What should I do in the summer before senior year of high school? What do colleges like better?

So I am a Junior in High School and i live in NY. My unweighted average is like an 86 or 87. I have not taken the SATs yet but i think i will get between 560-640 in all of the sections.

I want to do somthing this summer like

1) travel with AFS either to Ghana, Costa Rica. I am very interested in doing this, but it is a lot of $.

2) take classes at the local community college, or SUNY/CUNY schools. i would most likely take either stats or calc(i hate math & i want to get it over with & i dont qualify for any APmath in my school), photography, and spanish. I'm just afraid that all my hard work, wasting my summer will not count when i go to college for real, because i'm not going to go to a SUNY.

3)Go to this "camp" called Explo, with the senior program. it is at yale and its prep for college. Im afraid that i will not fit in because most of the college visiting trips go Hardvard. But the camp looks fun and interesting. Do colleges even care about someone going here?

what im saying is i dont have that good of an application compared to other people who have an A average and do other things. And i want to do something interesting this summer, since i out grew my summer camp a few years ago. I stayed home last summer and absolutly hated it.

and the trips to Ghana and costa rica count as community service so i will get tons of hours.

The summer before my senior year I attended college full time (away at a relatives home) and LOVED it. It helped me mature and when I did graduate and go back I was not as nervous as my friends who also went to same school. I already knew where everything was, how to find my classes, and what to expect in the classroom. It wasn't the structured program like Explo your describing, but was a real college semester and reflected what my life would be life at college.

It was my choice to return to the same school after graduation, but by no means required. SUNY/CUNY classes will be good at any real school you decide to attend. I'd go for it! I'm glad I did.

Go to Costa Rica after you graduate from college and can afford it.

Colleges don't really care what you do with your summer, so long as you're doing something to gain experience and enrich yourself in some fashion. You could take a job at the mall and still spin it into a great application essay. Pick whatever activity appeals most to you and that you think you'll get the most out of in general, not just when you send in your application.

Colleges don't care what you do in the summer. They care about marks. You could have gotten straight A and worked 3 part time jobs but all they would care about were the straight As.

-----If you do not have any, I would suggest spending the summer getting real-world job experience in your field. If you have never had a paid job, any paid job will do. The working world is very different from the academic world of the student. You need to know about the working world, even if you never ever have to work for a living. What colleges "like" for you to do in the summer depends on what your field is. A job in a fast-food restaurant may greatly impress colleges if you field is "Hotel and Restaurant Management"; less so if your field is "Nuclear Physics" or "Poetry". ---Jim

The best thing to do is get an internship.
It shows motivation and independence.
Plus if you're lucky, its paying.