Interesting, but this is someone from Penn, right? It’s probably safe to assume that MANy applicants from Penn come from well to do families. Many of those students could have paid to do research, which we know is a hot EC for certain kids at the moment.
I’m more impressed by the numbers of students who worked. My thought is that having a paying job is always going to look good to AO’s. A steady and meaningful volunteer gig is good too.
Re getting into a very competitive summer research program, that’s certainly going to be helpful. However, so many other competitive summer opportunities and awards will also help. To go off topic for a moment, this long running list comes to mind. List of Top, Prestigious Awards - #1268 by solasky
The most recent update to the list starts at #1266.
Back to the topic…