YOU ARE NOT

You are not behind. Anybody who tries that you are behind at the beginning of July, for deadlines that are not until November, or in many cases January. It's just trying to make you panic for no reason. The reality is there are a number of things that you could be doing this summer to try to get ahead, but those are by definition getting ahead. If you want to do some of these things, here's my general outline for what you can do. In the month of July, maybe just finalize your college list and work on the activity section for either the Common App or the UC application. During this time, you wanna just create your Common App or create your UC portal. For the end of July, maybe start brainstorming what your common app essay should be about. If you have a moment of inspiration, try to draft out one of the ideas. In the month of August, try to really draft out one of those ideas, have an introduction, some body paragraphs and a conclusion. Throughout the entire month of August, you can share that draft with different people, ideally English teachers or adults who are good writers. Did you give you a fair idea as to whether this idea is gonna work out over time, or if you edit it a lot more, or if you're going to have to draft out one of those other ideas. Done for the summer. You're ahead of the curve. You can start your senior year, just worry about supplemental essays, maybe working on three or four schools every single month until your last deadline.