Ahh. The summer before college. What freedom.

Time for that last fling with your high school honey.

Time for chilling at the beach with friends.

Time for reading a book assigned by your college to all incoming freshmen.

No, that last one is not a misprint.

For students on their way to Roanoke College, Virginia Tech, James Madison University and bunches of other colleges, a freshman reading project is just another part of becoming a college student.

"It gives students a common basis for discussion among themselves and also with faculty and staff on campus," said Adrienne Bloss, assistant dean for curricular and faculty development at Roanoke College. "It's also an introduction to the intellectual life of the college campus."

Over the past five to 10 years, college reading projects have gained traction, according to the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina.

A majority of local colleges have reading programs, but not all. Radford University, for example, does not. But administrators there have discussed starting one, especially in all-freshman dorms.

At colleges with the programs, students will typically discuss the books with faculty and staff in beginning writing or introduction to college life courses or during orientation sessions before classes begin.

Programs throughout the year sometimes even feature the authors or subjects of the books. And the book can often serve as an ice-breaker among new students who may have little in common.

Two of the most popular books are "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich and "Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers" by Alissa Quart, said Jennifer Latino of the University of South Carolina.

Tech used the latter for its common book project last year and will again this fall. Previous selections at Tech were "Einstein's Dreams" by Alan Lightman and "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel.

Incoming Hokie freshmen received the books at orientation during July. This year is the sixth of the program. Monique Dufour, program coordinator, said the book project is not mandatory.

A note in the book introduced students to the book project: "Read it this summer. We're not asking you to agree with it. We're simply inviting you to consider the issues and questions that it raises. ... We hope you will choose to read the book. After all, learning is always optional."

In a way, it's like a lot of things in college -- it's highly encouraged, and some faculty members may expect that you have done the reading.

"Having a book that doesn't smack of academics and isn't didactic helps," Dufour said.

For many high school students, summer reading is nothing new.

Ryan Scott and Matthew Via, two incoming Hokies in engineering from Midlothian who attended last week's orientation sessions, said they had to read books every summer in high school.

"As long as they're not burdensome, I don't mind," Via said. "If I have to read one book in three weeks, it's not going to kill me."

Tech spends about $20,000 to $25,000 each year to buy enough copies for its 5,000 freshmen, plus another 3,000 to 4,000 for staff and faculty.

Colleges with book projects tend to buy the books for their students -- at a much-reduced bulk price.

Roanoke College spokeswoman Teresa Gereaux said her school spent about $5,000 for 1,000 copies of "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi this year, at a 60 percent discount.

Roanoke College mails books to incoming students with a letter introducing the program, which is in its sophomore year. The students will discuss the book once they arrive on campus for orientation later this month, but they will also have a chance to explore its themes in a film series later in the year.

The choice at Roanoke College this year is a little different from the typical college reading assignment. "Persepolis" is a graphic novel, written from the perspective of a girl growing up in Iran during the revolution.

At a recent discussion about the book, some faculty and staff members were turned off because of its format -- which looks like a comic book -- and were concerned that parents might not get the right impression of the college from the book.

But many others thought the book would engage students in a way that traditional novels or nonfiction books don't.

Controversy over book choices is not uncommon. The most notable came when the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill chose the Quran as its common book in 2002.

More recently, a member of South Carolina's Commission on Higher Education decried Clemson University's choice of "Truth & Beauty: A Friendship" by Ann Patchett because of its sexual content.

Independent committees of faculty, staff, students and sometimes parents usually are charged with selecting a college's book. At Tech, a committee will take submissions this year for a book to be used in 2007 and 2008.

Dufour said the committee usually receives 50 to 60 submissions, whittles that to about 15 to read and then decides on one.

Though no college can be sure that every student will read the book, administrators say that evaluations indicate that most students read a good portion of the books.

"When you do it with 5,000 students, you have to realize that not every student is going to read it and not every professor will have a chance to get to it," said Ron Daniel, associate provost at Tech.

"But it is a big value for students overall to have that common experience."