<p>What should I do? I need suggestions. I'm not working at all this summer, so I have all the time in the world. I really need a hook, the closest thing I have no is tons of EC's and 1st in State for Astronomy in a Science Competition.</p>
<p>.....What can I do?</p>
<p>enjoy the summer and the fact that you are not slaving away at work for 8 hours(or more) a day?</p>
<p>How about volunteer work? Or pick up a hobby, like knitting.</p>
<p>You won't pick up a "hook' by simply doing something over the summer. Admissions committes have been doing their jobs for a long time and can usually pick up on when a student is doing something just for admissions purposes and when a student is doing something that they are really passionate about (passion will get you admitted quicker) as it shows through out the application.</p>
<p>What are you interested in?</p>
<p>Do some really great research and get published by March of next year.</p>
<p>I absolutely LOVE physics/math/astronomy. I mean, it is my passion.</p>
<p>I would take a research opportunity somewhere in a heartbeat, as long as I didn't have to pay or it wasn't expensive.</p>
<p>Some of the summer programs at colleges are $5000+, no way me or my parents are paying that much, even if we have it.</p>
<p>But I'm not talking about taking classes or anything, researching in those fields would be an absolute dream come true. How can I find things like that? I'm in Central NJ.</p>
<p>So instead of going to a program, find a mentor. If youre in central NJ you have all the schools in NJ, Philly and NY at your disposal.</p>
<p>Look up faculty of some colleges online and look to see if any professors are doing interesting work.</p>
<p>have fun and relax?</p>
<p>When you guys say research, do you mean research on what others have already done or find something amazingly new?
And when it comes to publishing, would they publish a research paper that contains information already known? </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>It's kinda late to find a hook, unless you make a spectacular discovery or invention. I would suggest community service or something</p>
<p>"I would take a research opportunity somewhere in a heartbeat, as long as I didn't have to pay or it wasn't expensive."</p>
<p>If you move heaven and earth to pay for or create a research opportunity that you work and do well in, that would impress colleges. It also would impress colleges if you, for instance, worked an unpaid research opportunity that you moved heaven and earth to get, and you also worked another job (could be fast food or something) to help save money for college. </p>
<p>Colleges know that students only take such lengths if they are passionately interested in what they're doing. So, of course, only bother to do something like this if research is something you love. Don't do something like this to impress colleges. Follow your bliss and create opportunities to allow you to dive into what makes you happy.</p>
<p>If you are really passionate about astronomy, you can start a star-gazing club or something in you local community. You can introduce the children living in your area to astronomy and write about it in your essay.</p>
<p>if you're into astronomy, try to find a simple job at like, a nearby observatory or something, help out at the children's museum or science museum teaching bout astronomy, something that shows you're interested in it and that the 1st place in astronomy wasn't cuz you wanted to show off to college but that you love learning bout it. if you're not that much into astronomy, but into sciences, i'd recommend research. i don't know where you're from, but for me, in southern cali, i did a program at uci called the acs (american cancer society) program, where it was a free program in which we were able to do research and work with the professors at the cancer department. for me, getting into college (im in the ucsd med program, and no, i'm not bragging, juss saying i have a pretty good idea of what i'm talking about) was a lot about research, cuz i did two consecutive summers of it....the acs program was junior-senior summer (only open then) and the one i did before that was ysp, a 6 week research program at uc davis that costs about 4k...not worth all the money in my opinion, but the experience was good and it got me into doing research the next year. and about the paper, if you can publish a paper, it will help a lot, cuz if you think about it, many grad students haven't even published (co-published in this case) a paper, and for a high school student to do it, it means a lot.</p>