<p>So I applied to COSMOS at UCSC for the Video Game and Oceanography clusters. Though I didn't much in the way of extracurriculars, I did mention that I was familiar with JavaScript and had used it to make text based games before. Got rejected today from that.</p>
<p>I also applied to SuMAC at Stanford. Had nothing in the way of math related extracurriculars, but I hoped my essays and test made up for that. Wrong there, although kind of expected it (didn't really want to go either since I'm not a huge fan of math).</p>
<p>This hurts a lot. I have decent stats, at least for CC standards: 2350 SAT, 4.3 GPA (4.6 UC). What exactly went wrong? Are these programs really that selective? I do understand that stats are like 20% of the application, though. Could it be that my teacher's felt like I wasn't a good enough student (working on that)? My essays were extremely philosophical; were they not looking for that? I remember for the COSMOS prompt on "why do you like science" I created this huge metaphor for humanity's relationship to science and really drove it in, instead of focusing on my personal experiences. I can post it here if you'd like, since I obviously won't be reusing this. Or could it be my lack of science related extracurriculars? Right now I've been mainly focusing on music (violin, and composition). I was hoping these summer programs would add something to my college applications, but I guess not.</p>
<p>This makes me question college as well. My number one choice was Stanford, and I calculated that I had a 20% chance of getting in. Now I got rejected to a summer program at UCSC with like 6x the acceptance rate. I'm beginning to question whether I can even get into Berkeley at this rate. Can someone compare summer program admissions and college admissions? Do they have different focuses? Anyone get rejected to summer programs, and then go on to Stanford (or even Berkeley)?</p>
<p>I'm currently studying for 6 AP tests, and if I can't even make Berkeley there's no point in continuing this track. I'll do my best on the tests, of course, but I've kind of lost the motivation that I've built up this past year in these two emails. I got it in my head that I wanted to be some sort of indie game developer (as a full time career or hobby, I don't know), and I started putting everything towards getting into Stanford, which has all the resources I would need to go down that way. The COSMOS thing seemed like the perfect place to start, and since I got denied I'm not sure where to start anymore.</p>
<p>Final question: any other "good" programs I can apply to this late in the summer? I'm taking a 1 week trip from July 7-14 for an orchestra so I can't have anything that takes the entire summer (unfortunately SuMAC and COSMOS at UCSC were the only ones that I saw that worked).</p>
<p>I was hoping I could do something video game design related. I’d also go to some sort of history program, if that exists, since I love that too. And I mean like an actual summer program where you get to stay over and stuff. It is late, but i’m sure there’s some things out there.</p>
<p>Are you crazy?! These summer programs are purely based on math and science passion, and as much as admission goes its a total crapshoot. Colleges, however, tend to look at many different things and with your academic stats I’d call you crazy to dismiss Berkeley so fast. I got rejected from many things this month too (was expecting it, but the COSMOS one hurt); keep your head up though, don’t let others tell you what you can or cannot do with your summer!!!</p>
<p>One thing I’d really like to get into is music production (said this in my first post, but meh).</p>
<p>Just started checking and it seems like that I’ve missed the deadlines for most of them. Ugh, if only I wasn’t so confident about COSMOS…</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply though. I thought this over, and I’ve come to the conclusion that my recommendations might have been weakish. I got one from a 2nd year chemistry teacher, and another from my Calc teacher. When she wrote the recommendation I had a B and a C on the tests (brought it up to an A and have around a 100% this semester though lol).</p>
<p>And yeah, I really don’t have much demonstrated passion towards science or math. Probably showed in my essays.</p>
<p>Rose-Hulman Operation Catapult is probably still accepting applications, and has programming projects you can work on. My D applied to several science programs for last summer plus TASP, and did not get into most of them. Just like with colleges, she had “safeties”, and got into a couple of those. She chose Operation Catapult. It had its pros and cons, but gave her some experience that she could put on her college apps. She got into everyplace she applied, including Harvey Mudd, Swarthmore, and U of Chicago.</p>
<p>That’s comforting. I’ve sorted this through and the rejections kind of make sense now. Obviously the standards are going to be different when applying to a 4 week summer program and a 4 year college.</p>
<p>However, in my overconfidence that I would get in, I missed all the deadlines for everything else I wanted to do/the classes are all full. Ugh. My last summer was entirely unproductive, and I wanted to get something in this time around. Maybe I’ll take a look at the local community college.</p>
<p>Am I correct in believing that it’s not where you go during the summer, it’s how you spend it? Like, going to a cc wouldn’t be worse than going to a university and living on campus?</p>
<p>Why not take a real look at your app. You apparently have no ECs that actually tie to the program you are applying to. You wrote an essay that avoided talking about why you would make a good candidate and instead wrote a metaphorical journey that failed to make up for lack of ECs. And you thought it was a good idea to pick a teacher from a class where you were doing average at best. This is hardly a recipe foe success.</p>
Ugh I totally understand the feeling. I’m a junior right now, but last year I applied to a competitive program, Carnegie Mellon SAMS, and a noncompetitive program at the Botanical Garden in NYC. I got rejected from both and I ended up using the summer to tour colleges. Which was nice and all, but I really hoped that I could do something more productive with my summer… this year I’m applying again to the same programs (because I’m clearly a masochist) so we’ll see how that goes.
Which colleges were you accepted to?