The OLINformer

It’s Senior Week at Olin! Finals are finished. 3 days of Expo have just concluded. Graduation is on Sunday. Life here now revolves around one or more of the following things:

1. sleep
2. relaxation
3. packing
4. sleep
5. eating
6. celebrating seniors
7. sleep
8. celebrating sleep

With all that going on, I haven’t quite been able to keep up with everything. So I have decided to forgo any lame attempt to capture all of it. Instead, I bring you my SUMMER PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS…

Rising Seniors:

• June following your junior year is a great time to take the ACT or SAT, especially the SAT Subject Exams since all of your coursework is still fresh in your brain! Although the deadlines have passed for SAT registration, you may still be able to sign up for a standby spot at some testing centers; there are still a couple days left to register for the ACT.
  

• I’m sure most of you already have your summer figured out and it’s BUSY - filled with academic enrichment or research, jobs, community service, leadership programs or whatever else “looks good” on a resume. I am often asked by prospective students and families what John/Jane “should” do in the summer and I basically have only one piece of advice: Do something meaningful with your summer. That can mean just about anything! The point is that, ideally, it should be something you enjoy and therefore enriching. If you want to take classes at the local college, go for it! If you love volunteering as a lifeguard and teaching swimming lessons to 5-year-olds, do it! If you want to work 40 hours a week to save up for that part you need to finish restoring your 1977 VW Bug, knock yourself out!

• For some of you, the summer means making the rounds and visiting campuses. So keep good notes of each visit… believe me, they really begin to blur together after a while. Afterward, take some time to thoughtfully evaulate each college and consider what you liked/disliked it and why. (To arrange a visit to Olin College, click here!)
  

• In your spare time (hah!) start thinking - seriously thinking - about your college applications. Even if you don’t have access to all of them yet, you can still start brainstorming for your essays (especially if you’ll be using the Common Application, as those don’t change too much from year to year) and, if you haven’t already done so, create or update your resume. It will save valuable time later on!

• You might also want to consider making a “College Applications Calendar” - I know it sounds ridiculously nerdy, but it will really help you keep track of all those deadlines! They start arriving fast and furious in an already jam-packed fall semester of your senior year.

Speaking of deadlines… we now interrupt this posting for a brief announcement…

And now back to our regularly scheduled program…

Rising Sophomores/Juniors:

• See the 2nd bullet above! Summer activities don’t need to be prestigious or exotic to be meaningful. Think of it as a way to pursue your unique interests or talents - develop skills, reinforce passions, experience new things. That could be an academic program but it could also be sports camp, community service or a way to explore your possible academic or career interests (and earn money!).
  

• Begin visiting colleges, if you haven’t already done so. Although summer visits may not give you the most ideal or typical snapshot of college life, they can still be very useful in terms of getting a sense of “fit” or “feel” of a school. Warning: Avoid “drive by” visits! This is when you and the parental unit(s) never step out of the car. If you want something more than the traditional information session and tour, consider some of the following “guerrilla tactics” of campus visitations:

• read the campus bulletin boards or newspaper
• wander the hallways or, even better, sit in on a class or meet with a professor
• check out the bookstore
• hang out in the library for a while
  
• eat lunch in the dining hall/cafeteria
  
• observe how students interact with each other (and even how they dress - whether or not your care, it may be a small clue to the campus personality)
  

• READ, READ, READ (it’s the most proven way to do well on standardized tests)

So it’s time to stuff my (former) College Counseling Genie back into her bottle. I hope you find my musings somewhat helpful and don’t be shy about asking questions!

School’s out for summer!
Allison

allison.bahme@olin.edu
781-292-2203
IM: OlinAdmission
http://www.olin.edu/