<p>Has anyone participated in this program in the past? How competitive is it to get accepted? How much work is the year-round component? What percent of students who participate in the year round component are invited to Houston for the summer experience? </p>
<p>Can anyone provide details?</p>
<p>I would like to know about this too. :-)</p>
<p>Ds applied last week, so I will post with any details if he is selected to participate.</p>
<p>I would love to hear the answers to these questions too. Come on attendees give us the skinny.</p>
<p>I think it varies by Aerospace Scholars program. </p>
<p>For WISH, acceptance seemed reasonably competitive. Most everyone at the summer program seemed very qualified (high scores, solid extracurriculars). There were a few girls who had almost no extracurricular experience since they were from small, isolated towns that lacked the resources - I think their acceptances shows the importance of the essays. Anecdotally, I know someone who was extremely qualified (seemed more qualified than me, tbh) and didn’t get in. </p>
<p>The year round component is a ton of work (more than my school classes). The work was assigned in two-week sections and mostly easy, but each section had a technical research paper and that was work-intensive, mine averaged at 7 pages. However, the grading was easy, and while fewer than 33% of participants were invited to the summer program, I think that if you adjust for those who didn’t complete all the work then that number approaches 50%.
WISH was national so I imagine it was a bit more competitive, but I have friends who did the Virginia and Texas programs and have heard similar things from them. I know WISH followed an almost identical curriculum to the Texas program.</p>
<p>Don’t be deterred by the work-intensive application, it’s an amazing experience. The online portion was work-intensive but I learned so much (and was able to bring much of that learning back to my schoolwork and other extracurriculars). The summer portion was amazingly fun, and the speakers were great. Not only is what they’re talking about really interesting, but just the exposure to the various fields was really cool. Additionally, it’s decently prestigious, and I got an award, class, leadership position, and summer program out of it for my college app. If you’re only doing it for your app, don’t waste your time - those girls were easy to spot and mostly dropped out.</p>
<p>If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!</p>
<p>My son got the acceptance email today.</p>
<p>@Texasmomof3, Congratulations. :-).
Also, I sent you a PM.</p>
<p>Ds is doing the HAS program for Texas residents. The application required two essays (why are you applying and tell us about your academic background). You needed a counselor rec, a teacher rec and a rec from your state congressman/senator. </p>
<p>The stats that he/his counselor told NASA include:</p>
<p>4.0 uw GPA
4.6 w GPA
Rank 1/796
Race: half white, half Asian
5s on Eng Lang and World Hist in 10th grade
Taking 5 AP classes this year
Previous engineering camps at Vanderbilt and UT-A
Won award at UT-A for a video game program he wrote
Won regional writing award (Bobby Bragan)
President NJHS
Member Mu Alpha Theta and Rho Kappa
Founded school’s UIL spelling team, lettered as a sophomore
Varsity swim team since 9th grade, made regionals starting 10th grade
Regional club swim team in off season
Top ranked swimmer on team
Coached youth soccer for four seasons
Volunteers feeding senior citizens every Tuesday in summers since age 13 ( 5 hours per Tuesday)
Has sold/published over 30 articles
His calculus teacher this year wrote his rec</p>
<p>Caltechjpl: I couldn’t figure out how to send a return PM from my phone so I just posted here.</p>
<p>Thank you so much. :-)</p>
<p>Datherine, thank you for your explanation. I shared this with ds last night, to make sure he understood the work load expectation. I haven’t seen the email to him from NASA, but the part about work in two week segments was in their initial information they sent to him last night.</p>