After a busy fall term, it’s important to take some time to recharge during your winter break. However, that doesn’t mean you should press pause on your college planning. Without the stress of juggling classes and after-school activities, you can spend more relaxed, focused time working on tasks or diving deeper into your interests. We offer this guidance on what to do over winter break — whether you’re a freshman who’s just getting started or a senior who’s putting the final touches on your college apps.
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Maximizing Your Winter Break for College Admissions
Regardless of what grade you’re in, you can use your winter break to prepare for what’s ahead — whether it’s college application deadlines or course planning — or engaging in activities that enhance your profile for college admissions. Students often use this time to:
- Catch up or get ahead by reviewing challenging subjects, preparing for upcoming classes, or studying for standardized tests.
- Dive into hobbies, online courses, outside reading, volunteer work, or independent projects that can build on their knowledge and skills.
- Explore summer programs, research potential majors, or work on their college lists.
- Finalize Early Decision II and Regular Decision applications.
Think about setting goals and creating a plan for your break — and don’t forget to track your progress! The activities you choose to do during this time should align with your long-term goals and keep you on track with your college prep.
Ninth – 10th Grades
Winter break offers a great opportunity to explore new interests or deepen involvement in existing ones. This is also an ideal time to start planning your summer activities.
Engaging in Meaningful Extracurricular Activities
You may be aware by now that extracurricular activities play a vital role in shaping your personal and academic profile by demonstrating leadership, commitment, and passion. Colleges want to see initiative, reliability, perseverance, teamwork, and problem-solving and time management skills, so engaging in meaningful activities at school or in your community is a great way to develop these competencies.
Your winter break may be short, but you can still use this time productively. Here are some ideas:
- Explore new interests by taking an online course or joining a virtual club or competition.
- Dive deeper into your current passions by working on an independent project, starting a blog, or building your arts or STEM portfolio.
- Look for local or virtual volunteering and community service opportunities related to your interests. Whether you’re walking dogs at an animal shelter or assisting nonprofits with their social media channels, you are making an impact, developing skills, building connections, and gaining important experience — all important benefits of community service for college.
Additional Resources
Plan for Your Summer
Colleges also want to know how you spend your summers — and believe it or not, that planning should start now. Winter break is a great time to look for academic camps, research programs, or internships related to your interests. You can also find a wide variety of pre-college summer programs at college campuses across the U.S. Applications for these programs are often due in the winter or early spring, and admission is highly competitive.
11th Grade
You’re halfway through the most important year of high school for college prep, so use some of this downtime to make progress on your to-do list. Winter break is ideal for working on your college list, researching scholarship opportunities, studying for the SAT or ACT, and identifying impactful summer activities.
Reviewing and Refining Your College List
If you’re a junior, you’ve likely started the process of choosing colleges to apply to — maybe you’re already making campus visits. With so many options, it can be overwhelming to figure out how to choose a college that’s a great fit for you academically, socially, and financially. Set aside some time during winter break to refine your list of prospective colleges, though you don’t need to finalize it now. Consider these college selection criteria:
- Type of institution: Explore the different types of colleges: public and private, two-year and four-year, for-profit and non-profit — the list goes on.
- Program offerings: Check if the college has strong programs in your intended major. Look for faculty expertise, research opportunities, and internship connections. Undecided about your major? Ensure the college offers majors in your areas of interest. It’s also important to determine if you are required to apply to a specific undergraduate school or college, especially if you are undecided and have disparate interests.
- Location: Consider climate, proximity to home, urban vs. rural setting, and access to career hubs.
- Financial aid and cost: Review tuition, scholarships, grants, and work-study options. Use net price calculators on college websites.
- Campus culture and size: Think about student life, diversity, extracurriculars, student-to-faculty ratio, and campus size.
- Available resources: Assess on-campus resources like libraries, writing centers, tutoring, career services, recreation centers, accessibility services, health and counseling centers, and study abroad opportunities.
- Career outcomes: Research job placement rates and alumni networks.
Research colleges of interest by browsing their official websites and reading student reviews. Watch online information sessions and take virtual tours to help you gather more information.
Planning College Visits
Winter break provides a crucial opportunity to finalize your plans for spring college visits. Focus on gathering information about how to prepare for college visits, which involves identifying which days colleges offer tours and information sessions, noting specific departments or faculty you might want to meet, and developing a list of thoughtful questions that go beyond what is available on the school’s website. By completing these tasks now, you ensure your spring break and weekends are spent productively networking with college admissions, rather than on last-minute planning.
Researching Scholarship Opportunities
You may not be filling out college applications yet, but it’s not too early to start looking at financial aid options. Spend some of your winter break time identifying and applying for scholarships. This can be a daunting task, since there are countless opportunities. To streamline your search, use scholarship search engines like Scholarships.com and College Board’s BigFuture, which allow you to filter by search criteria. This makes it easier to find opportunities that match your profile. Check out local opportunities from community foundations, local businesses, and civic organizations. Read through the guidelines carefully to understand how to apply for scholarships.
While you’re at it, organize and prioritize your scholarship application materials. Gather common documents in advance, such as transcripts, test scores, activities list, and financial documents — depending on whether it’s a merit- or need-based scholarship. Then create a scholarship tracker in a spreadsheet or app to record:
- Scholarship name
- Deadline
- Requirements (essay, transcript, recommendations)
- Award amount
- Status (not started, in progress, submitted)
Prioritize scholarships that offer higher rewards or match your strongest qualifications, then start working on the ones with the earliest deadlines.
Preparing for the SAT or ACT
Are you planning to take the ACT or SAT in the spring? Use this quieter time for standardized test preparation. Take a timed practice test to assess what you need to work on, not just in the subject areas but also in terms of pacing and strategy. You can find a variety of apps and online resources that can help you prepare more effectively — identify what works best with your learning style, use effective study habits, and stick to a study schedule.
Need guidance and accountability? Consider test prep tutoring.
12th Grade
Winter break is the home stretch for students working on Early Decision II and Regular Decision applications — most of these deadlines are January 1-15. This is the time to finalize and double-check your application materials for accuracy and completeness, prepare for college interviews, and stay productive to avoid senioritis.
Finalizing Your Remaining Applications
At this point, you should be finishing up the college application process — unless you were accepted Early Decision, in which case, congratulations! Follow these tips for finalizing your applications:
1. Review All Requirements
Double-check each college’s application checklist to ensure you haven’t overlooked any materials. Also confirm submission deadlines, so you can prioritize the applications that are due the earliest.
2. Polish Your Essays
Ensure each essay answers the prompt and reflects your authentic voice. It’s helpful to read your essays aloud as well, so you can catch awkward phrasing. Ask a trusted adult to read your essays and provide feedback — but avoid last-minute major rewrites. Also look for grammar and spelling mistakes.
3. Check Your Activities List
Your activity descriptions should be impactful. Are you using strong action verbs? Are you quantifying your achievements? Are you listing only your most significant activities that show commitment, leadership, and impact?
4. Conduct a Final Review
Every part of your application should be impactful, but it’s also vital that it tells a clear and cohesive narrative. Conduct a close review of each application to make sure all the pieces fit together and show who you are both inside and outside of the classroom.
Strive for submitting your applications a few days before the deadline to avoid any technical issues. After you submit, confirm receipt of all materials via the college’s application portal.
Preparing for College Interviews
Winter break is also a great time for focused college interview preparation. Here are a few of our tips for college admissions interviews:
1. Do Your Research.
Identify specific things about the school that genuinely excite you (e.g., a unique academic program, a specific professor’s research, a student-run organization, a campus tradition). It’s important to mention these details during the interview to show demonstrated interest.
2. Practice and Role-Play.
Ask a parent or older sibling to conduct a mock interview with you. Have them ask you common interview questions and give you feedback on your answers, body language, and speaking pace. You can also record yourself answering a few key questions to identify any nervous habits or areas where you sound rehearsed.
3. Prepare Your Questions.
College interviews are meant to be conversational, and you will be expected to ask questions as well as answer them. Prepare a few thoughtful questions that can’t be answered by a quick search on the school’s website.
Need to record a college application video instead? Use this time to do some practice recordings.
Staying Productive to Avoid Senioritis
If you’ve already submitted your applications, you may be tempted to do nothing over winter break. However, it’s important to avoid this temptation and make productive use of your time — otherwise, you could trigger a bout of senioritis that’s hard to shake.
Colleges will see your final transcript, so you could spend this time preparing for your upcoming classes. Read books and watch documentaries related to what you’re studying. Plan ways to get more involved in your current activities. Set yourself up for a successful final term so you can finish high school strong.
Setting the Stage for College Admissions Success
Winter break can be a time of focused effort toward building your college readiness skills — just don’t forget to make time for self-care! Spend an hour taking an online class but enjoy movie night with your family. Read a scholarly book but also spend some time reading for pleasure. You want to start the next term feeling refreshed and ready to tackle any challenges that come your way, so finding balance is key.
Wherever you are in your college admissions journey, you can benefit from personalized, expert guidance. IvyWise college admissions counselors advise students on course selection, academic enrichment opportunities, impactful extracurricular activities, and many other aspects of college prep. Contact us over winter break to learn how we can help you build a competitive applicant profile and maximize your chances of admission.
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