Summer Reading

The official e-newsletter of The Equestrian College Advisor.

The Southern Methodist University Mustang equestrian team (which competes as part of the NCEA)

will have a new home this fall.

The EQUUS Foundation announced its 2016 scholarship recipients last week.

The college admission "game" encourages students to target courses and extracurricular activities designed to give them advantage in the admission process but doesn't actually teach them anything.

Increasingly, counselors, teachers, and the students themselves are speaking out against it and trying to turn the tide.

The Summer Reading ListSummer vacation: no school, fun with friends, maybe a trip or two, and perhaps a part-time job. What could be better?Before you fill too many hours of your day on vacation, be sure to carve out a little time to add some summer reading to the list. No, we’re not talking about reading all of War and Peace and the complete works of William Shakespeare, nor is it a matter of reading a lot of lengthy and dry titles just to sound smarter for your college applications. It is important that you do a little reading, however, for three main reasons:

1. It keeps your brain engaged – which will make going back to school easier in the fall! (No joke – “summer slide,” which is a loss of academic ability/knowledge over the course of summer break – is an actual documented phenomenon. Don’t fall victim to it!)

2. It’s a good habit to get into. After all, your college coursework will be far more reading-intensive than your high school curriculum is, so if you get into the routine of reading now, you’ll make the transition with far less struggle.

3. It really does look good on your college applications. In fact, many colleges and universities ask reading-related questions in the essay portion of their applications or will ask these questions during in-person or phone interviews. Again, you don’t have to read classic pieces of literature if you don’t want to – it’s doubtful that you’ll be quizzed on the works of Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters – but you should pick pieces that genuinely interest you and be prepared to explain why you made the selections.

Not everyone likes to read, of course, and not everyone has an easy time with the process. But reading is a vital part of being a successful college student and the education one obtains from books is different from that of all other sources (magazines, online media, etc.). So if you’re not a big reader, start with just one book this summer – one book with a premise that interests you – and see where it can take you. It might just lead to a second book – or a third or fourth!

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