<p>Sorry I made a mistake on my stats: 760 Chem, not 700. Also, I have a few other questions for past Rickoids:
How much non supervised time are you given?
Should I pack anything special(including a box fan)?
I sent my letter of repsonse to the CEE, but should I email them as well to verify they got it?</p>
<p>Bringing a fan is a good idea. Simmons doesn't have AC, so it can get kind of warm. Your nonsupervised time depends on your mentorship. There are generally several guest lecturers each week, so that will tie you up from maybe 7-830ish in the evening. Bedcheck is at 11 every night and takes maybe 20 minutes, but you don't actually have to go to bed afterwards... few people do. You'll have plenty of time to hang out and do whatever during the week, and the weekends are very open. Maybe I'm forgetting some stuff... someone help me out. The first week is pretty structured b/c of the lectures and orientation stuff, but after that it's very open for the most part.</p>
<p>Quick question: When should I book my plane ticket? I know its really early now, but I'm afraid it will be really expensive if i book it later because it will be during summer rush.</p>
<p>Oh also, do I give any input as to who ends up as my mentor/what lab I work in. If that was vague, what I mean is will RSI tell me "here is your mentor/lab go do a research project" or will they say "here are some possibilities, which do you like best?"
And how much money should I bring(assuming monetary constraints aren't much of an issue)</p>
<p>I have a few questions I have finally came up with...</p>
<p>With our research, do people usually just get assigned the topic they listed first on the application? Do some get the second topic they listed? How do people end up coming up with a research topic?</p>
<p>If you are accepted to and attend RSI, do you have a good chance of being able to get accepted into MIT / other top universities for college? I read that MIT accepts 1000 people or about that many as freshmen, and that gave me courage... :-) I have always been worried about getting accepted into a good college, as well as paying for college.</p>
<p>~tweetle~</p>
<p>I have a question about research as well. From past research experience, I know it can take me more than 6 weeks to come with the research question in of itself because of the indepth research involved. I'm afraid that I won't know enough about my topic of research, especially if it something completely new. How has that worked our for you past rickoids? In addition, when we give the presentation on the last days of RSI, is our research expected to be completed? I'm a bit skeptical about my ability to do a complete project within such a short time frame</p>
<p>
[quote]
1) While I am aware that RSI is going to be really intellectually stimulating(and by that virtue, in a way, extremely exciting and fun), but would you describe it as an enjoyable experience, not simply a valuable one?
2) For Bio Rickoids: In my past research getting results for experiments often takes far more than a month to conduct meaningful research. How do you and and your mentor manage the seemingly difficult time constraint?
3) How much time do you have that is not schedules, excluding mentor research time?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>ZFrankel, Benecke got you on (1), as far as (2) goes, I was bioinformatics so my project was sort of computer science, but from what I hear from the bio kids, it IS possible to get things done quickly. Your mentor and you will plan it carefully and be efficient, but a real bio person should be answering this. </p>
<p>And (3), most people work at the max a 9-5 day (I worked like 10:30-5 usually), so you can do anything you want from 5-1 or so. PLEASE keep this in mind: bedcheck isn't really "bedcheck" meaning that you don't really have to go to bed or anything. I bet some kids went to bed at bedcheck (which was at 11) but really bedcheck is just the one time of the entire day where RSI knows where you are. You meet in your counselor for 10-20 mins and you learn news and stuff. Most of the time, my night started at bedcheck cuz I only finished dinner at around 7 or so, and we had lectures three times a week (or was it two?) so we were really only free around 9:30 or 10 anyway and there's not enough time between then and 11 to do anything so we had to go after bedcheck to do stuff.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Oh also, do I give any input as to who ends up as my mentor/what lab I work in. If that was vague, what I mean is will RSI tell me "here is your mentor/lab go do a research project" or will they say "here are some possibilities, which do you like best?"
And how much money should I bring(assuming monetary constraints aren't much of an issue)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>ZFrankel, RSI should contact you with some questions on more specific research interests (they did for me). I'll send you it if you PM me, as soon as I get my desktop computer working. RSI matches you with a mentor though, you don't have to do any background research yourself.</p>
<p>As far as money goes, I would say bring $200-240 like it says in the brochure (I think). This is for eating out (off-campus), seeing movies, going to Rocky Horror (heh), etc. You could theoretically survive at RSI for $0 because you get some outrageous amount of Techcash, like $740 (?), so you could spend like $19 on food at La Verdes each day, but it would probably be less fun since you couldn't eat off campus like at Harvard Square and all the weekend trips.</p>
<p>
[quote]
With our research, do people usually just get assigned the topic they listed first on the application? Do some get the second topic they listed? How do people end up coming up with a research topic?</p>
<p>If you are accepted to and attend RSI, do you have a good chance of being able to get accepted into MIT / other top universities for college? I read that MIT accepts 1000 people or about that many as freshmen, and that gave me courage... :-) I have always been worried about getting accepted into a good college, as well as paying for college.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>RSI tries its best to match you up with a mentor based on your first research interest, or in my case, a combination of both. And yes, if you get into/attend RSI, you will be 100% (pretty much, as long as you are a domestic applicant) guaranteed into every college except Harvard, which is like 70-80%. MIT is like 110%.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I have a question about research as well. From past research experience, I know it can take me more than 6 weeks to come with the research question in of itself because of the indepth research involved. I'm afraid that I won't know enough about my topic of research, especially if it something completely new. How has that worked our for you past rickoids? In addition, when we give the presentation on the last days of RSI, is our research expected to be completed? I'm a bit skeptical about my ability to do a complete project within such a short time frame
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Past Rickoids (before I ever attended RSI) told me that the one most amazing thing about RSI (besides the students, I suppose) is the ridiculous amount of work that seems to magically get itself done. I say magical because you're having so much fun that you forget all the work, but the projects are really really good. What field are you? Unless you are a bio project, you can be certain to have a really good project at the end of RSI, provided you put in the work. A lot of bio projects get significant progress and some even finish, but in the limited time-span, bio projects suffer the most.</p>
<p>I hope I helped :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh and be sure to save up your Techcash for the end-of-RSI-buy-everything-you-can-lug-home-from-Laverde's-shopping-spree ;). The selection of items you can actually buy and bring back is pretty limited ... so I had to spend my 80 or so dollars on shampoo, floss, toothpaste, etc... but still, another side benefit of RSI: not having to buy hair or dental products for several years ;).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If you mean sleeping during bedcheck then yes lol. (Not that I'm advocating any of you 06ers do that if you're in Andrew or Cindy's counselor groups ;)) But yeah I definitely agree with zogoto that post-bedcheck RSI is when all the fun happens!</p>
<p>zogoto, haha, wow...that def. helped :)</p>
<p>I have a few questions myself:
1. What time should we arrive at MIT on June 25? Will I have a place to stay if I get there in the morning (sometime before noon), or would it be better to arrive at around like 3ish pm?
2. (Idk if someone already asked this, but) When will our mentors contact us? Before RSI?</p>
<p>...er I had some more questions, but I can't quite remember them right now..</p>
<p>ALSO, what would be some nice presents to give teachers who wrote the recs? I mean, I would have gotten them presents even if I got rejected, but I haven't had time to go shopping lately, so...yeah. Gift cards? (they're both male teachers, so I can't get them stuff like flowers, lol.) Any suggestions?</p>
<p>zogoto, I actually put down systems biology and biomedical engineering, I don't know which one i would want to do. I've never done engineering before, and have delved in bioinformatics...sooo...i'm leaning towards systems. Also, can I continue a project that I'm currently working on in RSI? It's in quantum chemistry, and wasn't listed as one of my fields, but it would be a lot easier for me to expand upon this project than learn a completely new field.</p>
<p>Also, on an additional note, what you said about the colleges thing Zogoto gives me more hope than you can believe!!! It totally made my day....errr...night now!</p>
<p>I think Zogoto exaggerated just a tad bit regarding the RSI acceptance rates just a <em>little</em> vanilea heh...don't get too overconfident now.</p>
<p>It's more like...
Harvard~40%
MIT~80-90%
Yale/Princeton/Stanford/Caltech~70%
(based on this year's EA/RD results that someone else, Rickoid maybe, posted on another thread)</p>
<p>Regardless, I hope all of you guys have a blast at RSI and rock it up!!!:) You're all amazing people and I hope that I have the pleasure of meeting some of you later in college or the professional realm.</p>
<p>Thanks zogoto, that was really informative. I now kind of feel like I am trying to make the school year end so I can get to RSI...... Oh Corina, I just went through a similar process(picking out gifts for teachers). I got my math teacher an antique Uchicago post card(he went there) and a book on phi. I got my bio teacher a book with a bunch of essays by famous scientists and tickets to a classical music concert at the at which I work. I'd suggest that you try to think of something unique to them -- they are your teachers after all -- but in general teachers(especially the kind of awesome smart teachers who write recs that get you into RSI) like books, especially when they are on the topic of subjects they teach.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's more like...
Harvard~40%
MIT~80-90%
Yale/Princeton/Stanford/Caltech~70%
(based on this year's EA/RD results that someone else, Rickoid maybe, posted on another thread)
[/quote]
Well, international students distort the results a bit, because it is easier to get into RSI from some countries than it is as a domestic student, and much harder to get into US universities as an international student. Since most of the people here are domestic students, I'll give my estimates (based on the results I know - quite a few) for RSI acceptance rates at different universities:</p>
<p>Harvard: 60%
MIT: 98% (no domestic student has been rejected this year - as far as any of us know - but I'm making it less than 100 for safety's sake, and because it has happened a few times before)
Caltech: 95% (similar situation to MIT)
Yale: 60%
Princeton: 70%
Stanford: 90%</p>
<p>Wow...the acceptance rates give me so much courage, you wouldn't believe it!!! That amazes me, that they are so high. I second Vanilea--It's made my day. No, my week. :D</p>
<p>Thanks for helping with the questions...such awesome answers. :) I wish school would hurry up and be over and summer would start...</p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>~tweetle~</p>
<p>While there is a correlation between RSI and college acceptance, one should not assume causation. RSI definitely helps, but to be honest, most Rickoids would have gotten into those schools without RSI because RSI looks for many of the same qualities that top schools do. That said, acceptance to RSI means that you'd be a fool to worry about college admissions =D.</p>
<p>
[quote]
That said, acceptance to RSI means that you'd be a fool to worry about college admissions =D.
[/quote]
Haha, good point about correlation vs. causation... but I have to say, I worried about college admissions... a LOT.</p>
<p>Can I bring a project that I'm currently working on to RSI?</p>
<p>I second vanilea's question! I was wondering if I could sort of continue whatever I was doing at RSI...or anyway, do research similar to what I have done in the past...</p>
<p>That way, also, you can sort of submit everything you have done when you enter competitions....</p>