My daughter got into SSP for Astrophysics and is super excited! She also understands it is a big honor.
She is concerned, though, that she will not have an independent research project at the end.
We would love to hear from alums and also get advice on independent research, in general.
She did work (remotely) on a solo project with a professor last summer as part of a more local program and created a poster and presented for the other participants but the professor was very clear at the start that this was a learning experience and she shouldn’t expect it to result in a science fair project or paper.
She does not have a science research program at her high school and many of the local and regional feeder fairs require the high school to support the student entries with chaperones (there is one that does not).
She has two more applications that might come through: Brookhaven National Lab (BNL HSRP) and NYU GSTEM.
I think she should accept SSP and go and have a great time learning and if she wants to do independent research separately before or after she can approach a professor about possibly mentoring her. The difficulty is while she is bright, talented, and motivated, none of us really knows the logistics or anything about working in research independently and publishing it or submitting it to a fair.
Congrats! My dd was rejected. I’m wondering where the gaps are. Could you share your daughter’s stats and reasoning of what helped her get in? Thank you so much in advance.
I think it is like highly selective colleges (but there are fewer of them)—they can probably create 3+ classes of equally qualified students so it comes down to how the people reading the applications decide to build this particular year’s cohort. I know it is hard not to take it personally but beyond being qualified (which most kids who apply are), it really is subjective from there.
She was rejected from RSI, BU RISE Internship, and YSPA. Waitlisted at Belin Blank SSTP. She hasn’t heard from HSHSP but I know acceptances have come out. She is young so did not apply to any that required 16+.
STATS:
From Long Island (NY), very average public school, female, not an URM, not low-income
SAT 1590 (800 M, 790 V, single and only HS sitting); PSAT/NMSQT - perfect score
UW 4.0, lots of APs (including AP CS -5, AP Bio - 5, AP Calc BC - 5, and AP Physics this year); Stanford ULO Linear Algebra; school doesn’t rank but likely in the top 3 in her class
Some awards but not top-tier (her high school doesn’t really participate in any of these)
ETA: Summer Research in bioinformatics (but no science fair entry or published paper)
ECs: FIRST Robotics (Dean’s List Semi-Finalist) President of Science Club (did Science Olympiad and medaled in two events); USACO (Silver); Music; Girl Scouts
Lots of volunteer hours (Presidential Service Gold) including her GS Gold Award project on encouraging girls in computer science and also has run Astronomy workshops for younger GS
Excellent writer
Not sure how the LOR were—her teachers love her and I am sure they intended to write good letters but we don’t really know how good they are at writing recs
I had 1 publisher paper , 4 pre prints, JSHS Finalist , Regional ISEF fair place, MIT summer program participant last year, bio informatics research experience in MIT, presented in 3 conferences, App Challenge winner
Got Rejected. Zero transparency on how they decide
What was your SAT score? For SSP, what I’ve heard is if you get 1600 SAT you get in. If you look at @Nemesis_Artemis , they have 1590 SAT. That plus non-stem activities/awards like community awards, Congressional/Gold Award etc seems to put people on top. I’d like validation of this though.
SSP is very selective and has a very good admission track record. Congrats.
I do not know about Astro. For biochem it paves the way to a top 10 university. But for an Ivy, if she’s not URM she should also show long term interest either through college level courses or research.
Research in STEM is not an easy task that can be done on the side. Maybe she can get the BNL one since it is still virtual. My dd went for CSHL Partners for the Future. She worked in the lab 12h per week August-March as a Senior. It was a huge commitment that paid off.
Edit: I do not know why the research word links to something, but I did not link it.
Yeah, it does that for some reason. She definitely has university-level coursework. Did yours publish or enter a project? Or is doing the work, even if it doesn’t organically lead to publishing or a science fair project, sufficient?
She would definitely be excited to work with a lab or a professor August-March. Any tips for finding a lab or a professor who would be willing to work with a high school student? Her primary interest is computer science but she is also interested in robotics, neuroscience, and astrophysics.
Her school had offered to nominate her for CSHL Partners for the Future…but we live about an hour away so we’d have to add 2 hours commuting time every time she went. I was worried it would be too much to juggle with applications and robotics and everything else. Hopefully that was the right call!
We did not know either and her school also does not have a research program, that’s why she went for CSHL even if we live quite far away. The CSHL researchers were young, enthusiastic, and overall wonderful people. It was a lot to juggle and she did not organize her writing in time for Regeneron, but she made it to a “real” journal, not high school level, which will help her get an internship as undergrad. All PIs wrote letters of rec for the kids and that was a rather cool thing. There were three kids that made it to Regeneron. Two of them from private schools, though.
Some internships were more computer science/ data analysis oriented and the kids did not really spend time in the lab. Her was a lot of lab work and she had to be there.
The advice she received was to take coursework directly at the university not double enrollment or online math/physics classes.
She really enjoyed it. It was a great experience for her. She learned a lot of very interesting things, and got to do it with some very smart, engaged, and kind and helpful peers. And they offer a lot of support after the program for the kids as well. One of the cool things is that after completing the program you become an alumnus for life.