Research shows that the summer before college can be a dangerous time for teenagers, as they are between home and high school on the one side, and a more challenging and independent existence as a college student on the other.
Take drinking for example. Research has reported that teenagers tend to increase their alcohol use during the summer before college and in their first term. Such drinking can lead to tragedy: it’s estimated that more than 1,100 college students at 18 to 24 years of age die each year from alcohol-related injuries, including car crashes, and almost 600, 000 are injured under the influence of alcohol.
In addition to drinking, future freshmen may also have gaps in their knowledge about other aspects of university life. A study has found that students are “generally aware” of the fact that they have to place them into college courses and their school’s curricular requirements. In addition, many students hold misunderstandings such as “Getting into college is the hardest part”, and “I can take whatever classes I want when I get to college”. In fact, students’ courses may be determined by their level of preparation.
It is found that college-bound high-school graduates are faced with a number of potentially frightening tasks during the summer. For example, colleges typically require students to take placement tests(分班考试) and fill out a lot of paperwork, including housing and medical forms, over the summer. Completing these tasks may be especially frightening for low-income and first-generation college-bound students whose families may be short of experience with the college-going process.
In addition, it’s only in the summer after high-school graduation when students face the reality of paying the first college bill, which often includes unexpected costs like required health insurance. For college-intending students, successfully controlling the post-high-school summer thus requires a level of finance that may be unrelated to their ability to succeed in the classroom. As a result, students who have already broken through many barriers to college admission may fail to enter college.
Paring college-bound students with “fellow advisers”--students already in college who have been trained to support and coach their learners through the summer--improves the rate at which the learners show up at college. Even more wonderful, a low-cost campaign of text messages--in which researchers sent recent high-school graduates and their parents a series of eight to ten text-message reminders of key tasks to complete over the summer--is just as effective in increasing the rate of students who successfully make the change to college.
A little “summer pushing” could be a key step in getting students all the way across the finish line.

The Key to College Success: Summer
Facts	The summer before college throws        dangers to high-school graduates.
College life is challenging and needs students’         .
Reasons for college failure	Many misfortunes happening to future freshmen are related to        .
Future freshmen have false         about college life.
Tasks related to going to college may create some       for a certain group of high-school graduates.
Finance may become a threat        to those who can give good academic performance.
	Get ready, as the level of preparations really does       .
Future freshmen may be recommended to       to “fellow advisers”.
Text messages can be used as        of completing key tasks.