104: How to Plan a Fulfilling and Productive Summer

Ethan Sawyer  0:09  
Bonjour and what up? This is Ethan Sawyer, aka College Essay Guy, and welcome to the podcast, where it's my goal to bring more ease, joy and purpose into the college application process. Now, how do I do that? Well, I've scoured the globe far and wide, and I've found some of the most well informed, most experienced, most awesome people in the admissions world, and I'm bringing them together in one place. My role here is first to ask some probing questions, to figure out what it is exactly they do, and then to try and convert those into the most efficient, actionable, practical steps that you can take in an effort to obviously make your college application process easier. For this episode, the theme is summer Q Olaf from Frozen, which my daughter watches on repeat. I've gotten to know one of the foremost experts on summer, Jill tipograph, by all accounts, she's the go to media resource for summer and youth. She's been featured in get this The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes Business Week. Bloomberg, the list goes on and on CNBC, MSNBC, US News and World Report. Her two kids have been campers, camp counselors. They've done a variety of pre college summer programs. Jill is an independent educational consultant with 20 plus years experience in this industry, she's the founder of everything summer and beyond, through which she guides families worldwide through this complex and important process of planning a summer. Jill and I had a great conversation in this episode. You'll hear her share some great questions to ask when it comes to planning a summer. We talk about the 2014 national pre college summer survey, which Jill put together with a colleague, where they basically went and asked 50 colleges what summer opportunities matter the most on a college application. So she'll share the results of that. I also asked her whether or not those expensive summer programs are worth it, what students and parents should do but often don't do when it comes to planning their summer Plus, there's this really cool teen program evaluator you can check out that's basically a scorecard that students and parents can use to determine whether or not a summer program is a good fit. And finally, I even asked Jill which program is definitely going to get my daughter into Harvard. And then she gives me an answer. All this and more you will find on this podcast. So hope you enjoy it. Let's get to it. If we needed a summer expert, we've got her. Jill, welcome to the


Jill Tipograph  2:33  
podcast. Thank you, and I'm thrilled to be here.


Ethan Sawyer  2:35  
Jill, what do you do and why do you do it?


Jill Tipograph  2:39  
Well, I really feel fortunate that my vocation is actually my passion, in terms of helping children and teens figure out who they are. What are their passions? How can they deepen those interests, and how can they challenge themselves so that they really grow and become prepared for the next phases in life? Here at everything summer, we're really focused on finding the right fit experiences to help them and their families. And I look at everything as a lens of a parent, because I've had over two decades of personal and professional experience advising families and raising my own children. So we want to look at things that are going to help a student really develop appropriately and become successful. So this holistic approach in terms of finding the intersection between what they do during the school year and the summer really lets them use the summer as an exploration time and to go into greater depths and areas of curiosity. And we find that the outcomes are really remarkable, both for them and their parents. Awesome.


Ethan Sawyer  3:42  
And, you know, just a side note to the listener, when I asked Jill to do the podcast, I was thinking of calling the episode how to plan an amazing summer. And Jill suggested, well, why don't we call it how to plan a meaningful or productive pre college summer? And I said, that sounds awesome. So Jill talk to me a little bit about that. Like, why do you feel like it's important to make make it a meaningful or productive summer? Like, what's that distinction about for you?


Jill Tipograph  4:08  
Well, I think that when children are children, and they move into the different phases, you know, everyone looks at the summer as fun and frivolous and take a break and let your hair down and all those similar types of things. But as you get into the high school years, everything matters, you know, whether we like it or not, and so you have to look at everything with a lens of what's the purpose of what I'm doing? What am I going to get out of it as much as I want to, of course, enjoy myself and take a break. So summer is really that unique time during which, you know, this hyper structured life that kids have during the school year, with rigorous coursework and extracurriculars, rehearsals, sports, practice, homework, standardized test prep, you name it. Can, you know, be a little bit different, but it needs to have a focus. So we want them to also have experiences. Where they're becoming more independent and they're learning about life, and these are all critical steps to take for college success, as well as really focusing on socialization and just learning beyond the classroom and, of course, disconnecting from social media, which helps immensely. But the real crux of the summer needs to be this balance between meaningfulness and fun, right? Tell us a


Ethan Sawyer  5:24  
little bit about this, this 2014, national pre college summer survey. You know, what is it? How did you develop it? And what did you learn? Well,


Jill Tipograph  5:32  
it really was an important study, and it's, it's still very valid. And I did it because, even though, for all the years that I've been working with clients in this area, and I always on a one on one basis. Would have conversations with college admissions counselors. I kept thinking, wouldn't this really be great if we could quantify, or at least qualify with trends what they thought would be, you know, a great use of time in the summer, with a lot of different variables for these teens as they prepare for college. So I teamed up with a colleague of mine, whose name is Paul kaser, and he's a college and summer program counselor at the Bergen County academies in New Jersey, so that we could really better understand the impact of a student's high school summer experiences on their college application admission and actually successful transition to college.


Ethan Sawyer  6:21  
So Jill, would you be willing to share that the 2014, national pre college summer survey with the listeners?


Jill Tipograph  6:25  
Yes, I'd be happy to share a summary of the survey results.


Ethan Sawyer  6:30  
Awesome. Thank you. So we'll link to it in the show notes, so you guys can check that out. Jill, what are some great questions that parents and students can ask when it comes to planning out a


Jill Tipograph  6:38  
summer Well, I think that parents and students sometimes don't take a step back, or they don't take enough interest in the particulars about an experience where both could impact them. For instance, what kind of student is successful at a specific program? You know, it's really important to self evaluate this fit. Will I as a teen flourish there or not? And what does a typical applicant look like, so that I as a teen engage the competitive landscape? Is it going to be worth my effort? Should I manage my expectations differently, and then looking at the itinerary of the day, is it packed full of projects and instruction with very little downtime, or is it the opposite, where you have two or three hours of classes and a lot of downtime? Well, where do I fit in comfort and where does the parent fit? The other thing to really focus on is staff and supervision. We all always get this sense from parents whose children have been, let's say, to a residential camp for several years, then moving on to teen programs. Our first caveat is the best supervision is never going to be as they had it in camp. You have to understand that. So you need to get comfortable with that and understand that they will be less of it, but they are there for safety. And there are gradations to the amount of staff supervision in the programs. And we probe very deeply on that in terms of, you know, boundaries of where they can travel. Do they go in groups? Do they have to check in? They have curfews, all these different things, the backgrounds of the staff, very important. The other thing to pay close attention to is electronic and medical policies. There are many programs that don't allow technology. There are programs that require technology really understand what happens in a medical situation, because when you're in programs that are traveling, you're not necessarily stationary, where you can go to a clinic or to a hospital, and you have to understand how that will translate if there's a nurse there, or if there's a doctor there, or if there's no one there. And very important is the to understand the protocol of how situations will be handled. Parents have got to understand that things will occur and how it's managed, is the critical aspect here. And everyone should read the contracts, because the programs will follow through on the contracts.


Ethan Sawyer  8:59  
Gosh. And there's so many choices, right, even when it comes to picking a program. So there are the you know things to consider in terms of the program, but even like this huge array of you know, their academic programs and community service programs and language programs, but Jill, I gotta ask you the question that I really care about is that I know Zola, my daughter's only two years old, but I need, I need you to tell me honestly, which one is going to get her into Harvard, like, which one is going to guarantee that if she does this program, she'll get into Harvard? Haha,


Jill Tipograph  9:27  
I'm laughing because we get asked this all the time, not necessarily Harvard. But here's the truth, there is no singular program that is going to make the difference. There are many experiences that are game changing, and it's up to the student then to figure out how to interpret that, going back to something I said earlier, to present it so that the admissions team understands what impact it had on their life. You know, the key to the summer experience is having it make sense. The student. So they need to be able to tell a cohesive story in terms of what happened, why they did something, how it integrates with everything else they do, relating to your work. And it's all about the cumulative experiences. It's not the singular experience. So, you know, we're very sensitive when parents come to us. You know, for guidance to not have these kids do these, what I call one off experiences that don't have any correlation to anything else in their life, because they think that it makes sense, but it doesn't, and every teen needs a different kind of program. So I don't think there's one answer. It's it's really the holistic picture that a student is about


Ethan Sawyer  10:44  
So what do you tell them? What advice do you give them?


Jill Tipograph  10:48  
Well, summer really is a game changer for students in so many ways at different points in their high school career, and they need to be open to different kinds of experiences, to vary the comfort level and to grow and, you know, push yourself in terms of geography or the type or the accommodations, whatever it might be, so that you grow and you expose yourself and you explore different opportunities. One of the best things to do through all these summer experiences is to set yourself up for exploration of potential college majors or even career options. So that's a wonderful way to spend the summer. And you know, for example, you know, go deeper in an area that you're interested in. So if you take a writing class in the summer, try to get into the newspaper The following year or to grow into a different leadership experience. The other thing that is great for a student to do is to balance it with a combination of different kinds of experiences. So it could be cerebral and physical. So for instance, they could be doing sports training at a camp, and then they could be doing a campus enrichment program. Or they could be doing a debate program and then travel to do service work in East Asia. So you can see how all this works together. And the other thing that we often say to our clients is, you know, think local as well as you know, something distant, because not every experience has to be away from home. When there's some things that are better at home than they might be going away on an experience. And then the other thing is that sometimes, you know, working with a family, a child can be hesitant to embrace a residential experience, so it's sometimes wise to start with something that's a little bit shorter. The other area that we talk a lot about to our students is building skills that are going to help them in college in the future. So again, with my early stage careers hat on, I think about all the skills that employers really want for their students to have in when they start a career. So how can we integrate those into the summer? How can we help you set them up so you have them earlier in you know your your college years


Ethan Sawyer  12:59  
in terms of these summer academic programs the, you know. And just to clarify for folks what I'm talking about, I'm talking about these academic programs where, you know, students spend four to six weeks on a college campus, and it, you know, costs 1000s of dollars. Are these worth it? And what I mean by that is, like, you know, what better question is probably, what are the summer academic programs useful for? And what are they maybe not as useful for?


Jill Tipograph  13:23  
Well, we definitely think they're, they're, they're worthy of of investment, but everyone you know has a budget, but you know you can take advantage of all kinds of academic programs in different ways. So let's just maybe, maybe if I could define the academic programs a little more broadly. So parents understand this. So they're across the country, and some are run directly by the university in terms of offering courses, you know, in terms of a spectrum of of areas, they could be for credit or not. And then there are other programs that are run by third party organizations that come in and kind of rent this space, and, you know, use the university and bring in their own faculty, but they have benefits because their staff, you know, are trained in socialization, and they spend more time with them. So there's pros and cons to both, and the credit discussion is something that is really something to think about. I've lived through it personally, and I say to parents, you really don't know yet the kind of conflicts or changes that your student will experience in college. So if they have the ability to earn one to three credits before they go to college, those credits will be used very well at some point in their college career. And also, the other thing to keep in mind is that credits are very expensive during the year at the college, and to take them, whether it's at a community college or even at one of these other colleges, the price you will pay per credit will be far less. So it's really you. So there is tremendous value there, just in terms of, you know, the cost to the actual program. So they are valuable, but you have to decide how valuable it is based on the experience that your child wants. If there's a specific focus in STEM or architecture, isn't that valuable in terms of career exploration? And you know, you can't look at the edit from an admissions perspective in terms of they go into, like a certain university better than others. Again, this kind of goes back to the application and the essay. What did you get out of it? Did you take meaningful courses? Did you have to produce a project? I mean, these are all things to evaluate upfront, so you know what the the outcome is, but we think that they're worthy given all of these different factors.


Ethan Sawyer  15:45  
This is solid gold. Jill, you are crushing it right now. This is really useful stuff, and I'm really appreciating it, and I'm curious about you, like, how did you spend your pre college summer? What were your experiences like? Well,


Jill Tipograph  15:57  
I'm happy to share my personal experiences in terms of growing up, and it's really kind of interesting, because, you know, no one really told my parents what the what the trajectory should be for someone like me, and I kind of figured it out, and maybe that's why I so enjoy doing what I'm doing, because I've lived through this myself, so I actually followed the strategy that we try to share with our parents when we start with younger students. So I started out going to residential overnight camps. I started with a day camp, and then I found when I was, you know, at the end of elementary school, even going into middle school, that I really enjoyed performing, so I started to study professionally, you know, voice, dance and acting. And then when I was in middle school, I decided to go to performing arts programs in the summer where we actually were entertaining, kind of the local communities in terms of the the theater. And that has stayed with me my whole life. And I think those skills are vitally important, you know, for people to acquire in whatever way they're comfortable. And in fact, when I got to college, I would do some cabaret singing. And then it was later in my life, after I had children, that I started to get involved with community theater. Again, one of the things that we actually find on the career side of the work that we do is that when prospective employers actually see on the resume the kinds of experiences where you're interacting with the public, it stands out in a good way, and they want to know about those experiences, because there's nothing that teaches you more about life than having to interact with a diverse group of people under challenging circumstances. So tell


Ethan Sawyer  17:49  
me what's something students should do when it comes to planning their summer, but often they don't do it. And maybe it's something that you say again and again, you should really do this. And students, okay,


Jill Tipograph  17:58  
well, these are, I think, really important things for these students to do. And then we can talk about parents. So students should really set goals. They should go into an experience or a program knowing what they want to get out of it, because then they know what they need to put into it to accomplish that. And that's really important, and I don't think they do it enough. And that relates to not doing as good a job as they can in terms of evaluating a program fit it looks great. There's a lot of information on the internet that makes it sound like I'm really going to enjoy this. And then they get there and they realize, hmm, this may not be for me. The other thing is, summer is long, and they should have a calendar and a structure to their summer. It's important to have some free time, but you can't just lay on a beach all summer long. You need some productivity, and they should plan to put time into the actual summer program applications. This is really a precursor for college, and they start to have kind of an archive of things that they can go to when they start to have to build their essays or, yes, I've been through that. I remember what that's like. Oh yeah, I had trouble with that, uploading that information. So now, when I do my college application, I'll have a better familiarity with it. And they also should be applying to more than one program. I think the expectation is, like many things in their life. Okay, so I'll do this well, it's called competition. So not everyone gets in. So, you know, again, a precursor to college applications. I know very few people who get into every single school they apply to. So it's a great experience to kind of toughen them up and have a little bit of grit. Then for parents, they really do need to get involved in managing this program application process, because, you know, they think that their students are mature and capable, but they are still maybe 15, 1617, and they need some management, you know, just a reminder. Oh, did you. You get that teacher recommendation, you know, did you upload the transcript? Just kind of things that check in so they know they have to move forward and have a deadline and understanding kind of all the supervision and the rules that we talked about earlier in terms of programs contract, and it's really important that someone be home in the summer when their student may be away, because things do occur, and there needs to be someone who can make a quick decision, and to be transparent with the programs in terms of medical behavior, psychological or learning situations, because they can't help otherwise. And as I said earlier, being aware that things are going to happen, there will be situations, but that you're comfortable with the protocol that a program puts in place.


Ethan Sawyer  20:53  
Anybody who knows me knows that I'm super, a huge fan of the practical. And I'm always asking people, what's the practical thing? What's the step by step thing. And just a side note to listeners, Jill's written this awesome guide. It's called the summer guide and planner. It's 74 pages. It's a great workbook to help parents and students think about what they really want to get out of their summer Jill, would you just say a little bit about that and maybe even talk a little bit about why you created it? Sure.


Jill Tipograph  21:17  
Well, one of the reasons that I created the guide was, honestly, I have so much knowledge that I've accumulated over the years that I really wanted to share it. I just think it's kind of basic. Some of it, it may be basic to me, but I think it's a value for people to know. You know, as they go through this process, whether or not they work with us, you know, it's just information that's valuable. I'm also known to be fairly organized and methodical, and I really like processes and systems. And when I started to look in the marketplace, I found, oh, oh, great. There's books on summer activities that kids can be doing, you know, fun things in the backyard, you know, Mom's home, let's play kind of thing, or to do with the babysitters. Or there would be a static book of, you know, 100 top programs to consider, even when you're in high school. But it there wasn't anything that was giving any guidance in terms of how to evaluate options. So the guide is really a tool that allows families to digest and process all the different components about the summers so that they can establish their own priorities. And, you know, have a unique lens through which they and their students can kind of look at the Summer goals. And it provides, you know, parents with great questions to ask camps and programs you know, about student composition, supervision, all the things that we talked about that often get overlooked. And the other thing is, you know, now or even then. When I wrote the book in terms of the advent of the internet, it's overwhelming the information, and so how do you collect and synthesize it so and apply it to your child? And that's basically why I wrote the guide.


Ethan Sawyer  22:55  
It's great. I think my favorite part of it was this team program evaluator that you've created, which, by the way, guys get this. This is Jill's basically created this scorecard where families can like rate programs on a variety of factors, like return, rate of staff. You know, something that I probably would have forgotten to ask about how social time is organized. You know, is it daytime social time, night time, large groups, small. You know, something you mentioned earlier, what policies are around electronics. So let's just get I want to get really practical for a second. What are, what are a few, what are three or four questions that students and parents should ask when, specifically, when they're trying to evaluate a program and whether a program is right? Okay?


Jill Tipograph  23:32  
So of course, they have to figure out the types of experiences that they're looking for, academic, arts, travel, service, what, you know, whatever it might be, and they really have to then go through the length of the program and geography, but once you do that, there are some key questions that they should really be asking of themselves in the program, to really see if this, you know, makes sense. So in terms of the structure of the program, does it match the kind of personality and disposition and perhaps learning style and all those things that their teen needs or does not need. You know, downtime, independence, choice, all those things. And you know, what kind of other types of teens will my child do well with in terms of age range, some kids do better with older versus younger, the personality where they come from. You know, different parts of the country have different kinds of teens and different kinds of cultures, and how will my my child do with them? Or do they really need to be more in a microcosm of the kind of life they live right now, at home and supervision level that is really important, and the accommodations, they are critical, because we could go through the process with our students, and as soon as we hit the accommodations and they tell us what they are not willing to do, there are so many programs that go out the window. And then, you know, the reality is, for parent, you know, what kind of tuition Am I comfortable


Ethan Sawyer  24:55  
spending? When is a good time to start? I mean, if it's say. Somebody's listening to this in April. Should they freak out? Is it too late starting in April? Or what is when you What do you recommend for folks? First


Jill Tipograph  25:07  
of all, it's never too late. People come to us in June, and we figure it out, and we find great opportunities for them. But yes, if you start earlier, the options will be greater. The options in terms of dates and courses, you know, specific trip destinations. What parents don't understand is sometimes the groups are very small, and even if they run a trip twice, if there's 20 kids, that's 40 kids. I mean, there's 1000s and 1000s of 1000s of people out there that are looking to, you know, consider those two trips. So earlier gives them more options. I would say, typically, what happens in terms of a cycle February and March is when the teen program applications and admissions heat up every day. It's something else. We have clients that, you know, last week we were working with, and you know, because of all of our follow up, we find out that certain courses are full, which is related to why they want to apply to the program. So we have to do a pivot. So it's important to keep that in mind. Now, some of the competitive programs actually have deadlines in December, so you need to be ahead. So I would say that the earlier you start, optimally, it would be in the fall of the school year for the following summer, such as this past fall, 2016 for summer 2017 but as you get later in the year, be more open to dates and geography and types of programs. That's what we would advise. One more thing that I think that is important is that students don't understand that teachers are very busy, and they need to get recommendations, so giving a teacher or a request for recommendation in March that's due tomorrow isn't really going to fly, and it's going to leave not a positive mark on them if you go back to them the following year for your recommendation for College. So be mindful of that,


Ethan Sawyer  27:00  
right? Are there certain summers that are more important than others, or are they all kind of important?


Jill Tipograph  27:06  
Well, colleges and universities really want to see progress. So they want to see not just the progress in summer, but as I said earlier, how that summer is part of the spoken the wheel that leads to something greater and deeper, because they want to see a story at the end of the day. So whatever that arc is for that person is what matters. You know, typically, I would say that it would be great for each successive summer to be stronger and better, because it relates to your own growth, meaning that if you had the most pivotal experience of your life when you were a freshman and you haven't had it since, you know, a university might say, Well, why didn't they push themselves again? What happened? You know, you don't want to leave so many unanswered questions in the mind of an admissions officer. You want them to nod their head and go, Yeah, wow. That Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. I mean, things happen in life, but try to build on something. So, you know, we go from, let's go from exploration to depth to refinement to a focus. So the earlier we can start with a student, the more focused they're going to be, and the stronger their story will be. So it, but again, it does come down to the cumulative experiences. But one thing on the flip note of this, which is you don't want to have an anomaly summer where an admissions person sees a red flag and says, Why did they do this? So that's just as important in terms of not having a red flag summer that makes them feel there's an issue here,


Ethan Sawyer  28:42  
right? I love that thing that almost sounded like a funnel. Will you give me that? What was the depth, the refinement, focus thing? Will you repeat that? That was really good.


Jill Tipograph  28:49  
So it's exploration, then it's depth, then it's refining the interest or passion based on, you know, that depth, and then it's a real focus in terms of who you are and what you're interested in,


Ethan Sawyer  29:04  
right? And, you know, gosh, if in the ideal scenario, right, students are thinking about this when they're toddlers, or maybe, I don't know if that's ideal, but early on, right? So ninth grade, right? But let's say a kid, what do you what do you do with those students who are just totally lost, they come in, I don't know what I'm interested in, I don't know what I want to do. And it's, you know, junior year, or, let's say that rising seniors, and they have no idea what they want to do. It's June, what? How do you you know? What do you tell those students and those parents? Well,


Jill Tipograph  29:33  
I think that the overall expectations of, you know, making a mark and discovering yourself overnight is something that's not realistic. And we talk to parents about that, you know? We talk to them well, if they haven't really done anything, and this is the first time they are doing something, let's be realistic in terms of what you can accomplish. So we look at all the different things, you know, when we work. The clients, we do a tremendous intake, and we ask a lot of questions, and sometimes the student or parent doesn't understand why we're asking the question, but we're doing everything we can to extract who they are and find that that nugget of Ah, okay, this matters to them they didn't even realize this, and engage them in conversation. So we'll try to pursue things related to that, or if they still don't have, you know, we can't which, this has never happened. We've always found something that a student is interested in, but for that student that it's not a parent, it's not working, then we're going to focus on building a skill that's going to help them in their senior year of college, or relates to going off to college. So it can be that simple, but again, that's growth. That's something you didn't do before, and it's something you're going to learn about yourself. And at least it shows progress. We're looking for progress, right,


Ethan Sawyer  30:56  
right? That's really good. That's good stuff. What are some of the your favorite or the weirdest or best summer adventures you've heard of, you've worked with a lot of students. Give us a give us a couple gems that you remember?


Jill Tipograph  31:09  
Well, I love when they combine different experiences, which is really great. So you know, for instance, you could work and care for wolves while you're camping in a wolf sanctuary. You could explore climate change and journalism with a professor or a professional reporter. You could go to Iceland, or you could be studying with an American professor University in Germany or Spain. This one I really like, which is working with Disney agents in a voice acting studio, which is kind of cool. I


Ethan Sawyer  31:42  
did that last week, actually. Oh, you did, oh, wow.


Jill Tipograph  31:47  
And then you could be, you know, working on being part of designing a system, you know, for, you know, bikes or public transport in Scandinavia, or another one. That's really interesting that I kind of seeing a trend with is, for instance, taking stem and you study with people who are leaders in engineering and coding, but you're working with the editor of a niche magazine, so you can see how the actual products kind of get developed and then promoted. So I think these are really kind of very interesting experiences.


Ethan Sawyer  32:23  
Wow. Well, so I got inspired, Jill, by your teen program evaluator, and I ran off and I created, get this guys. I created a two minute summer planning exercise, and I want to test it out and see if it works. So I'm wondering, Jill, if you would be willing to this is kind of vulnerable for me, because I'm like, actually speaking to the summer expert, and I'm actually going to try and help her plan her summer for a second. So Jill, would you be willing to roll with me on this? It's going to take like, two minutes, but I'm wondering if you would help me. Let me help you. The summer planner extraordinaire, plan your summer. Would you be open to that? I'll


Jill Tipograph  32:59  
be open to it, and we'll see if everyone thinks it's interesting, from what I will


Ethan Sawyer  33:05  
share. Okay, cool. So now, first of all, I'm assuming probably, you know, you've got some things in mind, you know, for your summer, so it's probably gonna make my job a little easier. But Okay, here goes. So Jill, I want you to and by the way, anybody can do this exercise. You can close your eyes and play along here, if you want, but you know, so I want you to just imagine for yourself something that you would like to do this summer that is fun. So Jill imagine in your mind something yourself, doing something fun. Okay, and let me know when you got it. You got it. Okay? Now I want you to think about what would it what would what could you do to change that experience, to make it even more fun? Okay, okay, now I want you to do it once more. What would make that experience even more fun? Okay, okay, I actually lied. We're gonna do it one more time, and I want you to imagine what would make that the greatest experience ever. Okay, okay, what did you come up with? So


Jill Tipograph  34:07  
a biking trip out west with my family, and you know, having all of my kids with me, because when they get to be young adults, it's not easy to organize everyone's calendars, and I am hoping for good weather and no injuries. So that's what I'm really hoping for.


Ethan Sawyer  34:37  
That sounds really great. Okay, I'm gonna do one more, one more, another minute exercise. Bear with me. Okay, now I want you to imagine one thing that you could get done this summer that would make it a productive summer. Okay, and everybody feel free to play along here. Okay, now, what could you do? Actually, let me ask this question first. If. Think for a second about why that thing is important to you. Like, why would you want or need to do that thing? What need will that fulfill for you? Okay, okay, now I want you to think about in terms of the productivity. How could you get it done in, say, half the time. Okay, thanks for playing along. Okay, what's the thing I feel like we're doing like a magic trick, and I'm like, show us your card. Okay, Jill, show us your card. What was what's the productive thing? Well,


Jill Tipograph  35:33  
one thing I would really like to get done this summer is I would really, like many other parents, I'd like to organize my all of my digital photos.


Ethan Sawyer  35:43  
Oh, nice. And why? Because, you


Jill Tipograph  35:46  
know, memories are critical. I mean, it's all about experiences in life. So I have so many photos, you know, and when I say that, it's not just the photos just that you have on your own phone, but it's also photos that your family has, it's photos that people both posted on Facebook. It's all these different experiences, you know, just so as you get older, you have these memories when, when my kids were young, we used to have film you would develop. So I have boxes organized, you know, of all of these, these pictures. So that's that's great. And what's related to this, too, is my husband would really like to digitize all of all of them are the videos of my children growing up, so that that will be his project.


Ethan Sawyer  36:28  
My dad is trying to do the same thing. And okay, so let me just ask the third question. Then, okay, that sounds like you could take the entire summer up. What's one thing you could do to get that process done in less time? Well,


Jill Tipograph  36:41  
two things, one is, and I started to do it is start to delete all of those silly things that we keep on our phone as photos. I mean, one thing that's an organizational tool for me is I try to write down very little, and I try to take pictures of things so that I remember them. And I have to go food shopping, but I don't need all those pictures. I bought those items, so it would be slowly deleting the pictures that don't mean anything and then organizing them into albums, so eventually, when I got to print them out, it wasn't as massive a project. That


Ethan Sawyer  37:13  
sounds cool, that sounds like it actually would be pretty productive and pretty fun. Anyway, thank you, Jill for humoring me and doing my in my fun and productive summer exercise. It's time for show and tell, which is the part of the podcast where I like to ask my guests to just bring something to share that, you know, that's that's been useful, or, you know, important in your life. And I actually, in talking to Jill about this before we set up the podcast, I actually saw something that she has that is really productive and useful. And I said, Hey, Jill, can we snag that for the show and tell section? So do you want to set this up? Or do you want me to set this up? Oh,


Jill Tipograph  37:51  
please go ahead. You're doing a great job. I'm


Ethan Sawyer  37:55  
just going to take over show and tell this time. So okay, so this part that I mentioned earlier in the summer planning guide, this teen program evaluator. It's, you know, it's a few pages from this guide, but it's so awesome. And it basically walks folks through, you know, how to evaluate one of these summer programs. Is there anything that we haven't said about it yet, Jill, that you want, like to just get folks to, sort of like, check it out.


Jill Tipograph  38:21  
Well, the it's set up as grids. So it's really easy to compare a series of programs, you know, across all of the numerous factors that you should be considering. So at the end of the day, you have a snapshot, so that you can think things will pop out, you know, as either creating patterns, oh, they're all similar in that capacity. Or, Wow, this program is much smaller. This could be better for me. So it's really synthesizing things and having a visual picture of comparing the programs. And I think that's very valuable.


Ethan Sawyer  38:54  
It's so valuable. I mean, it seems to me that it'd be so valuable. And I said, Jill, can I snag this from your guide? And can we, you know, let folks have this. And she said, Sure, we can do that. So if you check out the click in the show notes, you'll see this teen program evaluated. You can download it, check it out. I highly, highly, highly recommend it. If you really want more. You can click through and you can go and see her book, which is so rad. You can get the e book version, or you can get, you know, just a hard copy version through her website. And all the info will be in the show notes. Show notes for that. So check them out my show and tell offering, even though I kind of stole Jill's. So apologies again. Is an article that I wrote called How to Plan a fulfilling or productive pre college summer, and you can find it in the show notes. And I've got some tips for what is the one book you should read this summer if you want to be more productive, I also share my top secret stash of really great reads, a link to all of the TED Talks ever created on one Google Spreadsheet, my two minute exercise for how to make your summer more fun or more productive, and a link to something called How to get anything done in 30 days, which. I use with my students when they're planning their summers, but it'll work for parents and counselors for whatever you're trying to get done in the next month. So check it out in the show notes. Jill, thank you. I so appreciate your time and energy. And if there was one thing you wanted folks to wanted to leave us with, what would it be?


Jill Tipograph  40:18  
It would be to encourage your teens in the summer to really challenge themselves and use it as a time to learn more about who they are, so that as they start to go through the college process, they're more confident and they have kind of barometers to kind of check themselves against as they go through different experiences, because whether you like something you don't like in the summer, they're both incredibly valuable lessons so that when you get eventually to looking at colleges and making a choice, you've had experiences before that.


Ethan Sawyer  41:02  
Thank you. I just appreciate you and appreciate your work in this world. Thank you. That's the podcast. Thanks for listening. Make sure to check out the resources on the show notes page, and if you've got a moment, leave a review on iTunes. I'd appreciate it. And also, if you've got a guest in mind that you think would make a really good addition to the podcast? Email me at info at college. Sa guy.com Just give me a quick few lines on who the person is and why you think the person would make a great guest, even if that person is yourself. Thanks so much. And as always, stay curious. You


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