Summer Activities - Need to decide quickly! Please Help!

<p>I’m a sophomore in high school right now and haven’t really been thinking about college TOO much. However, within the next month I will need to decide what I will be doing next summer (the summer in between sophomore and junior year). And, apparently, colleges are interested to see what I do during this summer and the following summer.</p>

<p>My main interest is social entrepreneurship and social economics. I have been EXTREMELY involved with a non-profit NGO that helps educate the underprivileged in India which is how I developed my interest in social entrepreneurship and social economics. Because I want to go into this sector, I thought it would be nice if I could do something related to it during this summer. I have an opportunity open to work (when I say “work” I’m talking about what would be equivalent of doing “research” in the sciences) with a professor of social entrepreneurship at a university that’s one hour away from me. However, this college isn’t ranked too high – To give you an idea, based on the Princeton Review’s best 301 business schools, it has an Academic Experience rating of 70.</p>

<p>The main reason I am addressing this issue is because I am ultimately aiming for Harvard, Williams, Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton. Do these colleges care about the caliber of the college that I worked with the professor at? So will working with this professor – and most probably eventually publishing a paper on what I found out/did – not be impressive to these schools? Or do the colleges simply care that I immersed myself into the subject that I will be eventually studying and completed some significant work?</p>

<p>Would these colleges view working with a social economics professor from…say, Harvard…differently than working with a professor of social economics at a not-so-high-ranked school?</p>

<p>From what I hear, it seems that it is best for me to do a lot of things related to social entrepreneurship so that I can portray myself to colleges as someone really interested in the subject (I genuinely am!).</p>

<p>Also, service (specifically the one w/ the NGO mentioned above) is my main EC (even though I have other things like ABRSM piano, etc…), which also shows my interest in the social side of economics and entrepreneurship.</p>

<p>So, the bottom line: Will the colleges I mentioned earlier find working with this professor very IMPRESSIVE AND UNIQUE (I’m assuming not many kids do this type of thing in the non-sciences fields)? Or will they just consider it as “Oh, just another kid who did a research sort of thing.” Would they consider this more impressive than doing programs such as EPGY/CTY?</p>

<p>Oh, and sorry for the long post!</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>Bump!</p>

<p>Any thoughts?</p>

<p>It’s probably a bit more impressive than CTY, which isn’t super-selective. Aside from that, do what really interests you and do your best at it–that’s what’s really impressive.</p>