During London’s Great Plague pandemic in the 1600’s, Isaac Newton developed calculus. Just sayin’.

Of course, you don’t have to create a new branch of mathematics nor cure the Coronavirus. But, sometimes, when life throws us a curveball, we can try and turn misfortune into an advantage. Right now, your curveball is it’s the Coronavirus, but a sports injury, family crisis, or other life even can also interfere with well-made plans. Developing grit and resilience are keys to helping us cope, adapt, and, turn misfortune into advantages.   And though we (me too) like to complain about technology’s negatives, this is a time when technology can really help us learn and stay connected -- perhaps even provide some inspiration.

Here are 11 ideas for ways to keep up, get ahead, spark inspiration, and beat boredom!

1) Renew & Improve Your Academic Focus. The first things colleges will look at and evaluate you on are the course you took (rigor) and how you did in your courses (grades). If you’ve been someone who has coasted along, or you haven’t achieved what your academic potential, now is a good time to re-engage and hit the “reset” button. Even if you didn’t do as well as hoped in 9th or 10th grade, colleges love to see students who make an effort to improve. And if you are able to improve amid an extra challenge of remote, hybrid, or interrupted learning, bravo to you! Read our blog posts here about ways to improve your grades and also about why it’s important to get help early on.

2) Dream Up A New Club, Program, or Independent Project.  When my HS sophomore had broken his wrist right before school ended, dashing plans to play/teach sports over the summer, he decided to turn things around (after a bit of moping and a lot of boredom), by coming up with an idea for a new club/academic team based on his interest in economics.  He researched how it worked at other high schools, lined up an advisor, and began planning a curriculum and recruiting members.  They were ready to get going when school resumed and competed in a national competition their very first year - and won their division.  Not only did it give him something to do when original plans didn’t work out, but developing that interest and club ended up playing a major role for the balance of his time in high school and for his current college major and career direction.

3) Practice Your Passion, Or Find A New One!  Music and baking are two of my hobbies and what I love about both is, while they’re really fun to do with others, they’re also things I can lose myself for hours in on my own --  learning to play a new song or making a complicated cake.  And did you know that you can improve spatial skills (important for STEM) by doing Origami? There are so many benefits to taking up or improving a hobby, and so many excellent, free online lessons on pretty much anything. 

4) Exercise & Get Outside. Though organized athletics may be canceled and gyms may be closed, even during this pandemic, you can stay fit and you can still get outside to bike, hike, swim, meet friends, take your dog out. (Your dog will love you for it!)  If the weather’s bad, there are also many awesome online workout – like the series of popular 7-minute workouts – that don’t require any equipment! Sometimes attributed to a Yorkshire hiker or Norwegian lore, the saying “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing” is one of my favorites; it reminds me that we shouldn’t let the weather stop us from getting outside.

5) Get a job or volunteer in your community if it is safe to do so.

6) Learn & Or Improve Life Skills.  Your teen is going to leave home eventually and should have some life skills for college and beyond such basic cooking, laundry, cleaning, etc.  If they have a learner’s permit, you can also still them out to work on driving skills. In the college counseling Facebook group I’m in, one counselor suggested learning Excel or a coding language — valuable skills for many jobs that you can put on a resume. Speaking of resumes…..that’s also a great skill…..

7) Read.  Read More. For kids who haven’t been big readers their whole lives, the ACT/SAT Reading sections can really pose real challenges - and it’s the most difficult section to improve. However, students can work on that and….you don’t need to read long classics/novels (but those are great too!) Articles and essays from well-written magazines, newspapers, and websites expose readers to complex sentence structure, contextual vocabulary, and will broaden your knowledge base (very important for reading comprehension).  Remember, most ACT/SAT passages are non-fiction and come from publications such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, Scientific American, The Economist, et. al. Click here to get some reading material suggestions.

8) Make A Summer Plan.  Of course we don’t know right now what the summer may look like in terms of travel restrictions, commuting to a job/internship, summer program cancellations. Whatever your interests are, however, I encourage you to get creative and to really think out of the box.  You can find ways to spend part, or all, of a summer furthering or finding interests with a job, internship, or even by doing an independent project. Since some established summer programs have long application lead times, you can also get ahead for the following summer. Check out our blog here for summer programs that you may want to consider for summer 2021.

9) Complete an ACT vs. SAT diagnostic.  Not as fun as creating a club or looking for a new hobby — but spending a bit of time now to figure out whether the ACT or SAT is better-fit test can save time and potential frustration later. Many students and parents have preconceived notions of which test is “better” and/or still believe the colleges prefer one or the other (untrue). The only way to truly know which test will work best for you is to do an apple-to-apples comparison. Click here to learn how.

End of 10th grade and 11th grade.

10) Practice, Practice, Practice for ACT/SAT/SATII Practice Tests.  While filling in content gaps is definitely important, many students give the practice side of testing short shrift. These tests require some of the same skills and habits that contribute to successfully improving playing a sport or musical instrument: consistent, repeated, mindful practice. And just as with sports or music, not all practice is created equal; there’s a difference between playing and practicing: You need to critically evaluate your mistakes and work on correcting them — not just gloss over mistakes and telling yourself “oh, I get that,” if you don’t, or “that was just a careless error.” Need practice materials?  Get in touch and we’ll hook you up with the right ones.

11) Begin College Research:  For many people, college is a six-figure investment. You and your child should give college research the care and due diligence an investment of that magnitude deserves - including factors that may impact a return on that investment such as advising, job/internship/research opportunities, alumni networks et.al. You can start with admissions websites for the basics such as application requirements, majors, programs, clubs and activities. You can also look up a college’s Common Data Set (go to the end of this post for more on that) to learn what pieces of the application they view as most important, where their 25th and 75th percentile scores fall, average first-year GPA, and more. Think about who you are as a person and as a learner to come up with other factors that may be important to you in building your college list.

College Research Special Tip 1: Because most colleges require a “why this college essay,” it’s important that the student takes some ownership of the college research process. Even if you cannot physically tour a school, digging deep - into a college’s website - I like to say “3 clicks in” - will help you write a better supplement.

College Research Special Tip 2: Reach out to currents tudents or recent grads who attend(ed) the colleges that interest you. From independent college consultant Jennifer Burstiner: “college websites and virtual tours provide a lot of information, but most students want more than that – they want to understand the day-to-day life and social scene at a school. Students can brainstorm and reach out to friends who they know who attend the schools in which they’re interested. Even though your child may feel this is ‘awkward,’ it is so important as it can help them discover more information on a school’s true culture and “vibe.” They can ask questions about course workload, professor availability, job/internship opportunities, Greek life, music/arts, sports, clubs, and other things the relatively ‘generic’ information you may not learn from a ‘pat’ admissions staffer or student ambassador.”

*Researching Colleges Using A The Common Data Set

Here is an example of some of what you’ll find in a College’s Common Data Set (CDS), Hamilton College in NY for this example. But almost every college and university has this information readily available. Simply Google the name of the school + Common Data Set.

If you want to read more about Isaac Newton and calculus