How to Maximize Your Summer Break

Jamie Perez
May 29
5 min read

A note pad that says, "Summer Plan" on top of a brown table with someone's hand holding a pencil and a coffee cup next to the note pad.

As many of our students are preparing to wrap up another school year and take their finals, we want to help them prepare for Summer Break!

We know “preparing” for time off of school may sound unusual, unnecessary, and even unpleasant. But when school begins again in the Fall, we often see students rushing to catch up and having to squeeze extra curriculars, projects, and activities they could have done in the summer into their busy fall academic schedules.

If you want to know how to make the most of your summertime - including finding meaningful rest – and avoid the common summer pitfalls students get stuck in, read on!

A girl standing on rocks at the beach, looking out at the horizon with binoculars.

Look to the Horizon!

Having a fun, restful, and productive Summer Break is all about looking ahead.

As a tutoring company, the most common thing we see come August is students who are lacking knowledge in foundational materials from previous semesters, whilst having new and more advanced materials to learn.

You can get ahead of this by requesting study materials for the courses you know you struggled with the most in the previous semester. Schools and teachers should be able to provide these materials upon request.

Then look at what courses you will be taking in the upcoming Fall semester. If you anticipate having a hard time with any of them, you can also request study materials from the school for them as well.

Summer provides a huge opportunity for studying difficult subjects ahead of time and doing your own remedial work, since most students have a lot of extra time and flexible schedules. This means that you can study at your own optimal pace, if you plan right.

And remember, the goal of studying over the summer is not to reach mastery of a subject on your own. Your goal is to take advantage of extra time to learn, without the pressures of grades, GPAs, and deadlines.

A woman holding a math worksheet on her lap and filling it out with a black pen in her right hand.

The Summer Packet

Summer-brain is real. 2-3 months of no schooling at all means that it is easy to lose important information you gained during the semester. In order to avoid this, schools themselves will often provide summer work packets that are due when classes resume.

With multiple months’ worth of material in them, these packets are often overwhelming to look at or think about. However, it is important that you review the assignments as soon as you receive them.

The sooner you are able to assess the work that needs to be done, the more options you have for completing it.

Procrastinating until only a week or two before school resumes gives you the least amount of time to prepare and will often mean long hours of continuous work in a short period of time.

Distributing the workload of your summer packet early means you can spread it out across the break and have plenty of time to find extra support for any topics or assignments you may get stuck on.

The back of a small car with luggage strapped to the roof, on a road passing by the water.

Summer Vacations

With so much extra time and warm weather, Summer Break is understandably the most popular time for families to travel.

Time to rest and play is equally as important as time to work. But sometimes, work can end up encroaching on your vacation time.

The only way to keep this from happening, while not neglecting responsibilities is proper scheduling. When you are planning out your summer studying schedule ahead of time, don’t forget to double check your travel dates.

It is best not to plan work for days when you will be on a trip. Traveling makes it hard to keep a consistent schedule, and you may have unreliable WIFI.

A girl sitting at a table outside wearing sunglasses, working on an open laptop with a coffee cup in front of her.

SAT & ACT Prep

If you are a Rising Junior, Rising Senior, or have recently graduated, this is for you!

Starting test prep sessions in the summer allows you to focus more of your efforts on getting to your goal score. While it is ok to have test prep sessions during school in the Fall and Spring, you will have to balance it with regular course work, extracurriculars, and sports if you participate in any.

However, test prep is all about consistency and timing. If your summer schedule will not allow you to meet for sessions on a consistent basis, you may opt to do it during school if your college application deadlines allow.

In addition to scheduling in time for consistent sessions, you will need to ensure you are able to attend the SAT or ACT exam dates being offered. For example, if you are preparing for the ACT, but will be traveling out of town for the first few weeks of July, you may not be able to take the ACT exam scheduled for that month.

Here is a list of the upcoming SAT and ACT exam dates during Summer Break:

SAT

June 6, 2026
August 22, 2026

ACT

June 13, 2026
July 11, 2026

College Admission exams during the summertime fill up extremely quickly, so it’s best to register for your date as soon as you know you want to attend.

If you are just starting out and unsure which exam to focus on, you can start by taking a free diagnostic exam with us here. This way you can know whether to focus on the SAT or ACT and receive a free curriculum with recommended national exam dates to attend.

An interviewer is sitting at a white table with the interviewee across from them and is reading their resume.

Build Your Experience

Summer Break is the ideal time to build up other areas of your “resume” as well. If college is your goal, then grades and scores are only a portion of what you will need.

Schools are also looking at things like community service hours, job experience, and volunteer hours. The flexible and free schedule that summer provides can allow you to catch up on or build volunteer hours needed to graduate and receive scholarships like Bright Futures.

To participate in these activities, you typically need to research and apply ahead of time. Your school counselor can help you find new opportunities for the summer, and universities often run their own summer internship programs which you can find on their respective websites.

Here are some good websites where you can find volunteer and internship opportunities in your area:

Volunteering

Internships

Be sure to look at the current state of your resume so you can plan ahead to strengthen or start building it.

A bunch of colorful sticky notes on a wooden table with an orange pen on top of them. The sticky notes say things like, "goals," "control," and "strategy."

Planning = Success

The above are just a few examples of ways you can “maximize” your summer vacation. There are dozens more and you may not be able to do all of them at once.

That’s why it is so important to plan ahead and prepare for summer. The more time you give yourself to organize your priorities, plan your schedule around events and commitments, and spread out workload, the better your summer can be.

As always, please let us know in the comments if you have any questions!