<p>Examples in which privatecitizen shows signs of being in the RSI adcom
privatecitizen's posts</p>
<p>“You should ask university professors for recommendations if they know you well enough and can comment on your academic potential. If you have done some research work under a mentor, a letter from the mentor is also very helpful.”</p>
<p>“I have it on good authority (three people involved with selecting students for two different competitive programs) that a call from a parent raises a flag of doubt. "If the student really wants to attend, why isn't he/she asking how to submit test scores or whether the recommendation has arrived?" and "Will this parent who's calling now be calling all the time during the program?" are just two of the concerns I've heard.”</p>
<p>“Question 7 and the "check box" box have been on the application for over a **decade <a href="although%20they%20seem%20to%20have%20updated%20the%20%22skills%22%20of%20interest%20this%20year">/B</a>, so who knows what the original intention was.</p>
<p>Most applicants write "see application sheet" for #7 and treat them as the same thing. I don't think you need to add much unless you want to explain how you acquired the skills and applied them in the past. I've heard that the skills self-assessment has little influence over selection. </p>
<p>The primary purpose of question 7 / check box is to ensure a good match between you and your lab. Some labs have the time and resources to coach you in, say, MATLAB, while others don't. In some labs, you'll write a ton of Perl scripts, and in others you won't. Try to be accurate (or even a little conservative) so that you don't have to cram skills before you can start your project.”</p>
<p>How would a student know that the question has been there for a decade?</p>
<p>“It's not a bad idea. The reason that any of these tests matter is that there's no national curriculum in the US, so no one outside your school knows what "Honors Calculus II" really covers. **My friend who used to read apps **valued AP courses because the subject matter is standardized. Your scores on the SAT II's are probably helpful for the same reason.”</p>
<p>“Since you're DODEA, send the scores to your selection authority. They'll forward them to CEE with your folder if they nominate you. Others should probably mail copies of their score reports using old-fashioned snail mail: CEE seems to be a very paper-bound operation.”</p>
<p>“You could do both, of course, but you should really contact CEE to see what their preferred medium is. They have a much smaller staff than you'd think, so it's to your advantage to make things as easy on them as you can.
(I guess that's generally true when you want something from someone... )”</p>
<p>“It won't make any difference whether you paid the fee. CEE opens your application packet, **puts your data into their computer, cashes your check, and makes a folder with all your academic documents and essays. These folders go to the members of the selection committee (who are university staff, researchers, etc -- they're not CEE staff), and the folders are all they see. **The committee has no idea whether you sent in a check.
By the way, RSI is really expensive to run, and the money for it comes from mainly from donations. Some summer programs charge several thousand dollars for a residential experience, but RSI is free for participants. CEE charges an application fee so that they don't have to use as much donated money for admin/clerical costs.”</p>