At the end of the school year, I hear the same thing from a lot of juniors.

“I’m going to work on my essay this summer.”

It is a reasonable plan. It is also the point where things tend to go in two different directions.

By the time we get to early July, I can usually tell which students have moved that plan forward and which ones have not. It is not about effort. Most students intend to do the work. It comes down to whether there was any structure behind that intention.

When I sit down with students in Brookfield, Waukesha, Germantown, and the surrounding communities, the answer to “how is the essay going?” is often, “I haven’t really started yet,” or “I have something, but I don’t know if it’s good.”

Neither of those answers is unusual. They just point to the same issue.

The plan was to work on it “over the summer,” but summer does not really work that way.

Without a specific time, a clear starting point, and some direction, the essay becomes something that is always going to get done later. June turns into July, and July starts to fill up with other things. By the time August shows up, the student is trying to write while also getting ready for the start of senior year.

That is where the stress starts.

The students who are in a different place right now usually did one thing differently. They treated the essay as something that needed to be scheduled and supported, not something that would just happen when there was time.

They spent a little time early on figuring out what they wanted the essay to do. They connected it to the rest of their application. They set aside specific time to write, even if the first draft was not perfect.

That is usually enough to create some momentum.

What I am not looking for in early July is a finished essay. What I am looking for is progress that is moving in the right direction. A clear idea, a draft that is starting to take shape, or at least a structured plan for when that work is going to happen.

If none of that is in place, it is still very fixable. It just means you need to be more intentional about the next few weeks.

If you have a current junior in Brookfield, Pewaukee, Greendale, or nearby communities, it is worth asking a simple question right now.

When is the essay actually getting done?

Not “at some point this summer,” but specifically.

Because once August arrives, the amount of time available to figure that out gets a lot smaller.