Summer Programs for High School 2020 (COSMOS, UC Davis YSP, SSP)

People accepted to these three programs or others similar, could you write down how you got accepted (what was in your application)

I attended both COSMOS and SSP.

To be clear, there’s no one way to get accepted to any of these programs or similar ones. That said, I’ll share a few things I did in my applications that may have helped, and some insight I gained from talking to the professors and admissions team at each program.

First, both of these programs and many others want to accept students who will benefit most from attending the program. This DOES NOT mean they always accept the most qualified applicants. While there were plenty of people at both programs who had done prior research in a lab, there were just as many people who didn’t. I was one of those people. Instead, the admissions teams look for students who are excited about the field they want to study, have shown interest in it before (could be research, but it could also be clubs, other ECs, reading journals for fun, tutoring, etc.), and who want to contribute to the community at the program. Both COSMOS and SSP heavily emphasize the residential aspect of the program, and in my opinion, they were some of the strongest parts of the program because they intentionally admit students who are excited to meet like-minded students.

A few other notes: scores/GPA/rigor are not everything. I had what I would consider a below-average SAT score for the programs I attended (not below average for all students, just below the average of those who attended). SSP rejects hundreds of students each year who have an 800 on SAT Math II. Similarly, while being very academically successful and taking difficult courses is very important, getting one B will not disqualify you from anything.

Finally, I wrote most of my essays very close to the deadlines. They do not need to be perfect works of art. I wouldn’t describe them as particularly good essays, but they did one thing very well: they conveyed my genuine voice and my raw passion and interest in the fields that the programs focused on.

If you have any other questions, let me know.

Thank you for taking time to write such a detailed, helpful response! I am wondering which Biology clusters are the best and how selective Cluster 4 (Can you make the next billion-dollar antibiotic?) and Cluster 6 (Biomedical Sciences – Clinical Translational Science: The Next Generation of Biomedical Research) are?