one or two passions. He then recommends summer programs that authentically align with those interests."  

Related posts on storytelling and authenticity:

Colleges And Universities Try To Be Like Hogwarts. What Would Carl Jung Say? (2025) 

The Myth of Authenticity Or The Story Behind Products (2010) 

It seems that people will pay extra if a product has a good story or myth behind it 

The Guru Who Says He Can Get Your 11-Year-Old Into Harvard (big lesson: Optimize childhood ): Jamie Beaton’s Crimson Education offers a pricey, yearslong boot camp preparing kids to apply to the Ivy League. Parents, and Wall Street, are on board (2024) 

"Independent education consultants" help high school students and their parents navigate the competitive college-admissions process (creative destruction and how the economy just keeps creating new types of occupations & professions) (2024) 

Students: Make a mistake on purpose, its good for you! (2007) 

This may sound surprising, but counselors advocate making a mistake on your college applications like an intentional typo. This makes you seem more "authentic." Too often all students look slick and identical. They got good grades, test scores, were on teams, did volunteer work, etc., all with the idea of getting into college. But is that who you really are if you do it just to impress the college? That is why counselors suggest making mistakes. Then your application makes you seem like a more real person, not too good to be true. Of course, colleges project an image, too with their pictures of the nicest parts of the campus and groups of smiling students in their catalogues to make you want to go their. Seems like everyone is trying to impress everyone else with an image.