Tufts Blogs

First and foremost, you should give yourself a big pat on the back for completing another school year. As admissions officers, we have an intimate understanding of how many hours you devote to classes, homework, and your extracurricular activities, so our hope is that you dedicate part of your summer to some good ‘ole R&R. We also encourage you to use your summers productively (I have a feeling your parents would agree.) But how one defines ‘productive,’ I’m going to leave up to you. That feels like a bit of a cop out, I know! But it is true, our staff cares less about WHAT you are doing, and more about WHY it is meaningful to you.

Now that I have provided you with a very vague piece of advice, here are some concrete things to consider while making your summer plans:

• We’d rather you do something that you are genuinely excited about rather than something that you think will look good in the eyes of an admissions officer. 
  • If you want to work another summer at camp instead of interning, go for it! At the end of the day, the soft skills that you acquire at camp (e.g. learning to effectively collaborate and communicate with others) are just as valuable and impressive as the hard skills you might learn in a more academic or pre-professional setting.
• Feel free to think outside of the box!
  • There is not a prescribed list of summer activities that you must adhere to. We’ve seen applicants who have started their own lawn-mowing business, put together an individual art installation, and rebuilt their grandparent’s deck. You’ve had an entire school year’s worth of organized activities-feel free to use your summer to pursue an independent project.
• Money can serve as a barrier to entry when it comes to summer opportunities.
  • We recognize that participation in summer programs is often contingent upon whether or not you have the means to pay for it. Therefore, as far as our office is concerned, doing service work in your hometown is just as commendable as doing it abroad, and taking classes at your local community college displays just as much intellectual curiosity as attending an academic summer program at an elite institution. 
• You may not have a choice in what you do over the summer, and that is okay.
  • Some students have to work or take care of their siblings to in order to support their family during the summer, and that is in no way held against them in the admissions process. We give equal weight to family responsibilities as we do more ‘traditional’ extracurriculars (e.g. athletics, drama, journalism) and we encourage you to include them in your extracurricular list upon applying to college.
• You’re still a teenager!
  • Have some fun, gosh darn it! It is amazing what our applicants accomplish during a single school day, much less, an entire school year. You deserve time to relax, do something nice for yourself, and reboot for next year.