During the summer before my freshman year and this summer, I’ll be going/have gone to NASA Kennedy Space Center Space Camp. I know that colleges generally don’t give any weight to “pay to play” activities such as this, though I was wondering if this should be something to include on my college application. I also went to an AAUW camp, Tech Trek, in seventh grade, which was a program in which I had to be nominated, have filled out an application with an essay, and have been selected to participate, so would the fact that the NASA camp relates to my interests and the AAUW camp be enough to warrant including this on my applications?
Thanks (hope you’re having a good day)
Hi- I’m not the most experienced parent on this forum, so take my response with that in mind!! I’m also interested in what others have to say because my oldest will be applying to schools this fall. We had planned on adding one summer program he went to at the state university because it was competitive admission (not sure how competitive tbh!) and he had the chance to work on a nuclear engineering research project. Since nuclear engineering is his intended major, it seems like a relevant activity.
I would not mention middle school camps. I think it’s fine to mention these NASA camps if it helps fill in who you are (which I am guessing it does if you have done it 2x.) I think the comment about pay to play programs is right in the sense that it doesn’t impress addons, but it will show who you are. And that is important.
You can probably list it, especially if you are applying as a STEM student, but don’t expect it to add a lot to the application.