How Do I Take High School Classes Over the Summer to Get Ahead?

As an achievement-minded student, you might be looking to take advantage of opportunities over the summer to get ahead in your high school classes or in the knowledge you know you’ll need as you enter higher education and your future.

If you are behind on your required high school credits or would like to take extra classes over the summer to enhance your knowledge and leave more room for other classes during the regular school year, you have a few different options to do that.

You also have the option to take extra classes outside of your high school or even take advantage of opportunities to learn outside of the classroom.

Below are several ways you can utilize your summer months to advance your learning and better prepare for your future.

Register for summer school through your school district.

The easiest way to get ahead over the summer is to take summer school classes through your high school or school district. 

Look at the classes offered over the summer to find out if any of them will augment the classes you’ve already taken. 

You might even choose to take summer school classes to advance your degree to either graduate early or have more room in your schedule for electives.

Chances are, you might have to take classes at a different high school than your home high school, but this option is also usually either free or cheaper than other summer classes or programs you might encounter.

Take summer courses at a college or university.

If you aren’t interested in your high school or school district’s summer school options, you can always take a look at different summer programs and courses at colleges and universities either near you or somewhere you can travel over the summer.

Colleges and universities offer summer programs that sometimes require a high cost to enter, but they usually offer scholarship options depending on need or merit. 

Some colleges and universities even offer online high school and might offer summer courses through those programs as well. 

Register for online classes through known platforms.

You can also register for extra online courses to get ahead through online learning platforms like Udemy, Coursera, edX, LinkedIn Learning, etc. 

These courses cost money, but if you’re interested in learning about a subject on a deeper level than you can in high school or taking a course your high school doesn’t offer, these platforms offer great options for students like you.

Students spend their summers learning different coding languages, for example, thus gaining further skills that will not only help them succeed in high school but also add to their college application. 

Take SAT or ACT prep classes.

If you know you have to take the SAT, ACT, or another standardized test to prepare for college applications, you can also take prep courses for these tests over the summer. 

This will allow you to get ahead over the summer without waiting until the last minute to take prep classes or going into these tests without any preparation at all.

Hopefully, you’ll have more free time over the summer, so you can really focus on prepping for these types of tests and leave your school year for mastering your high school classes.

Opt for summer volunteering or study abroad.

Getting ahead does not always require taking classes within a classroom. You can do a lot of learning outside of the classroom as well. 

So, consider taking a few weeks or months over the summer to go on a volunteer trip or study abroad. 

You can often find scholarships for these types of opportunities, like the NSHSS United Planet Merit Scholarship, which students will be able to apply for in 2021.

Taking a trip to study abroad or volunteer will give you an experience that will teach you different types of lessons than you can learn in a high school classroom, and you can also add these experiences to your resume for college applications.

Learn a new skill.

Even if you don’t have a lot of extra time or funds this summer to take a structured program, take some time to learn a new skill that you’ve been wanting to learn. 

Take music classes or watch YouTube videos to learn a new craft. Start making videos of your own to teach other students a skill you already know! 

Whatever you do, you can use your summer wisely by expanding your mind and experiences, even if you have to do that from home.