Congratulations on Berkeley! I am a current freshman in the Bay Area and MIT is my dream school. Do you how much of a factor is courseload/AP enrollment? My school only offers APs for juniors and seniors and I would be self-studying most of them. I just want to know how much it is worth to have a few extra APs. Also, I do not have a particular area of STEM I am interested in. I love STEM as a whole and a conjunction of subjects such as Chemical/Mechanical Engineering. How would you recommend me to find an obsolete field I am interested in and demonstrate excellency? Again, I am so happy for you and thank you so much for your time!
Thank you so much Neha. I will look into those summer research programs in 9th and 10th summer. Also right now I am thinking of CS or Computer engineering but am confused whether doing research or working in labs (for example this summer am doing a one week program which is about modern genomic analysis by combining molecular techniques used in the laboratory with computer analysis). Would that be helpful in my path of CS or CE later on although it focuses on Bio as well?
Neha, can you please elaborate on "For about $5K, there are very good programs at UCSC, Florida, and Iowa that will give you the credentials to get you off the ground. Once you have that experience and a referral from your PI there, you can start looking for free research internships and work with professors. " , by providing the program names.
Of course!
UCSC = UCSC Science Internship Program
Florida = University of Florida Student Science Training Program
Iowa = University of Iowa Secondary Student Training Program
Florida is for current juniors only, but the other two are open for all.
Youâre welcome! A one week program wonât be of much use unless you plan to use it as a stepping stone to do something more impactful later. For example, all my research experiences were at least 3 months long. However, as long as youâre using CS, research in bio as well wonât hurt! I did a lot of computational biology in high school.
Thank you! To get the checkmark on ârigorous courseloadâ for colleges, you should be taking the most number of APs in your school, and maybe even go a bit higher. For example, I took 16 and my school offered 14. If you take 7 and your school offers 5, youâre in the same category. Disregard the foreign language APs (since you canât take more than 1, realistically), and count up the number of APs that your school offers, then take that many plus maybe one more. For anyone else other than the OP reading this, Iâm only advising this sort of AP courseload because weâre both from Bay Area, which is notoriously competitive.
If youâre undecided on your major, try a summer program or take a dual enrollment class! The intersection of Chem and Mech includes Materials Science, by the way.
Hi, Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I am pretty impressed with the number of research papers you got published; I am also doing couple of data analysis type of research; can you please tell me what is the most convenient way to get them published. Any recommendations on where to get them published?
Hey! Congrats on your acceptances theyâre so amazing! I was wondering if you know if awards/summer programs are âbetterâ than research? Or is it vice versa? Also, how do you get into research without doing the summer programs that you need to pay for (i donât want my parents to have to pay for them) Also, Iâm going to start a job that teaches kids coding, would this be a good ec? EECS at berkeley is my dreammm
congrats
For privacy I wonât share where I published mine, but I would encourage you to try publishing in youth journals. Getting Science or IEEE is super hard for a high schooler and your work gets subjected to all sorts of peer-reviewed criticism, which is neither mentally healthy nor worth it at this stage.
Thank you so much! It depends on which award, NMSF/AP Scholar is less valued than research, but colleges would take a USAMO/USAPhO winner over a researcher. Same with the summer program, if itâs a precollege program where youâd just take courses, absolutely try to find research or an internship instead. But if itâs MOP, SSP, TASP, RSI, etc., do the summer program. I completely understand if you donât want to drop 5K on it, I was hesitant to do that as well. Some alternatives are reaching out to do research with a community college professor over the summer (theyâre usually more amenable than uni profs), or getting startup experience. Really the only point of paid summer research programs is getting the credibility to apply for labs and internships with profs at big universities. If you can prove your credibility another way, do it!
Thank you so much for the help! Iâm aiming to qualify for USACO Gold by senior year, do you think this would be good? Iâve also recently landed a job teaching kids coding, really looking forward to this but Iâm wondering if itâs worth the time of commitment, any advice on that? and for summer programs the one i applied to isnât quite as prestigious as rsi, but itâs called MORPH and is run by harvard students (completely free too!)thanks :))
Math, my nemesis⊠If you enjoy it and you want to do mathy stuff all summer, then of course, go for it! Itâll give you exposure to hard math and youâll be able to decide whether you want to pursue it further. Given that itâs free, looks like a win-win. It looks like theyâre taking only 40 students, and I donât know how many will apply, so good luck! USACO gold is great, and itâll support an already strong record, but it wonât make you a shoo-in like platinum or some other Olympiads will. If your coding job is paid, then put in as much time as you want. I held a job tutoring math for all four years for the money, not the resume. It wonât help you too much, but it shows that you have work experience, which is good.
Thank you Neha, I am new to the reaserach and method of publication of research papers, You suggested to try youth journals, can you please provide the name of a good youth science journal where i can connnect. Or a good web resource where i can find youth journals. Thank you !!
You can try science4youth or Google search some youth journals.
Hi Neha! Congrats on everything! I had a few questions about research:
1/You mentioned that you did a lot of different research projects/internships. How did you list them on your common app? Did you categorize them all as CS research or did you split them up separately?
2/Is getting published in a journal more/less prestigious than ISEF awards?
3/Does manuscript in preparation add value to your college app? For example if you have sent it to be reviewed but it wonât be published until after you apply. Can you still list that?
4/Are youth journals considered prestigious?
5/If I havenât gotten into any prestigious summer program, does that limit my chances at a top school?
Thank you so much and youâre so inspiring!
How does one become guest student of the week, may I ask?
Hi I was committed to UCLA, but then Vanderbilt accepted me off of their waitlist. Vanderbilt is a little bit more pricey, but do you think itâs worth the money?
What did you do during your sophomore year that you think helped you get into those schools?
Thank you so much! 
- This differs from application to application. For my MIT and HPS apps, I wanted to stress the duality of my extracurriculars, so I squished all my CS research into one slot and my internships in one slot to make room for my humanities ECs. For the UC, UT, Purdue, and UIUC apps (all the publics), I wanted to focus my application on CS, so I split them all up.
2+4. Getting published is less prestigious due to the competition of ISEF, and youth journals arenât as prestigious as Science, IEEE or NiH. - You can absolutely list it! And if you get it published any time between November to February, you can update the schools that havenât given you decisions yet.
- See my answer in #53.