HAND CRAMPS FROM NOTE-TAKING, headaches from cramming the night before a test, and hearts skipping a beat after receiving a lower-than-expected score.
For most students, high school is a 40-week grind — filled not only with stress to understand material, but also stress to maintain high grades to sparkle on a college application.
As the school year concludes, however, students are met with a ray of light. Summer has always been characterized by relaxation, beaches and hangouts, but even the warm season is consumed by college-application anxieties.
Some students are pushing themselves to fill their summers with academic and often pricey extracurriculars to help them stand out.
Reid Schwartz, a 10th grader at Miramonte High School in Orinda, participated in NYU SPS High School Academy focused on real estate. Excluding airfare and housing, the program costs about $2,600. When asked about how he found the program, he noted that a college counselor had recommended it to him.
“If you want to get into a good college, besides good grades, you need stuff like this. It sucks, but that’s the way it is,” Schwartz said.
Feeling the pressure
Schwartz isn’t alone, at least at Miramonte High School. It’s a school with 90% of graduates meeting application requirements to the University of California, Berkeley. The community is widely regarded as “wealthy,” so the cost of summer programs is not a hurdle for most families. That said, 9 out of 10 students who gathered on campus during lunch recently said they felt pressure to build their college application resumes by participating in extracurricular summer programs, which often cost thousands of dollars.
These are known as “pay-to-play” programs: extracurriculars that can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars and are open to students whose families can afford the fee rather than students with the merit to earn the spot. In contrast, merit-based activities instead emphasize student abilities and excellence rather than families’ financial means.
Pay-to-play programs have long been the trend for students hoping to get into the schools of their dreams. However, the promise of these extracurriculars is overrated in the minds of many college counselors.
When asked if expensive summer programs can make students stand out on their applications, Maya Kobashigawa — a former UC admissions reader who has reviewed thousands of applications over the years and now a private college admissions consultant headquartered in Lafayette — didn’t hesitate.
“The notion that expensive, pay-to-play summer programs give students a meaningful advantage in gaining admission to top colleges is a myth.”
Affluence doesn’t buy influence
Her thoughts echoed Elizabeth Morgan’s opinion, director of external relations at the National College Attainment Network.
“The reality of these programs is that they’re opportunities for families who can afford them. They’re not going to magically make sure you get into an Ivy League college,” Morgan told Business Insider.
So what does impact admissions?
Collegevine, an online platform that helps high schoolers with college admissions, breaks it down: free, competitive programs are what really shine. These extracurriculars demonstrate merit rather than privilege. Paid, competitive programs carry less weight. And pricey, non-competitive programs (or “pay-to-plays”) “likely won’t boost your application,” said Collegevine.
If these programs are expensive and aren’t significantly beneficial for applicants, it may seem like there’s no value at all. However, these programs do offer an opportunity for students to gain real-world experience and self-discovery, according to some participants.
This reporter attended The School of The New York Times, where she met Madelyn Dunn.
Dunn, an 11th grade student at Avon Grove High School in West Grove, Pennsylvania, enjoyed two college-oriented experiences. The first was a two-week residential program costing about $7,700 for the Times’ journalism training program.
Following that, she pursued two classes for credit through the Boston College Experience (BCE) Honors Six-Week Program, where she took Psych 101 and Introduction to International Relations.
Mind games
Dunn said, “Most freshmen at most universities have to take Psych 101, and I wanted to get it out of the way,” but the deeper she got into the course, the more she noticed just how much psychology is intertwined with her future career interest in political journalism.
The International Relations course provided a similar interaction with her interests. While her high school Model UN club had taught her negotiation tactics, the Boston College class taught her the theory behind them. She mentioned she was given a lecture on how nuclear weapons factor into international negotiations. “You’d never get that experience in high school,” Dunn said.
The cost for residential students at Boston College was $6,760, but only half of that if the course was taken online. Her reaction to the cost differential? “I could have gotten the same benefit out of these courses if I took them online at home,” Dunn said. “But I wouldn’t get the same experience.”
Living in a dorm without her parents for six weeks, bending her mind to figure out the complicated train systems of New York, and managing her own schedule has made her feel more independent and confident, Dunn said.
Not every student traveled to expensive summer programs: Lorelei Fairclough, an 11th grade student at Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, spent her summer as a lifeguard and swim coach.
“Obviously, I wanted to make money,” Fairclough said, “but I was talking to our college counselor at school, and she said colleges like teenagers having jobs, being busy, doing things — it’s important to have other things besides school as part of your personality.”
Applied skills
Beyond making money, Fairclough said the job taught her practical skills — things an expensive summer program wouldn’t have — like filling out tax forms, interviewing, and managing an application on her own. “I think all of that is really important,” she said, “just preparing you for life.”
It’s also given her a head start on a career path. Fairclough hopes to go into physical therapy, kinesiology, or sports medicine, and coaching swimming has let her explore that interest.
Dunn and Fairclough may have taken very different paths this summer, one with significant expense, the other resulting in job-related income, but they both ended up somewhere similar — closer to a specific career interest, whether it be political journalism or sports medicine.
George Gatsios, founder of Delta Institute, an organization that helps students build their college portfolios and gain real-world experience for college applications, said universities are “seeking students who demonstrate meaningful engagement rather than superficial participation across numerous activities.”
Ellie Letulle is an 11th grader at Miramonte High School in Orinda. This story was originally published on CCSpin, the website for Contra Costa County high school journalism.
This story was updated Sept. 21 at 8:58 a.m. to clarify that while “pay-to-play” summer programs may be less impactful than other types of summer activities, they aren’t necessarily viewed negatively by college counselors and admissions officers.