6 Things Your Rising Senior Should Do This Summer
The Common App opens August 1. Recommendation letters typically need six to eight weeks of lead time before November early decision deadlines. FAFSA opens in the fall. None of this happens automatically, and by the time September arrives, all of it is competing with homework, fall sports, and everything else senior year brings. Summer is the only window where your child can do this work without those competing pressures. Here’s what actually matters in it.
1. Narrow the college list to something real
By the end of summer, your student should have a working list of roughly 10 to 15 schools, sorted honestly into reach, match, and safety categories. This is harder than it sounds. It requires research, not just gut feeling, and it works best when it happens before the emotional pull of a specific campus visit narrows the thinking prematurely.
2. Start the essay now, not in September
Your student doesn’t need a polished draft in June. They need a real idea. Most current Common App prompts have been public for months by the time summer starts, which means there’s no reason to wait for school to begin. The brainstorm phase is the part that genuinely can’t be rushed, and it’s the part most students skip entirely if they wait until fall.
3. Ask for recommendation letters before teachers disappear
This is the task families most consistently underestimate. Teachers who receive an early, specific request, ideally with a short summary of accomplishments and the schools being applied to, tend to write noticeably stronger letters than teachers who get a rushed ask in October. Once school starts, teachers’ bandwidth for this drops fast.
4. Register for fall testing now
If your student is planning to take or retake the SAT or ACT this fall, registration should happen now, not in August. Testing centers fill up, and scores need time to process before early deadlines.
5. Set up FAFSA accounts early
Both your student and the parent providing financial information need an FSA ID to file the FAFSA. Creating these accounts takes a few minutes, but identity verification issues can create real delays if they’re discovered for the first time once the form actually opens. Getting this piece done in the summer removes one entirely avoidable bottleneck later.
6. Have the honest financial conversation
This one doesn’t have a form or a deadline attached to it, which is exactly why it gets skipped. But a summer conversation about realistic budget range means your student can factor cost into where they apply, not just react to it after acceptance letters arrive.
Why summer specifically matters
Zimmerman’s research on self-regulated learning identifies the planning phase, what happens before a task even begins, as one of the strongest predictors of how well it goes. Students who spend the summer planning enter senior year with a structure already in place. Students who don’t spend September and October building that structure from scratch, while everything else in their life is also demanding attention at once.
Where to start
Our Vol. 4 LAUNCH workbook is built around exactly this kind of summer planning work, giving your student a structured way to move through each of these steps before senior year piles on.
The students who feel calm in October aren’t the ones with the easiest applications. They’re the ones who used the summer well.