Sally Ganga is in the host seat for the latest episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, tackling early admission round trends, summer volunteer programs, and scholarship negotiation.

On the latest episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, host Elizabeth Heaton celebrates the historic third anniversary of our podcast by talking with her guests about summer opportunities for athletes and sports enthusiasts, appealing a financial aid award, and the complex and often mysterious outcomes of the Early Action admission process.

On the latest episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, host Elizabeth Heaton continued our new series on summer opportunities for high school students. This installment was dedicated to opportunities for the high school writer. In addition, Beth invited guests to talk about the differences between 529 college savings and prepaid tuition plans, and to explore the admission process at Fordham University. Listen to the complete show on VoiceAmerica or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the latest episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, host Ian Fisher helped listeners brave the cold, with an hour packed with resources and information—for parents looking to help their students better manage their finances, for high school students looking for summer opportunities in STEM fields, and for seniors finishing up their college applications.

Guest Post By Judith Silverman Hodara, Fortuna Admissions and former Head of Admissions at The Wharton School

Do you have to spend your summers on Wall Street if you’re interested in pursuing an MBA or a future career in business?

Certainly not.

On the most recent episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, guest host Sally Ganga covered a variety of topics targeted to a range of listeners: for college students, the importance of college advising in containing college costs; for middle and high schoolers, a discussion about the plethora of summer programming available (and why students should take advantage of it); and for high school seniors, what to do now if they have been deferred from their Early Decision or Early Action school-of-choice.

In last week’s episode of Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, host Ian Fisher and his guests took a look behind the scenes of the admissions offices at College of the Holy Cross and Babson College, discussed what high school students can do in the summer months to bolster their college applications, and provided some advice on how to utilize your savings to pay for college.

Beyond daydreams of lounging on a beach perhaps, most high school students are not contemplating their summer plans in the dead of winter, but believe it or not, now is the time for high schoolers to start considering what they may want out of their summer experience. Many college-based summer programs are now accepting applications and have application deadlines before the end of winter.

In admissions, there are rarely any in-the-know summer programs that, in and of themselves, will get an admissions officer to shout “Admit!” in committee. A summer program’s admissions impact is often more organic in nature: it might provide the foundation or connections for more challenging experiences down the road.

When it comes to deciding what to do for your summer activities, it can be hard to make sense of what matters to colleges and what doesn’t. Given the wide range of options, what are the best things to do? How should students prioritize? And when is the right time to get started?

Some programs have bumper-sticker names and the price tag to match. While it seems simple and logical that big-name programs are correlated with competitive positioning in the college admissions process, that’s not really how it works. There are a few exceptions to the rule, of course; a handful of summer programs (very few!) that by name alone will turn an admissions officer’s head. But even those special opportunities are not likely to make or break your application on their own.

Colleges want to see students use their time to explore interests, expand depth of understanding or exposure to a subject, or further develop a concentration or talent.