NCSSM CO '19 Questions Thread

Hey everyone! As a member of the NCSSM class of 2018 and being that it’s miniterm so I’ve got (comparatively) a lot of free time, I wanted to make a post here for y’all prospective CO '19ers to ask me (and others) questions and such.

Hey, I have several q’s:
Does NCSSM give research opportunities to anyone(what is eligibility)?
Is ncssm a ripoff for those from the triangle or charlotte?
I am ranked in top 10 in my school atm, should I go to ncssm?
How do I take research in Biology/ chemistry in junior year at ncssm (I have taken AP bio in freshman and taking AP chem atm)?

How many people from ncssm go to ivies, stanford, duke, caltech, and MIT?
Is there any eligibility to participate in USABO and USAchO from ncssm?
Does the school provide the resources to compete in Intel science fair (and similar things)?

thanks for answering!

@SairacUchiha
To participate in the actual research classes (RBio, RChem, RCompSci, Mentorship, etc.), you must apply and they select a certain number of applicants to participate in the program. I don’t know if it’s a ripoff for triangle kids or charlotte kids because I’m not from there, but I’d say it’s better for them than others because they have a better chance at taking advantage of the opportunities (due to their higher rigor of curriculum).
I was valedictorian at my old school before coming and there’s not a day in my life that I don’t consider whether it would’ve been better for me to stay home but honestly I think it’s the best opportunity (and tbh it’s led me to consider whether i want to attend an ivy anymore).
I talked about rbio/rchem earlier so there’s that- you’re gonna want to take some rigorous bio/chem classes first trimester that you can always drop because rbio and rchem both take up essentially your entire afternoon every day.

In 2015 we had 7 accepted to MIT, 4 to stanford, 36 to duke, 8 to caltech, 4 to harvard, 8 to yale, and 7 to princeton. 2014 was a better year for HYPSM-type schools but do keep in mind that your application will be considered versus other NCSSM students. (The acceptance rate to HYPSM from NCSSM isn’t much better than from the general population, however it is much better to duke and caltech).

NCSSM competes in bio and chem Olympiad, so yes.
Idk what you really mean by “resources to compete in intel science fair”, we have students that do compete in intel, Siemens, STS, etc.

hope this helps

@admiral12 what is the selection process and how selective is it?

@SairacUchiha you submit an application (with recs, etc) Idk how selective the R programs are (probably more selective than mentorship) but mentorship had 75 spots and 200 applications this year