My daughter is a junior and recently got admitted to SUMaC residential program and Simons physics research program. Which summer program of these 2 are more famous/prestige? better for college application? Which one would you pick? Thank you so much for the advice.
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I know about SUMaC, and I know about the Simons Summer Research Program, but I haven’t heard about the Simons physics research program. Do you have a link to the latter?
I believe it is simons. And she will do physics research in the program.
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How do i edit the title of the thread. It is simons
It is Simons.
Between the two, Simons has a larger impact on admissions. I have edited the title for you.
Can you elaborate why? Thanks!
Both are very good programs, but SSRP has a larger impact because it is “free” and emphasizes original research.
By free I mean that Simons doesn’t charge for the program but admitted students do have to pay for their own food and housing (in previous years, students even got a stipend, but I don’t know if that’s still true). After including housing, I believe that Simons is about $5000 less expensive than SUMaC.
Besides just being add SSRP on the college application, the research coming out of the summer might be applicable for science contests. Winning one of those can have a huge impact on admissions.
The one downside to SSRP is that the quality of the research a student can do depends a great deal on the interaction with the professor, and their ability to create a project that is challenging yet doable by a talented high school student. Most students have a great experience, but some do not. This is in contrast to SUMaC which has a relatively standardized curriculum, and therefore a more uniform level of quality.
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Thank you so much! I will let my daughter know and let her decide.
between Simons and Ssp, which one do you recommend? Thanks again!
SSP. Among “known” programs, SSP is just behind RSI.
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But a lot of folks said ssp research topics are not very impressive.
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They aren’t. Simons has more original research. But SSP students have better college admissions outcomes than Simons students.
Why is that? That does not sound very reasonable
Why would you assume the college admissions process is reasonable? It’s pretty far from that.
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That’s true. I also heard that ssp admits more and more students now, unc site just added last year. So its prestige also down a little. Is that true? Thanks again!
I didn’t realize SSP had expanded that much. It now has over 200 students, so you are correct it would not be as prestigious as it once was.
If apply to Stanford, is sumac better than simons?
No. Stanford will not give preference to SUMaC relative to another equivalent math camp or to Simons.
why? they won’t consider the student somehow already has previous good experience with Stanford?