What Did You Do This Summer College Interview Question

When answering a college interview question about your summer activities, no one is expecting you to be busy every day of the year. Summer is indeed a time to recoup after a busy academic year. Students who treat summer like an 80-hour-a-week job are setting themselves up for burn-out. That said, your interviewer will want to see that you did something productive in the summer. Youll want to show that you seek out meaningful and enriching experiences. A question about your summer activities has similarities to a question about  what do you do in your free time.  Summer, however, is a lot more substantial than a few free hours on the weekend, so your interviewer is going to be looking for something meaningful that youve accomplished during those months off from school. Strong Answers to a Question About  Your Summer Activities Your answer to the question, of course, is going to depend entirely on what you did in the summer, but work to identify a few meaningful activities from your summer break before you set foot in the interview room. Some activities that  will  sound good to your interviewer include: Travel.  Did you go somewhere interesting? A national park, historic site, cultural center, or some other destination that expanded your world view or opened your eyes to new experiences?Reading.  Your interviewer wont want to hear that you spent the whole summer indoors with your face buried in books, but they love to hear about reading. Students who read a lot tend to do well in college. You may even find that your interviewer asks you to recommend a good book.  Work.  Whether you helped on the family farm or cleaned dishes at the local eatery, students who work reveal a level of maturity and responsibility that will impress the admissions folks. Your summer may not be as exciting as a trip to Europe, but colleges truly do value work experience.Entrepreneurship.  This could be related to work, but youll certainly make a good impression if you started your own lawn mowing business, developed a useful app, or did something else that reveals creativity, confidence, and motiv ation.Volunteerism.  Community service and volunteer work play an increasingly important role in the college admissions process, and summer is the ideal time to do meaningful volunteer work.Education.  Did you attend a summer engineering or creative writing camp? Did you take a class at the local community college? Needless to say, colleges want to enroll students who like to learn. Weak Answers to a Question About Your Summer Colleges will want to see that youre not the type of student who lets three months go by without doing anything productive. Answers such as these are not going to impress anyone: I built a really cool world in Minecraft. Good for you, but realize that a lot of students fail out of college because they give video games priority over all else; three months staring at the computer screen represents a rather anti-social—even if multiplayer—and unproductive use of time.  I was burned out from school, so I relaxed. For three months? Also, dont highlight academic burn-out in your college interview. Sure, it happens to most students, but such an answer also sends a message that you get overwhelmed by school work. This isnt what you want to tell a college admissions representative.I hung out with my friends. Having friends is good. Colleges want to admit friendly students who build meaningful relationships with others. But what exactly did you do with your friends? Develop this reply to explain the meaningful activities you did with your friends. Ideally, you did something more productive than cruise the local shopping mall. The list could go on, but you get the idea. Answers that suggest you let the summer slip by without doing anything to enrich yourself or help others arent going to impress anyone. A Final Word About Summer Activities Your answer to the question will obviously be unique to your own interests and activities, and thats largely the point here—make sure you are telling your interviewer about summer experiences that have helped make you the person you are. Show that when you are given the time, youll do something meaningful and productive. In short, show your interviewer that youre the type of interesting, curious, hard-working, motivated person who will contribute to a campus community in positive ways.