<p>What are the most prestigious summer research programs after RSI?</p>
<p>RSI rules all, but perhaps TASP. :)</p>
<p>the olympiad camps are pretty prestigious as well; probably just a bit below rsi (i've heard of people turning down rsi for MOP though...). MOP is probably the most prestigious out of the olympiad camps though. Apart from those, TASP + RSI are basically it.</p>
<p>I had never heard of these until joining this board, so excuse me if I am wrong, but I think PROMYS for math is one, as well.</p>
<p>I agree with everything said here, but would just like to add that my eye saw "Prestigious summer programs in my pants" which was excellent.</p>
<p>Whoops, I just saw that he was talking about research programs...in which case RSI is basically it.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the olympiad camps is more prestigious than RSI simply because less people are chosen for each camp. (20 compared to as say, 80 for RSI). On the other hand, it is possible that RSI is better for college applications, as it seems that no RSI scholar has been deferred from any college except Harvard</p>
<p>The olympiad camps and RSI have completely different focuses, though.</p>
<p>Olympiad camps focus on both academia and practical applications of a specified science but emphasize </p>
<p>RSI focuses primarily on thinking above and beyond and exploring deep into a specific field (though you also gain a better overall understanding of science through peer interaction and lectures and stuff) with much more individualized attention.</p>
<p>The goal of the olympiad camps is to perform well at the international competition. The goal of RSI is to explore a specific area.</p>
<p>Questscholars also is a pretty prestigious summer program, if i'm not mistaken. It's located at Stanford, all expense paid, but they only select ~22/year. However, it's a program for low income students only.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.questscholars.org%5B/url%5D">www.questscholars.org</a></p>
<p>^^^ Hi John. I wish I could apply to Quest. But..last year or whatever, that senior that applied, I don't think he quite fit the requirements.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, like people said, the Olympiad programs are pretty prestigious. There are lots of math summer programs that are impressive.</p>
<p>Not really "prestigious" but VERY well-respected and quite academically impressive is the EPGY (Education Program for Gifted Youth) summer institutes at Stanford.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.epgy.stanford.edu%5B/url%5D">www.epgy.stanford.edu</a></p>
<p>I did the 20th Century Humanities this summer and it was an AMAZING experience. I super-recommend it to anybody seriously interested in the academic work but who also wants to have oh SO much fun spending 3 (or 5) weeks on the Stanford campus. :)</p>
<p>this list is mostly math programs, but has a few science oriented programs as well. Also look at SSP (Summer Science Program) for astronomy research.
<a href="http://www.ams.org/employment/mathcamps.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ams.org/employment/mathcamps.html</a></p>
<p>Are you by any chance female (I'm guessing not based on your screen name) or minority? There are some research programs for minorities and women, including MITES and Women in Technology (or something like that) at MIT. Also, many state universities have programs that would not be well known outside that state but which might give you very high quality experiences. U. Texas has one in chemistry called Welch Scholars. In the end, it''s the quality of the research experience that counts. It is possible to go to RSI and get a mentor who doesn't spend any time with you, or a research project that doesn't pan out, or have some other thing happen that makes for a suboptimal experience.</p>
<p>My bad, Olympiad camps are not as research oriented. I misread the original post as well (I thought it was just prestigious camps in general lol). </p>
<p>In that case, I'm not sure if any research camp really comes close to RSI in prestige.</p>