Summer Camp and College Admissions

Summer Camp and College Admissions April 29 Contrary to the title and content of a CNBC article, summer camp is as unlikely a strategy as any to help you get into a highly selective college. One of the central objectives of our college admissions blog is to demystify the highly selective college admissions process and correct misconceptions. With that in mind, we came across an article up on CNBC entitled Summer camp may improve college admissions odds written by Kelli B. Grant. We dont even know what to do with that title! It is so completely and utterly false. Attending summer camp will hurt your chances for admission to highly selective colleges. It will not help them! Just think about it logically. Attending a summer camp means that mommy and daddy had a lot of money to send their kiddie to camp. Attending a summer camp means that you couldnt come up with a more creative way to spend your summer. Maybe this would have included conducting a science research project at a local university. Maybe it would have included holding a job, something college admissions officers often contrary to popular belief admire. Attending a summer camp means that you had two months off school to pursue your passions and satiate your deep intellectual curiosity but, instead, you wasted this opportunity to participate in color war and   playing ping pong. Now are there specialized camps for, say, athletes that can be beneficial? Yes, of course. Lets take, for example, swim camp. A swimmer can learn a great deal by going to a swim camp taught by Bob Bowman, the longtime coach of Michael Phelps. Maybe hell improve his breastroke stroke count or his underwater pullout. Maybe hell knock a half a second off his 200 breast. What were saying is this: A college swim coach doesnt care how you learned to swim fast. A college swim coach cares about your times. If you need swim camp to gain the interest of a college coach, then were all for that investment of your time and mommy and daddys money. But most of these camps are a complete and utter waste of your time and most will hurt your chances for admission to a highly selective college. Here is a tidbit from the piece on CNBC that is absolutely wrong and should be ignored: How you spend your summer vacation isnt just fodder for first-day-back-in-school essays. It could provide a boost on college or job applications—especially if you went to campParents shouldnt immediately race for the nearest camp sign-up sheet. While there are surely college admissions officers with fond memories of lake swims and archery, the camp experience that is more likely to stand out is a specialized one that speaks to a students interests, experts say. Summers at soccer camp can help show a would-be college athletes dedication, for example, while theater camp can be an edge for someone applying to the acting program—especially if the high schools drama program is so-so (or nonexistent). The article goes on: Colleges may also find longer camp relationships interesting, even if the camp isnt academically focused. The regular camper who becomes a counselor is a good type of continuity, [Eric] Greenberg said. That kind of camp experience can indicate positive qualities such as leadership, resilience and good social skills, he said. Yikes, bad advice! A camper becoming a counselor represents a good type of continuity for highly selective college admissions officers? Not. At. All. In the words of Americas youth, its a lame way to spend your summer. At the end of the day, colleges dont seek out campers. They seek out people who take the initiative to shape their corner of the world. They seek out talented students. They seek out the doers. Not the students who dont know how to spend their summers so they go to camp to pass the time. Those are the types of students who dont get in.