i am currently a junior in california, and i have been an active participant in plenty of UCSD’s programs for high school students. would this actually contribute to any possible chances at the school? ever since i did my first UCSD high school summer program, i fell in love with the school and have been attending other programs they hold. thank you!
I did two programs at UCSD and also enjoyed them. I was accepted there last year. While these programs may show the school that you are more likely to matriculate and thus more likely to be accepted, they will not necessarily compensate for an applicant with sub-par stats. If you fall within their ranges of acceptance then you are more likely to be accepted than if you had not done these programs.
I think COSMOS may help but I don’t think it’ll have too much weight on admissions. It’s the experience that you get out of these summer programs that matters (and how you write about these in your essays). Summer programs that carry more weight are the extremely competitive ones like TASP and NIH research ones. You don’t have to do these though. Summers can be spent doing volunteer work, helping your family, coaching sports, etc. Again, it depends on what you learned from your experiences and how you write about them 
thank you! do you mind me asking what your stats were?
thank you!
I hope you were asking me.
GPA: 3.9/4.3
SAT: 2150
APs: 10- World History (4), Environmental Sciences (4), English Language (5), United States History (5), English Literature (5), Spanish Language and Culture (4), Calculus AB (4), Psychology (5), United States Government (5), and Microeconomics (4)
Accepted to USC and all UC’s but UCLA, currently attending UC Berkeley.