As dumb as this sounds, I am showing commitment to be able to get into a prestigious university for medicine such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, and the other Ivy Leagues. It’s been my dream to go to Stanford and from freshman year of high school, I am planning to take some kind of camps regarding leadership, math and science @ Stanford or UC Berkeley. It’s going to be a long way since I live in Florida currently, but I’ll do my best. I know those schools look into leadership a lot, and I can handle the grades, but I’m a little introverted and shy. I’m trying to work harder to not be, so I think hopefully taking leadership courses there (and I’m taking one currently as a class with credits online) will help me out. So will putting Summer Programs show anything? And if possible, can you list any competitions (Math, Science or even essay-writing) that universities consider fantastic and impressive.
I know for my age being a freshman it is a little odd to start worrying already, but I mean it when it would be a dream.
One last thing, if I placed 45th place in the “world” in the World Education Games [More specifically, the Spelling section] would that be an achievement I could put? (It’s legit and is backed by UNICEF and 3p Learning.) Laugh away, but I got this in the 5th grade and even though placing in Top 50 seems like a great achievement, I got it 4 years back! Would they even care? But on that topic, it reopened this year and I will participate this year. Is that something you guys would put on your college application?
Thank you for dealing with a over-concerned odd freshman girl, your help is greatly appreciated. Sorry for straying a bit off topic, and I also apologize if this is in the wrong forum section, my original idea was to talk about summer programs, but I guess my additional questions took up more space. Thanks again!
Yeah, you can definitely include summer programs in an application. I went to one during the summer after my Junior year and it was a great experience. Most of the students there were rising seniors too, but there were a few juniors. I would suggest going as a rising senior, both from a maturity standpoint and to get the most out of it, since it is pre-COLLEGE. Also, there were a lot of kids at the program I went to who traveled from across the country or even internationally.
The only negative aspect of Pre-college programs is that they are rarely cheap or even free. The ones that are cheap tend to be shorter and less comprehensive, from what I’ve seen, and the good free programs are very competitive and many of them are geared towards underrepresented students (I don’t know if you are or not). If you do go to a Pre-College program, I would go to one that actually offers college credit. A leadership and science camp sounds really nice, but if it doesn’t offer college credit, it wouldn’t be cost-effective. I know my parents would not pay $10,000 for me to go to a program and not get credit for the classes. You still have a lot of time (most don’t allow students under 16 in dorms anyways), so don’t stress too much.
In terms of your World Education Games achievement, that is great but you really can’t put it on an application. Colleges are concerned with what you’re doing in high school, not elementary or middle school.
Good luck!
Writing–Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. YoungArts is another prestigious one, but you can’t really submit essays to it.
For math and science, you can always try taking the qualifying tests for the individual olympiads (USABO, F=ma test for the USAPhO, USNCO, AMC).
As for summer programs, there are two kinds:
-Programs always held by and at elite universities that cost an absurd amount of money, aren’t selective, and don’t last very long, and
-Programs (generally held or sponsored by elite universities) that don’t cost much (if they do cost a lot, they have very good financial aid), last a long time, and are selective.
Don’t put the former on your college app, but put the latter. Do something because it interests you, not because you think colleges will like it (and to be honest, colleges don’t like seeing that you did a precollegiate program that isn’t selective because most of what that proves is that your parents are rich). You still have several years to figure out what you’re going to do, though.