A: Yes—but they care insofar as you learned and grew from the experience. It is not so much about what you do—whether academic or non-academic—and more about how you convey what you contributed and developed in that role on your applications. If you worked at an ice cream shop, you should articulate what you got out of the experience beyond “I needed the money.” Consider what you learned about others, yourself, your interests, and the workforce, and how you might communicate those unique lessons in your essays.
For instance, I mentored a student who worked at the MoMath in New York City during the summer. His role was primarily crowd control—it was the seemingly menial task of directing visitors to the bathrooms and galleries and checking their tickets at the entry. Through our work together, I helped him see this experience through a new lens. Though it felt as though he wasn’t doing anything particularly important, he realized that it was far more than just a job at a museum. He wrote his supplemental essay about engaging with people from a variety of different backgrounds, sharing his own culture with them, and serving as an ambassador for his city. He’s now pursuing a mechanical engineering degree at Harvard. On a personal note, I wrote about my own summer job on my Harvard application—as a high school student, I worked at the dog shelter, where I was employed alongside a number of formerly incarcerated people. The experience deepened my compassion and curiosity for others’ circumstances and backgrounds, and I shared some of those lessons in my essays.
While every student will approach this differently, the keys to making the most of your summer job are open-mindedness, creativity, and authenticity. Parents should note that this type of reflection doesn’t come naturally to most students—this is a critical area in which a college consultant can help a student develop a profound and engaging perspective on something that they assume is unimportant.
