How did you spend your High School summers? Would like to hear from the Int'l Students in US Colleges.

I'm a freshman at Brown University from India. One of the main extracurricular activities I pursued consistently throughout high school was being part of a Trekking Club at School. I helped start the club and it has been extremely successful and taking trips with the club was something I frequently did. I also love traveling and so I travelled with both friends and family. While traveling in itself may not be something that you can put on a college application, it is important to remember that not everything you do in your free time needs to be something that you can put on a resume. Things like traveling are experiences in which you see and learn things that are invaluable and some times it ends up being something you could possibly weave into an essay as well. My last summer before graduating was more intense, I performed biomedical research and also worked as a consultant at a pharmaceutical consultancy firm. Again, these are things I did because I enjoyed them.

I think my best advice as far as summers go is to do things you enjoy because college admissions officers will be able to sniff out if you're doing something just for the sake of a college application. Just do things that you enjoy and when you're applying to college and look back on all the things you've done, you'll have great picture of who you are, what you like and maybe even figure out what your passion is.