Soon-to-be seniors, if you’ve planned a summer experience—an academic program, an internship, a service project, etc.—that you have already decided will be the topic for your college essay, please do two things:
1. Go get as much out of the experience as you can.
2. Don’t commit to a story that hasn’t actually happened yet.
You don’t know yet whether or not your summer plan will make for a good college essay. So don’t make that decision preemptively. Instead, just go make the experience as worthwhile as possible. If there’s a story waiting at the end of it, one that your counselor agrees will help the colleges get to know you in ways the application alone could not, then by all means, write it! But even the best experiences don’t always leave you with a great essay topic.
Great college essay topics are funny—and frustrating—that way. They may come from an unforgettable summer program or from something routine. So your first job is to go get all that you can out of the experience. Make it worthwhile and fun and productive, and if appropriate, list it proudly on your application. But try to separate the worth of an experience from the potential for an essay topic. When the two overlap, great. But if not, don’t force the story from an experience that isn’t serving one up.
You might check out two past posts on this topic, here and here.