College counselor shares summer checklist for students ahead of application season

Oakland, Calif. - With just a few weeks of summer remaining, college counselor Beth Heller Gelles is offering advice for students preparing to apply to college. Heller Gelles is a longtime college counselor, founder of Acceptance Ahead, and author of the book "Crazy for College."

For rising seniors, Heller Gelles said now is the time to begin working on the college application process while also enjoying the final months before senior year.

"You should absolutely be doing a combination of let me get ready for college, but also remember that you're entering your last year of high school," Heller Gelles said. "So we want children to start working on their common application, their personal statement. If they have time to visit colleges in person or virtually, it's a great time to demonstrate interest."

She also encouraged students to keep working part-time jobs over the summer, saying colleges value the responsibility and initiative that comes with holding a job.

"Many parents are under the misconception that their kids should be doing a fancy internship or some kind of research project," she said. "But colleges really wanna see who kids are, what their character is like outside of school."

Heller Gelles explained the Common Application, a software tool used by more than 1,000 colleges and universities, includes prompts of up to 650 words along with an activities section. She recommends students get a head start on supplemental essays over the summer before the demands of senior year set in.

Asked how admissions officers detect AI-written essays, Heller Gelles said the writing tends to give it away.

"AI often sounds stilted, and we can often tell at Acceptance Ahead when kids are using AI, because the ideas tend to be very generic," she said. "It's not as personal. We encourage students to use AI as a research tool if they're interested in certain majors or certain classes or they wanna find out programs at a college."

For freshmen and sophomores, Heller Gelles said it's not too early to start thinking about college, though she cautioned against overloading on Advanced Placement and honors classes.

"We want kids have a healthy dose of rigor, but again, drowning isn't a badge of honor," she said.

She said GPA alone doesn't tell the full story of a student's academic record.

"People often think that the GPA is the most important factor, but it's really the transcript," she said. "Two students could have a 3.7 GPA. One might have that with the easiest classes available, and one might have that with the most difficult classes."

Heller Gelles also urged families not to let go of summer reading, saying it builds vocabulary and comprehension skills. She said students should pursue whatever genuinely interests them, no matter how unconventional, pointing to a student she worked with who turned his love of walking dogs into a small business with 10 friends walking roughly 20 dogs in the neighborhood.

She warned against overloading on extracurricular activities, saying colleges prefer to see depth over breadth.

"We also don't want kids to do too many activities because colleges are seeking a well-rounded class of students now," she said. "They wanna see kids develop two or three areas of interest and really go deep in them, as opposed to doing a little dabbling in a hundred different things."

Heller Gelles said the college application process, while stressful, can also be a rewarding time for families.

"It's a very wonderful time, we have to remember that as parents, we're raising young adults and it could be really empowering for them and really wonderful for us to watch them as they become these young wonderful people in the world," she said.

Education