I Spent My Summer Doing the Coolist Thing and I got to Put it on my College Application!

The New York Times

By JENNY ANDERSON
August 5, 2011

A group of New York City high school students recreated Leonardo da Vinci's “Last Supper” in Florence. The group spent a month in Italy this summer studying the Renaissance.

Josh Isackson, an 18-year-old graduate of Tenafly High School in New Jersey, spent the summer after his sophomore year studying Mandarin in Nanjing, China. The next year he was an intern at a market research firm in Shanghai. When it came time to write a personal statement for his college applications, those summers offered a lot of inspiration.

Students preparing to apply to college are increasingly tailoring their summer plans with the goal of creating a standout personal statement — 250 words or more — for the Common Application in which to describe “a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.” Specialized, exotic and sometimes costly activities, they hope, will polish a skill, cultivate an interest and put them in the spotlight in a crowded field of straight-A students with strong test scores, community service hours and plenty of extracurricular activities.

A dizzying array of summer programs have cropped up to feed the growing anxiety that summer must be used constructively. Students can study health care in Rwanda, veterinary medicine in the Caribbean or cell cloning at Brown University, or learn about Sikkim, India’s only Buddhist state.

As colleges look for specialization, “mastery” and “passion” have become buzzwords at many New York City private schools. Along with the perception that perfectly developed essays are essential is the sense among some parents and teachers that colleges have shifted from valuing balanced students who excel in several areas, like history and ice hockey, to demanding students who perform well across all subjects and have an area of “mastery,” like squash or fencing, that showcases one’s depth. Read More

I'm Ron Denaro and thanks for joining College Campus Chatter today!

Ron Denaro is the president of College Campus Trips, a tour company providing high school students with tours of college campuses, nationwide. For more information, call (954) 567-5751 or e-mail: ron@collegecampustrips.com

13 Colleges That Are Still Accepting Applications

HuffPost
College

Allegheny College, Pennsylvania

According to a Space Availability Survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), (as of May 4th) 293 schools are still accepting applications.

Comprised of schools that either didn't fill all open spots for next year's freshmen class or that simply have application deadlines later than the May 1 norm, the list is dominated by private institutions such as Virginia's Roanoke College, Georgia's Agnes Scott College, and Florida's Eckerd College. Some well-known public universities, including Arizona State University and the University of Maryland—College Park, are still seeking freshmen or transfer applicants this year, too.

"A lot of times, people think if there's any schools left, they can't be good schools," says Todd Johnson, consultant at College Admissions Partners. "It's not going to be the top liberal arts colleges or the top national universities, but there are some good, solid schools on there." Now that you know there is still time, check out our slide show of 13 colleges that are still accepting applications

I'm Ron Denaro and thanks for joining College Campus Chatter today!

Ron Denaro is the president of College Campus Trips, a tour company providing high school students with tours of college campuses, nationwide. For more information, call (954) 567-5751 or e-mail: ron@collegecampustrips.com