Things You Should Be Doing The Summer Before Senior Year

Most early action and early decision deadlines fall on November 1 or November 15, and a few, like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s early action deadline, arrive on October 15. For most students, that’s eight to ten weeks into senior year, in a fall already full of harder classes, first-quarter grades, and possibly a final SAT or ACT. The summer before senior year, the one between 11th and 12th grade, is the last long stretch of time you’ll have before those deadlines. Whatever you finish in July is work you won’t be squeezing in between homework and practice in October.

In this guide, you’ll find what admissions officers look for in a rising senior’s summer, a checklist of what to finish before school starts, when to start your college essay, what the Common App asks for, how to settle your college list and early application plan, where testing and recommendation letters fit, and the dates rising seniors need to know.

The summer before senior year matters because it’s the last summer on your application and your last long break before deadlines. What you do in these weeks shows up in your activities list, often in your essays and interviews, and sometimes in your recommendation letters. It’s also when most students write the application itself, before senior-year classes take over their evenings.

When admissions officers read about a rising senior’s summer, they’re usually looking for two things:

One summer commitment can do both. A lifeguard who trains new hires is building professional skills and leading at the same time, and a student who helps organize the county fair through the town council is showing leadership and community impact in one place. A family trip still fits around either, as long as you can describe what you did and what changed because of it.

The summer before senior year should cover eight things: drafting your personal statement, settling your college list, mapping every supplemental essay and deadline, finishing testing, choosing an early application plan, confirming your recommenders, drafting your activities list, and talking at home about cost.

Each item on this list is easier in July than in October, when classes, activities, and deadlines compete for the same evenings. The sections below cover the ones that take the most time.

Start your college essay in June or early July of the summer before senior year, so you have a complete draft of your personal statement before the Common App opens on August 1. The personal statement is the one essay every Common App college receives, and a strong one usually takes several drafts over a few weeks, which is time you won’t have once senior year begins.

The Common App offers seven prompts and a limit of 650 words. The prompts are broad enough that almost any true story fits one of them, so start with the story you want to tell and choose the prompt afterward. This guide to the Common App essay prompts explains what each one is really asking.

Essay writing works more like training than cramming. The draft you write in June is rarely the one you submit, but working through it, getting feedback, and rewriting is how you learn what makes your own writing compelling. That skill carries straight into your supplemental essays in August and September, when you’ll be writing several at once.

If you’re applying to the University of California, add the Personal Insight Questions to your summer plan. UC applicants answer four of eight questions in up to 350 words each, and those short answers work differently from a Common App essay, as this guide to the UC Personal Insight Questions explains.

You can finish most of the Common App before it opens for the new application year on August 1. Accounts created earlier roll over, so your profile, family details, activities, and essay carry into the new year. College-specific questions and supplemental essays are the main pieces that wait, because colleges update them each year.

Here’s what each part of the Common App asks for, and how much of it you can complete this summer:

The activities section deserves more time than most students give it. Each description has to fit in 150 characters, so lead with what you did and what changed, using numbers where you can, like hours per week, people served, or money raised. It’s also the clearest record colleges will see of the summer you’re spending now.

Finalize your college list by the end of the summer before senior year, narrowing a longer research list to the 10 to 15 colleges you’ll apply to. A balanced list has reach schools where admission is uncertain for almost anyone, target schools where your grades and scores fit the typical admitted student, and likely schools where you’re a strong candidate and would be glad to enroll.

Fit matters more than rank. The colleges at the top of a ranking are very different places, with different sizes, curricula, and campus cultures, and they look for different students. A “Why this college?” essay is hard to write for a school you can’t describe, so use the summer for campus visits, virtual information sessions, and conversations with current students.

Those steps also count as demonstrated interest. Demonstrated interest is a measure of how much a student has engaged with a specific college, through visits, information sessions, or contact with admissions, and some colleges consider it in their review. Make sure your likely schools are colleges you’d be happy to attend, ideally ones where you could earn merit scholarships. For a step-by-step method, see how to build a college list.

Decide where you’ll apply early decision or early action by about September 1 of senior year, after a summer of research and essay drafting. Early decision (ED) is a binding agreement to enroll if you’re admitted, while early action (EA) gets you an earlier answer without any promise to attend. Most early deadlines fall on November 1 or November 15, with a few on October 15.

Weighing several possible ED choices through June, July, and August is normal. Colleges can change their early plans from one year to the next, so a decision made in junior year often has to be revisited anyway. By September, though, settle on one ED choice at most, so your strongest supplements go to that college and your counselor and recommenders know which deadlines come first.

Because ED is binding, it’s a family decision as much as an admissions one. Every college that takes part in federal student aid has to post a Net Price Calculator, a tool on its website that estimates what your family would pay, so run it before you commit. This guide to early action vs. early decision covers how each plan works and its rules.

Retake the SAT or ACT the summer before senior year only if your score falls below the range you want for the colleges on your list and you have time to prepare. The ACT offers a July test date and the SAT a late-August one, and many colleges accept scores from October and even November tests for their November deadlines, though each college sets its own cutoff.

To decide, compare your score with the middle 50% range of enrolled students at each college on your list. You can find that range in the college’s Common Data Set (CDS), a standardized report many colleges publish each year with admissions, enrollment, and test score figures. A score at or above the middle of that range usually helps an application, while one well below it may be better left off at a test-optional college.

Check testing policies college by college, because more selective schools have gone back to requiring scores. Harvard, MIT, Penn, and Stanford, for example, require the SAT or ACT again. Cutoffs for early rounds vary too. Penn considers SAT scores through the early-November test date and ACT scores through the October date for early decision, and Yale generally considers October and November scores for its early round. If you decide you’re done testing, move that study time to your essays.

Ask for letters of recommendation at the end of junior year, before school lets out, or in the first weeks of senior year at the latest. Most colleges that require them want one or two letters from teachers of core academic subjects, usually from 11th grade, plus a recommendation from your school counselor. Teachers who agree in May can plan their writing before dozens of other requests arrive in the fall.

Use the summer to make their job easier. Write a short note for each teacher about what you did in their class, what you hope to study, and which colleges and deadlines you’re aiming for, and update your resume so your counselor has it too.

Once you add colleges to the Common App, you’ll answer a release question under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and then invite your recommenders. Most students waive their right to see the letters, which tells colleges the letters were written candidly.

Rising seniors have a handful of dates that shape the summer and fall. The Common App and the University of California application open on August 1, early plans should be settled by about September 1, the FAFSA and CSS Profile are available by October 1, and early deadlines begin on October 15. Here’s how they line up:

After early applications are in, regular decision deadlines follow, many of them in early January. If you’re planning a year ahead, see what to do the summer before junior year.

The summer before senior year is the last stretch of open time before your applications are due, so spend it on the work that takes longest: a personal statement on its third draft, a college list you can explain school by school, and a testing plan that’s already settled. Students who reach August 1 with those three things done spend the fall polishing their applications instead of starting them.

To learn more about Prepory and how we can support your college applications, contact us to schedule your free initial consultation.