Schools out, the suns up and students are slouched on their sofas around the nation watching T.V. for ten hours straight and sleeping in till noon. Exams are over, homework is done and the pool is over jammed with teens. Summer is packed with students doing nothing and being lazy.

Unfortunately that’s how many juniors waste away their summer vacation. However in those two months of free time juniors can be productive in getting a head start in getting ready for college.

Summer, which is long anticipated by students, seems to do more harm then good if it is slept away. A study conducted by Jimmy Kim of Harvard’s Center for Evaluation found that reading 4 or 5 books over the summer months have an impact on fall reading achievement comparable to attending summer school, according to www.jhu.edu. Also the study found that it doesn’t matter what reading level the books are so students could spend their free time reading over informational packs from colleges and college applications.

Lucky for students, the Cap advisor Ms. Gonzalez has handouts for juniors to help them get the lead in being ready for what their senior year and what college has to throw at them.

On the handout there is a list of what students need to look for and do in their junior year and many of those things could be done during the summer. Gonzalez’s handout says that selecting colleges and/or universities is the first thing that juniors need to do. It suggest that students should identify the institutions they would like to apply to and request information, prepare a resume, look for scholarships, and keep a calendar with deadlines.

The great thing about summers is that with all the free time juniors could do that plus so much more.



In addition, CollegeBoard.com set up an outline of what juniors need to be doing during the fall, winter, spring and summer months of school. College Board, who is the supplier for the SAT and AP national test, is a leading provider for advice when it comes to college.

In fact their website suggests that juniors take campus tours at colleges that the students are serious about, as well as schedule interviews with admissions counselors at colleges to get a feel of what colleges want from their students.

Junior, Brittany Tai, plans to take campus tours this summer and keep in contact with admissions offices at her colleges of interest. “Mentally and emotionally it would prepare me for the anticipation of getting into the college of my choice.”

Moreover, College Board has a feature on their website called “my road,” which is free to students who have taken the PSAT.

The “my road” feature is a personal organizer for students where they could look up colleges and universities as well as get facts about the colleges like diversity statistics. Not only could students look up colleges but students also can get an estimate of how much finical aid they may be eligible for and how much they need to save per year to pay for college.

A finical aid feature like that could also be found at www.fafsa.ed.gov, which is the site for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. High school juniors could fill out a mock application online with could then be transferred to their real application that can be turned into the colleges they apply to. Spending your time surfing the net for college is far more productive then seeing who left you a new comment of Myspace.

Juniors here at Varela are taking their summer serious, preparing for college and next year. Roberto Guzman, junior, is taking an engineering internship at the US coast guard “I believe that this fortunate opportunity, learning the various aspects of being an engineer, will mature me for future reference”, while other juniors like Jared Hune are taking SAT prep classes, “I just want to make sure that when I get to college I’m ready,” he said.