It’s time to start talking about summer plans.
Every year, forward-thinking families begin to make plans for their student’s summer schedules many months in advance. This is essential to meeting deadlines for competitive programs, camps, and internships. With college admission requirements trending away from test scores and toward demonstrating character, it is more important than ever for families to think strategically about their student’s summer plans.
One major summer activity that parents should be considering are summer internships. The right summer internship can be a crowning achievement on a student’s resume, particularly because during the summer months, students have more hours to devote to a capstone project. However, not all internships are created equal. First, students should understand that there are various types of internships.
Passion internships:
These summer work internships help students explore possible careers and/or work in an area of interest. However, these internships often do not allow students much in the way of responsibilities other than job-shadowing. While a nice addition to any resume, this vocational style of training does not have significant value from a college admissions standpoint because admissions officers understand that these types of experiences are generally shallow and require a low-level of commitment from the intern.
Summer volunteering internships:
Experiences such as the classic candy-striping (volunteering at a hospital) are useful in demonstrating a student’s character and civic-mindedness. However, such internships should not in any way be confused with an academic internship. To return to the earlier example, candy-striping, while it takes place in a hospital, will not expose students to the medical or research considerations that might be resume-boosters for the pre-med applicant.
Summer research internships:
These internships are the most academic. However, research internships also come in different shapes and sizes, and the type of research internship will determine its admissions value.
- Exploratory summer programs give students the opportunity to explore a variety of subjects that students might not have access to in school. They are valuable in allowing students to explore new fields of interests. For example, how can a student know if he is interested in Astrophysics if he has never taken that subject in school? Investing in such programs can demonstrate a student’s intellectual curiosity. It can also lay the groundwork for future academic endeavors. However, in and of themselves, summer programs are not significant resume builders.
- Summer research lab assistantships are another opportunity for high school students to get their feet wet in this subject area. However, being a lab assistant is different from being a lab associate. As a lab assistant, a student will be much more limited in his or her participation, which will most likely be restricted to shadowing and data input. Again, this can be a good steppingstone to other opportunities; however, a lab assistantship in and of itself is not the end goal in resume building.
- A summer research associate position involves real research. Such positions expose students to research methodologies that they don’t learn in high school and help them to clarify their real academic interests. From an admissions standpoint, a research associate position demonstrates a student’s ability to do work at the college level. Such projects often lead to submissions in research competitions or publication and possibly even a professor letter of recommendation. If planned early enough, it also provides a great experience to qualify for a high-level summer research program the following summer.
- A high-level summer research program is one of the most coveted resume builders that a high school student can acquire. Programs such as the MIT Research Science Institute, Simons at Stonybrook, and Garcia Summer Research Program are some of the most valuable. Students who apply for and are accepted to such programs have been building up related skills and references for years.
Each of the experiences above offers different values and benefits, but in general, summer opportunities for students can grow their interests while building their college application profiles.
To learn more about our FLEX Research Methodologies Course (FRMC) and FLEX Research Mentorship Program (FRMP), visit our FLEX Research Programs page.
Visit our Events page for a current schedule of events designed to address your questions and concerns about middle and high school education and the college admission process.
To speak with a FLEX consultant about identifying summer internship opportunities, please complete this request form.
Danny is the CEO of FLEX College Prep. Danny’s core focus is on helping young people get the best advice, and be the best students they can be. His team of professionals are also personal coaches, and great people, driven by the same passion for helping people.