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University summer programs: How do (and don’t) they build your profile when applying to university?

Once upon a time — long ago, in the dynamics of college admissions — simply attending a university summer program gave your college application an edge. Taking the initiative to spend the summer on academics, often even earning a recommendation letter from a college professor while still in high school, could meaningfully increase your chances of admission — both in general and to the specific university where you studied in the summer.

 

Many of you are skeptical as to whether this is still the case. You are right to be.

 

Over the past ten years, university summer programs have become common, accessible (if expensive), and no longer automatically signal distinction. Over the past five years, moreover, admissions results at selective universities have made it clear: 

 

👉 The simple fact of having participated in an expensive university summer program does not enhance your profile at all.

 

You are probably thinking less about academic summer programs than about landing an internship. Again: you are right to be.

 

Today, summer experiences that require individual initiative — especially those blending deep and specific research, a social impact orientation, and opportunities for pre-professional skill-building and networking — are far more powerful both for internal intellectual development and for resume-building than traditional university summer programs.

 

👉 That said, university summer programs for high schoolers can still serve important purposes.

 

Here’s where they can still make sense:

 

1. Demonstrating readiness for college-level academics

 

Programs that offer intensive coursework with real college credit — such as those at the University of Chicago, Cornell University, or Johns Hopkins University, for example — can genuinely signal your high competence as a student. Earning an A or A- in a rigorous for-credit course can be especially valuable if, for example, your early high school years were focused elsewhere (for example, athletics) and your early high school transcripts are full of Bs. Getting a high grade in a summer course can be extremely helpful especially if you have lower grades in subjects related to your eventual major: an A in a college-level summer Neuroscience class before junior year can go a long way towards canceling the impression of a B in Biology the year before when you are applying as pre-med.

2. Learning what fit actually feels like and how to explain it

 

Spending even 2–3 weeks on a university campus can give you a meaningful sense of what you do and don’t want in a college environment. While this won’t “get you in,” it can strongly inform better choices later — and help you articulate why a university appeals to you in university-specific essays or admissions interviews where those are conducted, such as at Harvard, Tufts, or Georgetown.

3. Sounding like a future scholar — not just a high school student

 

Studying something niche — graph theory, forensic physics, political modeling — for a few weeks at a university summer program won’t replace a full research experience or internship for gaining real expertise in something. But it can transform how you talk about your interests in application essays.

 

There’s a huge difference between a student framing their major selection as:

 

  • “I want to major in this because I liked my high school classes in this subject,” and

  • “These are the big questions I want to help answer, and these are the tools with which I can approach that goal within my chosen discipline.”

 

If you cannot complete an internship or research experience exactly in your chosen future field, even a short summer program can move you closer to sounding like a scholar rather than a high schooler — and help you generate far stronger essay and interview responses about what interests you within your major.

4. Exploring a late-appearing new interest outside of a potential major

 

Let’s say you are well on your way to building your Engineering profile: you have great coursework and grades and even have that internship all lined up. But over the course of junior year, you have really loved those class discussions about technology policy, or business innovation, or literature of Ancient Greece. Whatever it is, combining a short, traditional academic summer program in a secondary interest area alongside an internship or research experience in a primary interest can give you great material for application essays and demonstrate unusual intellectual flexibility and curiosity to admissions committees.

5. Highly selective and research-oriented programs can still be valuable in themselves


Some summer programs, such as MIT Beaver Works but also Wharton’s Global Youth programs and others, remain genuinely selective. Completing a program that admissions officers know to have a low acceptance rate combined with rigorous expectations can still signal initiative, intellectual seriousness, and follow-through. This is especially the case when the program:

 

·       Addresses an interest that developed only recently — for example, if all your electives and extracurriculars are about lab science but you just decided you want to major in Finance instead and have nothing demonstrating that on your resume.

·       Is research-/mentorship-based, such as UC Santa Barbara’s Summer Research Academies.

👉 University summer programs don’t automatically boost a resume or demonstrate preparation for a degree. However, they can still play a meaningful role in academic development, self-discovery, and a strong package of application essay/interview responses.

 

At Hermiona, our goal is not to fill summers, but to make them count. When chosen intentionally and understood for what they do and don’t offer, university summer programs still have a place in the lives of high schoolers.

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