On a warm summer evening, Becca Stoll 27’ sits at a bonfire with her campers, hundreds of miles away from home. For her, summer consists of lip-sync battles, tribals, and endless laughter. There’s no SAT practice, college programs, or online school. Still, as the pressure of college looms over her head, she can’t help but feel the weight of her future, pondering if her camp memories are enough to compete with everyone’s resumé-ready summers.
Stoll has been attending sleepaway camp in New York since she was eight years old, filling nine years of summers with boundless fun and infinite peace. When she was younger, these summers felt never-ending: summer was a time for carefree joy. However, as she’s transitioned into high school, Stoll notes feeling these “never-ending” summers fleeting under the pressures college applications demand of her.
An October 2024 New York Times Learning Network article highlights student responses discussing the competitive expectations high schoolers face, and the sacrifices they will make to keep up with that pressure.They note the increased competition in the high school environment, and how that drives them to do what is productive, rather than what is fun. Despite her love for camp, Stoll feels this same expectation to spend her summers productively. While spending her time with campers is a breath of fresh air, she often finds herself caught in the question of whether or not she should be doing more. College plays a significant role in this question, but Stoll also attributes her conflict to comparing her summers to her friends’.
“I think the pressure comes from comparison,” Stoll said. “Looking at your peers or hearing about someone else’s summer, doing an internship, school program, or an important job and while [I was spending the summer] with kids at camp. It’s just easy to compare yourself to other people and feel like you need to do something to set yourself apart. Make yourself stand out.”
Similarly, Emerson Umhofer 26’ has felt a rise in expectations heading into her senior year. For Umhofer, summer break easily turns into another season of relentless productivity as she is constantly driven by the pressure to use every minute wisely. Between trying to curate a specific narrative of herself and juggling the weight of the applications themselves, the break can sometimes feel more like a chore.
“I was constantly doing work all summer, but I kind of felt like I wasn’t getting anything done,” Umhofer said. “I wanted to have fun, but then there was always that stress of remembering that I didn’t get all my college applications done during the summer.”
The tension between productivity and having fun has impacted the way Umhofer tries to balance out her summers. This past summer, she spent her time working as an intern, and while the stress of the application process still lingered, she also recognized the importance of making commitments that brought her genuine fulfillment.
“[I chose to do these things both for college and my own enjoyment] but I think you have to like what you’re doing if you’re doing it,” Umhofer said. “If I’m spending my entire summer doing something, I want to like it, not just [do it] for a resumé.”
Having spent her summer occupied with work, Harlow Patterson 27’ acknowledged that while she knew her jobs would be beneficial to her college resumé, she found even more importance in being intentional with her time. Patterson sought work that offered not only experience but enjoyment, as she worked three different jobs: a summer camp counselor, a dog walker and an usher at the Hollywood Bowl.
“I think that at the point we’re at, [doing nothing] doesn’t really feel like an option, but I’ve made a point to balance my time out. I honestly look forward to any time I get to work at the Hollywood Bowl because I find it fun. I think that’s important when you are spending that much time on something.”
While college is an unavoidable factor in decision-making for most high schoolers, alumna Emma Weinberger 24’ reflects on her summers in a different way. As a sophomore in college, she can now look back from the other side of the application process and takes pride in the choice she made to continue attending camp despite what other programs her friends were doing. Weinberger stresses that summer is a valuable time, so it’s deserving of being spent doing something you love.
“I don’t regret a second I spent away at camp during the summer,” Weinberger said. “It’s easy to want to do stuff to make yourself look good for college, but at the end of the day, they just want to see who you are, so do what you want.”
