In selective college admissions, the next few weeks often determine whether a student’s summer truly strengthens their application or simply fills time.
At AcceptU, we’ve been reviewing summer plans across our students, and one trend has become clear over the last few years. The programs that carry real weight with admissions officers are moving their deadlines earlier and earlier. What used to be spring deadlines are now landing in mid-February.
For students aiming at the Ivy+, Stanford, MIT or similarly selective schools, several key deadlines are coming up fast:
Programs like Yale Young Global Scholars and Telluride have already closed.
At the same time, as AI has made it easier to polish essays and activity descriptions, admissions officers are placing more emphasis on work that has been validated outside the school environment. Anyone can list a role or a program on an application. Far fewer students can point to experiences where they were selected, evaluated and pushed by experts in the field.
That difference matters.
Missing February deadlines does not mean the summer is lost, but it does mean the strategy needs to change.
In 2026, a well-designed independent project can be far more meaningful than a generic summer program. Research, a serious internship, a technical build or a substantial writing or creative project can all carry weight if they show depth, structure and real output.
The strongest early results we are seeing this year came from students who did not wait for “summer planning season.” They made decisions early and used January and February intentionally.
If your family is still in the thinking phase, now is the moment to move to execution.
Marc is the author of Untangling the Ivy League, a best-selling guidebook on the Ancient Eight. He earned a BA from Cornell University and an MBA from University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Marc chaired the admissions ambassadors at Cornell and the admissions advisory board at UNC.
