<p>Examples of such "prestigious programs" include SIMR (Stanford), YYGS (Yale), and all those academic ones. Other summer events include Global Glimpse and going to Nicaragua.</p>
<p>If you are a stellar students with good grades along with commitments to annual community service activities, does not having a summer program in your resume look extremely bad?</p>
<p>I'm just worried that it will look as if I did not spend my summer SIGNIFICANTLY. My school has a reading buddy program, and if I can't find any of those big programs, I'll spend my summer studying, engaging in the reading program, and finding a job. I always make the most of every experience I have, so even if they're the small things in daily life, I know I'll better myself as a person through whatever it is I end up doing.</p>
<p>I guess my main questions are: do colleges care about what you get out of a certain experience or is the actual big program itself the main catch? Are there any students at Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, UC Berkeley, etc who did not do a summer program/internship and still get in?</p>