<p>accepted! if anyone has decided to go, please pm me</p>
<p>Does anyone know if the process is need blind? Or would applying for aid (though possibly qualifying as “high income”) have hurt my chances? I didn’t know whether they reviewed financials after a decision, so I just wanted to know.</p>
<p>From what I know, it is need blind, as I’m paying ~15% of the $3300. So that shouldn’t hurt your chances.</p>
<p>I’m fairly certain they are need blind</p>
<p>haven’t got anything yet… i’m freak’n NERVOUS >_____<strong><em><
'cause so far nothing turned out well… (applied to four, rejected from two already =</em></strong>=)</p>
<p>@soydecali, do you mind telling me your income bracket? i also applied for financial aid, but i just want to get a general idea of how generous they are.</p>
<p>-> PM, guys :)</p>
<p>Accepted!!</p>
<p>i emailed them asking if they received my app, and they emailed back that my app is complete and that i’ll receive decisions by may 1. now im wondering…do they send out acceptance emails as they go?</p>
<p>I got alternate. Does anyone know how many alternates there are or approximately how many get in?</p>
<p>i still haven’t heard back…does this mean rejection? was it rolling admissions?</p>
<p>It appears to be on a rolling basis.</p>
<p>ahh yay accepted! Now I really need to decide…Garcia MRSEC, Baylor HSSSRP, UF-SSTP, or this one. Any ideas? I’m thinking of majoring in Biomedical engineering, then continue to med school. As all of these programs offer pretty much the same experience, which one is the most selective?</p>
<p>Wow, you got into Garcia! I would definitely go there, as I know many top-tier projects that went to Intel ISEF, Siemens, etc. Plus, I heard its really fun. </p>
<p>But woooow, Garcia is supposed to be hecka selective!</p>
<p>Congrats!</p>
<p>Anybody know how many applicants there were for this year?</p>
<p>anyone definately going yet? I had to send in my acceptance to arrive by wednesday and i chose hshsp over uc davis ysp and iowa sstp…hope i made the right decision=/</p>
<p>anyway someone should start a fb group when more people know that theyre going hahah</p>
<p>I’m definitely going. I chose it over my state’s governor’s school. Seems pretty legit and I’m paying very little. Also, since last year 24/200something were accepted, I think that the acceptance rate is < 10%, so definitely selective, considering SSP is around 10% as well.</p>
<p>when do we find out when we are accepted? is it my US post mail, or by email?</p>
<p>Dont waste time to apply for HSHSP if your scores are no good, because HSHSP cares about only scores, not essays and recommendations.</p>
<p>My daughter applied for HSHSP last year but was rejected.
She was a straight A student with all AP science and math classes.
Actually she is the top student among 500 students.
She spent a lot of time writing essays to show her passion for science research because HSHSP pretends it considers essays and recommendation letters very important.
The recommendation letters were very strong.
To be honest, many teachers were willing to write a recommendation letter for her.
The teachers even showed the letters to her if she was satisfied with them, although the teachers were not supposed to do it.
However, she had one weakness, SAT score.
She focused on only SAT subjects and AP tests in her 10th grade. And she spent much time in volunteering at a hospital during her second summer after having attended a month-long local summer program. She had prepared for SAT about a month right before her 11th grade began. Her PSAT and SAT scores were not that high (not too bad either) due to CR and writing. But she thought the scores were not that important because HSHSP emphasized essays and recommendation letters. This was a trap to attract many applicants, and she was rejected.
Her teachers, one of whom had written recommendation letters for the previous years summer program, were surprised. They said, Why was such a good student rejected?
She felt despair first time in her life. There was no summer program for her. We live in Michigan and she applied only for HSHSP.
But she escaped from despair and actually got a motive.
During her third summer, she continued to volunteer and got an internship at the hospital.
She tried to improve her SAT score and spent much time preparing for college application essays and researched each college for supplementary essays. She took SAT again and got 2400.
Now she received admissions from MIT, Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern and U of Michigan.
Again, dont waste time to apply for HSHSP if your scores are no good. Instead, during summer, focus on improving your SAT score and college application essays while doing community service (she spent so much time at the hospital).</p>
<p>MichiganDad</p>
<p>MichiganDad: Thanks for posting that! I don’t feel so bad about my rejection now, not that I’ve gotten an email, but I’ll assume. And your post has given me hope.
The situation you described seems to be pretty much the same one I’m in right now. The only program I applied to was HSHSP (which I highly regret), and so far I haven’t heard a word from them, which I’ll assume means rejection 
I’m not the top of my class like your daughter was, but I have a 3.975 uw gpa (one B+… killer), which I’m sure puts me in the the top 5% of the 500+ kids in my grade. My school doesn’t actually rank students though. I’m in 4 AP classes this year, three of which are math/science. I know one of my recommendation letters was stellar because the teacher who wrote it new a lot about the program and wanted to help me get in. And I don’t mean to brag, but my essays were pretty amazing. I threw in a slick combination of personal experience in science (in general, no previous research), passion for my extracurriculars including band and boy scouts, and executed both essays with myriad rhetorical strategies that actually flowed, including zeugma (you know what I’m talking about if you’re in ap english)! I thought it was a work of art. But as it turns out, it was a waste of time and effort.<br>
I believe, just like in your daughter’s case, my downfall was my test score. I submitted my ACT. I don’t want to post exactly what it was, but I assure you it was far above average, just not stellar. The reading is what killed me! grr. I’ll heed your advice, and this summer I will hone my testing skills and hopefully get a 35-36 ACT. And I’ll take the SAT as well, for the first time.<br>
This summer I still really want to do research, so I’m going to try to get a mentor at a local university. And on the upside, I’ll be able to practice piano and horn this summer, unlike I would if I had to stay on campus. Additionally, I was accepted to Interlochen this summer, but I preferred research over music even though I love music. So I declined my invitation in hopes that HSHSP would accept me because the deadline for the invitation was early April. Bad decision. Now I have nothing to do this summer. Hopefully I’ll manage to find a mentor and practice my instruments. Then maybe I can be first chair all state orchestra, or… I don’t know… Hopefully something good will happen. I’ve always dreamed of going to MIT and other top-tier schools, but I have almost nothing impressive to add to my app. And congratulations to your daughter on acceptance to all those schools!</p>
<p>How do you know if you got in or not?
I did not take the SATs yet, so will that significantly hurt my chances?</p>