<p>^^ It depends on which mentor you get paired with and the first few days, how assertive you are in getting a good project set up with that mentor. I thought the research quality was great. I got to do graduate student level stuff and had access to pretty much everything with plenty of guidance from my graduate students. In my experience, I’d say expect to be independent a lot of the time. My professor and graduate students weren’t always available for me to ask for help because of teaching, children, getting married (pretty much all of the graduate students got engaged and or married at the same time when I was in the lab 
so funny). I think the chemistry department had some pretty awesome projects, but I may be biased haha</p>
<p>My S attended the program in his rising Jr. Summer. I would say it’s not a prestigious program, but it’s a good research learning experience for under (16) age students. Not many research programs accept under age students or sophomores. My S’s academic stats at the time: GPA 4.0 ( w GPA > 4.5); 4 APs including 2 science, 1 history, and 1 language; AMC10 AMIE qualifier, Decent standard test scores （full scores or close ) , and ECs.
If you are a rising Sr., or over 16, you will have choices for other more prestigious summer research programs. Hope this helps for future applicants.</p>
<p>wishhimwell, you made a good point. This sounds like a good choice for my DD17 down the road. What is the youngest age limit?</p>
<p>@4beardolls, I don’t know the youngest age limit. From what I understand, SSTP is for high school students. In last year’s program, there’re most of sophomores (rising Jr.) and with few Jrs (rising Sr.). My S had lot of fun there for sure.</p>
<p>How is the “engineering” lab? I put it as my first choice…since I’m a Mech. E guy but I just wanted to know what types of projects you do there. Thanks</p>
<p>Bump 10 char
And for that matter, the Chem and Physics departments?
Thanks</p>
<p>Chem is pretty good, I’m not sure for the others. I was in chemistry and it seemed like there were good projects there.</p>
<p>I think I’m comfortable with my achievements/awards, with USAJMO and stuff…but I’ve done everything but the essays. Before I begin, </p>
<p>Anything in particular that AO’s like to see in essays, or some quality that you noticed all other participants had?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Oh and in case I don’t like the engineering lab, can I switch to chem in the first few days? I heard some very positive things about the chem lab :)</p>
<p>I just got my letter from sstp-uf saying they are looking at my package, meaning now I am super nervous.
My stats aren’t very good,
GPA UW: 3.8
W: 4.7
I just took the SAT and will be taking ACT. Im not good at test taking. My PSAT: 158
Im a junior, at a florida high school. With the physical high school, I also am enrolled at an online school. (I have taken 5 classes with them, and on my 6th, 7th, and 8th.
Honors/ Activities:</p>
<p>9th grade
Clubs:
-Latin Honors Society
- Key Club
- Best Buddies
- Less than One
- Caf</p>
<p>On the website it says that they will not change the lab you are assigned to.</p>
<p>@ShellyCat you must be joking, your EC’s are amazing. However, you are on the wrong forum. This is SSTP University of Iowa, not U of Florida. But I’ve heard the Florida one is less competitive than Iowa’s, but that may or may not be true.</p>
<p>Some people at U of I attempted to change their labs, with varied success. The program definitely don’t like to. Only if you are EXTREMELY unhappy with your lab situation and/or your mentor doesn’t really know what to do with you and gives you a bad project or no project at all. The directors definitely will meet with your mentor then and have a LONG discussion before deciding anything. Nobody fully “changed” labs our year…</p>
<p>Some of us girls compared our essays… yeah… erm lots of stuff about how we love science and how research is awesome and things like that XD</p>
<p>@shellycat I thought that they first begin looking at the applications on Feb 11
I’m applying too.</p>
<p>They emailed me this morning, hopefully you will get one too!!
I really hope I get in, also sorry that I put this in the wrong forum, the uf one didn’t have as many cool people posting in it.
Ya, my essays were about
- what do you like about science? …
I told them about my love of biology, and how I like social science and that is the reason I do performing arts. - Biggest accomplishment…
I talked about how I overcame a struggle to pass a standardized test and how it gave me a strong work effort. </p>
<p>Truly my application isn’t impressive. I am hoping they are looking for someone like me, but if not :’’’’’(</p>
<p>@Shelly Don’t worry about things you can’t change (I keep telling myself this but I never believe it). I haven’t sent in my UF SSTP app yet, I’ll be sending it on on the 10th/11th which means your app was most likely the first one they have received. I hope they haven’t gotten many though…</p>
<p>Anyways, @weiscool what are the TYPES of projects you do? Are they competitive enough to enter Siemens and Intel? Thanks</p>
<p>@Chrislieto
Florida schools (like mine) don’t push programs like this, so its really unknown here, meaning less florida residence applying . I sent my app in january, so it most likely is the first.
You can always worry about thing you can’t change, because they will affect everything, you just can’t let the worries overtake your life.</p>
<p>SSTP at Iowa and Florida are completely different programs. Not related in any way except that they share a name. Really. Iowa SSTP wanted to change their name so they wouldn’t continue to be confused with Florida’s. Go to SSTP Florida for those answers. I wouldn’t know what Florida has. However, I think some people’s research is ISEF-quality, but I am not sure that they would become grand winners or anything.</p>
<p>@shellycat Good adivce, but this is the IOWA forum. Maybe start one for florida?</p>
<p>@Weiscool
i was wondering, since my sibling went to HSHSP and ended up doing well at those
competitions.</p>
<p>Wow. I really want to go this year, since I’m a sophomore, and then shoot to submit projects. But actually I’m more interested in the daily activities. I’ve seen the schedule on the website, but could you tell me about the “fun stuff” you get to do? (field trips, swimming, etc)? Thanks.</p>
<p>Oh and sorry for the slew of questions. This is the first year I get to try for some independent internships before it gets serious junior year.</p>
<p>^^Haha, it’s fine! I was just as curious about the activities when I applied.</p>
<p>Average schedule for people: breakfast at 8 or 8:30 ish, depending on how early you wanted/had to be at your lab or how long it took to get there. My lab was a 2-minute walk so not too bad. Some had to take a shuttle across campus. Stay at lab till lunch (and you can go out for lunch! I did that a few times), go back to lab until 4 ish (towards the end, most of us stayed later to finish our projects up). There was a weekly schedule with around 4 activities every week after labs, so the rest of the time was up to you. I went swimming, shopping, out to eat, etc. The days we had activities, it ranged from a weekly mahjong class and sign language class to pottery painting and lectures. We had class occasionally too after lab, but honestly everyone thought the class was a joke and terrible. It really just depended on our mood and what our RA’s could do for us - after we begged them enough, they surprised us all by sending us off to the Batman movie premier.</p>
<p>Weekends were fun - Saturdays you often went on trips. We visited an amusement park, water park, lake, river museum, etc. Sunday was open until noon, so a lot of us slept in. We had some group activities after that, like karaoke and a dance.</p>
<p>As a U of I “student” you get access to their brand-new exercise and pool facilities which are AMAZING. Seriously. There’s a lazy river and rock-climbing wall (which speaks for its awesomeness).</p>
<p>That sounds like…so… much… fun…!!
Hope I get in though, that’s proably the tail end of my questions, im just about finished with the essay. Thanks, weiscool
:D</p>