<p>There's a good program at UPenn's Wharton School of Business (it's supposedly the top summer program for business), LEAD. Here's the link:</p>
<p>It's part of a greater program (still called LEAD) that's available at a variety of colleges. Here's the link to that:
<a href="http://www.leadnational.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.leadnational.org/</a></p>
<p>what about the summer program at Columbia? </p>
<p>I'm taking advanced creative writing there and I heard it's supposed to be amazing. </p>
<p>The science and math classes are also supposed to be really good. </p>
<p>And even though it's a college program, it really is selective, because I know smart people that didn't get in...</p>
<p>CTY is pretty hot: check the list of where my friends are from there, bar none, in post 13 here: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=201062%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=201062</a></p>
<p>Questbridge, although I dunno if they're still doing it - for low-income/minority students. At least they aren't doing it this year. The Leadership program is amazing; about 20 people (from over 1000 apps) get accepted per year, and you basically get $20000 (at Stanford and Harvard) of stuff but you pay nothing b/c it's funded by grants and donations. They help you write college essays, you take classes w/ Stanford/Harvard professors, help you score better on SAT, help set you up with community service programs, give you a mentor to help you throughout college, hook you up with colleges like Amherst, Williams, etc....Princeton also had a program this year, I believe, for ppl who were in this program to basically tempt them to go there...Almost everyone from that program has gone to an elite college, with the "least prestigious" being UC Berkeley. Stanford loves to take people from this program. I was a semifinalist, btw, although eventually rejected. Very intense application though - 3 essays and 2 recs.</p>
<p>I dunno where these figure in terms of rank/prestige in relation to the other programs, but I would add Boys/Girls State & Governor's Schools in your State.</p>
<p>yeah princeton has something like that too. low income/minority/at risk kids...</p>
<p>do you know what the princeton program is called by any chance?</p>
<p>Just to note...</p>
<p>Questbridge is NOT offered at Harvard anymore. It did away with the program a few years ago.</p>
<p>jsa at princeton, georgetown, northwestern or stanford</p>
<p>the princeton program i'm talking about is for locals</p>
<p>The most prestigious is definitely RSI, hands down. TASP is awesome too, but maybe not quite as prestigious and it doesn't have quite as many applicants. However, it all depends on what you're interested in. A program like TASP doesn't do much research and is not so indepth into science, so it's not quite as prestigious as RSI, but it's definitely the best in it's own category.</p>
<p>As for RSI, it offers the best environment for student researchers and many of it's participants do great at Intel and Siemens with their RSI projects (or the converse, they did great at RSI with their Intel/Siemens projects).</p>
<p>MOSP is the best camp for math students. It's not that hard to make the USAMO (I've made it twice, freshman and sophomore years - I'm a rising junior right now so I'll aim for another 2 years), however the USAMO itself is rigorous and to make the actual MOSP (not the freshman one) requires both a lot of skill and a lot of luck. A new math camp began this year by the same people who did MOSP for those who are not able to get into MOSP but want to experience olympiad-level math anyway. It's called AwesomeMath.</p>
<p>Other math summer camps: Math Camp for high school, Math Path for middle school, Ross, PROMY, etc.</p>
<p>I've also heard great things about the Young Scholars Program. It's a lot of fun and they give you good classes (perhaps boring at times) as well as a chance to work with undergraduates and their projects. Many participants of the Florida YSP went to MIT, Duke, Stanford, Cal Tech, etc.</p>
<p>Other fun and semi-prestigious camps include EPGY and Sumac at Stanford, CTY at JHU, etc.</p>
<p>Alternatives to summer camps:
1. Dual-enrolling at a local university
2. Enrolling in online credit-earning programs (i.e. - FLVS in florida)
3. Volunteer work
4. Competitions: ARML, Mu Alpha Theta, etc.
5. Working on your science projects
6. Lab Work
7. Work on your free throws
8. etc.</p>
<p>I just feel like I have to add on to XxAzurewrathxX's post. TASP is second only to RSI, and is in itself a free six-week program with an 8% acceptance rate (they accepted about 80 from 1000 applicants this year). While it isn't doing world-class science research, every TASPer I know has said that it's changed their lives. Essentially, TASP is an experience in communal self-government where participants essentially make their own rules and choose how they want to spend their free time. Part of their time, however, is spent in extensive analysis of the subject of their TASP via rigorous reading that is supplemented by documentaries and field studies (last year, the subject of the WashU TASP was urban decay, and the TASPers went into St. Louis to observe).</p>
<p>
[quote]
A program like TASP doesn't do much research and is not so indepth into science, so it's not quite as prestigious as RSI
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Correction: TASP isn't a science program, nor was it ever intended to be one. Obviously, in that case, it's not going to go into science, though it will to the extent that it correlates with the TASP topic. TASP is the RSI of the humanities world, and its application process is about six times as rigorous as the application for RSI. Consider this: RSI only requires that you write really one essay (two if you take the "questions/topics you're interested in" and make it into an essay). TASP requires SIX (count 'em, six) essays, though admittedly, one is only a book list. Still, that's SIX TWO-PAGED SINGLE-SPACED essays, which is nothing to scoff at. In addition, after making it to the interview stage (and only 20% of applicants make it this far), applicants are grilled by two to six interviewers at the same time. Forget "tell me about yourself"; the interviewers tear apart your essay analyses and ask you to defend your views. The subjects are far from limited to a single essay topic as they then talk about anything that relates to it. For my interview, we moved from talking about my want to start a hospital in China to the subject of majority vs. minority rules to Communism and the current status of the Chinese government. These interviews have been described as being more difficult than those for Harvard, Princeton, and similar top tier schools</p>
<p>At TASP, test scores and GPA get you virtually nowhere as long as you meet the minimum cut-off. Everything is about your thought process. Also, since you mentioned that "[TASP] doesn't have quite as many applicants", remember that RSI targets a lot more people than TASP does. Only people who scored in the 98 (or 99, I forget) percentile on their PSATs are invited to apply.</p>
<p>You won't get to work with world-class researchers, but you'll have the chance to learn from world-class professors that hail from the country's best universities to teach a group of SEVENTEEN OR LESS. That's an opportunity you'll never get elsewhere. If the thought of being surrounded by the brightest and most motivated minds analyzing current events, history, literature, politics, etc. interests you, I highly recommend that you apply. Don't be afraid to apply if you're a science type person either; I am (though I absolutely love all of the above also) and I did. :]</p>
<p>I don;t mean to be pushing CTY too hard, but I just wanted to copy one thing i wrote in another thread. Here is the school of everyone I know from CTY, bar none. This includes the "bad schools." CTY obviously didn't get these kids in, but it certainly seems to be an indicator of success in college admissions.
[quote]
From facebook, this is where all my CTY friends are, by quantity and alphabetical order:
(the ones in bold AREN'T USNEWS top 30 U or LAC, and include the ranking. i also added any pertinent additional info)
Cornell 5x
Harvard 5x
Northwestern 2x
still in HS 2x
Boston College (40)
UC Santa Barbara (45)
U Chicago
Columbia
Gettysburg (got a 1600, but stabbed at my friend's throat w/ a pencil in HS and was suspended multiple times) (47)
Lehigh (32)
Manhattan College (Masters)
UPenn
Princeton
Stanford
Stevens (7yr. med) (71 in national Us)
Towson (Masters) (42)
Vassar
Wake Forest
U Washington (45)
Yale</p>
<p>I didn't leave anyone with a "bad" school out or anything, that's the whole list...pretty amazing, huh? Even with the stabby kid, only one is out of the top 50, and she turned town an acceptance from Cornell (I was pised at her haha).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>For residents of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, or Idaho
U-Doc
<a href="http://depts.washington.edu/omca/UDOC/%5B/url%5D">http://depts.washington.edu/omca/UDOC/</a></p>
<p>Really good summer program, I got to job shadow with doctors, dissect cadaver daily, take classes and much more. Everything is free including airfare and you also get a stipend of 600 dollars every 2 weeks.</p>
<p>Actually when I said it didn't offer research I was implying that it wasn't a science program.</p>
<p>How do you quote something by the way?</p>
<p>Can anyone recommend a "prestigious" or at least interesting/fun humanities program that is not TASP? I plan on applying, but recognize the low chance of acceptance.</p>
<p>debate camp(if you're into debate). it's too late to apply now though, all the applications were due before middle of may at latest.</p>
<p>i'd think the list goes:
1. MOSP
2. RSI/TASP
3. math camp/promys/sumac/ssp/etc
4. epgy/harvard ssp/ other college type things</p>
<p>TASP's application's insanity was the reason I didn't apply. Are you going to TASP or RSI chillaxin?</p>
<p>MOSP is the hardest to get in but it doesn't have quite an impact on going to Harvard as TASP would. MIT is a different story.</p>
<p>Geez, why doesn't [HCSSiM[/url</a>] ever get any love.</p>
<p>~20% of HCSSiM 2005 made USAMO this year (I know a few who made it in past years but not this year, so feel free to bump the number a bit)
~5% of HCSSiM 2005 have been to MOSP</p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Lander%5DEric">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Lander]Eric</a> Lander](<a href="http://www.hcssim.org%5DHCSSiM%5B/url">http://www.hcssim.org) is just one of its illustrious alumni.</p>
<p>I was taught by Putnam fellow and IPhO gold medalist Ari Turner. Oh, yeah, Josh Greene was there too; he was awarded Morgan</a> Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate a few years back.</p>
<p>Did I mention that I had class with Davidson</a> Fellow, [url=<a href="http://www.icmartists.com/musperf/profiles/60011.html%5DKit">http://www.icmartists.com/musperf/profiles/60011.html]Kit</a> Armstrong<a href="or%20maybe%20you%20should%20just%20%5Burl=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=kit+armstrong%5DGoogle%5B/url%5D%20him">/url</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>Other than making sure HCSSiM is represented, the above makes another point. What one gains most out of summer programs is an incredible peer base.</p>
<p>Eh well I'm sure MOSP is taught by numerous IMO gold medalists and RSI is taught by famous professors and Nobel Prize winners. </p>
<p>Oh yeah, MOSP has 100% USAMO Qualifiers ;)</p>
<p>But seriously though, I've heard great things about HCSSiM, but I don't think it's really as top-notch as the other camps. To be honest, the math looked a bit easy, and the USAMO isn't that hard to qualify for.</p>
<p>My previous post is only to name drop [HCSSiM[/url</a>] into the other summer math programs.</p>
<p>My "list" of top math summer programs would be (alphabetically):</p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://www.hcssim.org%5DHCSSiM%5B/url">http://www.hcssim.org]HCSSiM[/url</a>]
[url=<a href="http://www.mathcamp.org%5DMathcamp%5B/url">http://www.mathcamp.org]Mathcamp[/url</a>]
[url=<a href="http://math.bu.edu/people/promys/%5DPROMYS%5B/url">http://math.bu.edu/people/promys/]PROMYS[/url</a>]
[url=<a href="http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/%5DRoss%5B/url">http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/]Ross[/url</a>]
[url=<a href="http://math.stanford.edu/sumac/%5DSUMaC.%5B/url">http://math.stanford.edu/sumac/]SUMaC.[/url</a>]</p>
<p>
[quote]
Eh well I'm sure MOSP is taught by numerous IMO gold medalists and RSI is taught by famous professors and Nobel Prize winners.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, MOSP has 100% USAMO Qualifiers
[/quote]
Well, that's a dirty trick. I reference MOSP, because of its greater stance; I never claim that HCSSiM is an equal alternative to MOSP or RSI; one should also note that each of these three programs has different goals, so comparing them is fallacious.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But seriously though, I've heard great things about HCSSiM, but I don't think it's really as top-notch as the other camps. To be honest, the math looked a bit easy, and the USAMO isn't that hard to qualify for.
[/quote]
XxAzurewrathxX, that assertion is dubious for two reasons; first, you have not been to HCSSiM, and, second, the HCSSiM application and other math program applicatiosn are of similar difficulty.</p>
<p>Since HCSSiM only releases its application to applicants, it would seem you have not applied. I would guess that you have only seen the sample problems posted. Beside that point, everyone I met at HCSSiM had little trouble with the application, but most ran into difficulty at the program. Paraphrasing an HCSSiM 05 alumnus and future Yale 10, "I felt so smart after finishing the application; now, that's anything but the case."</p>
<p>When I was looking into summer programs, I looked into Mathcamp, HCSSiM, and PROMYS; SUMaC's deadline had passed, but I did look at the application. All four applications were of similar difficulty.</p>
<p>The few students, to whom I have spoken to, who have done HCSSiM in addition to other programs (Mathcamp / PROMYS) held that HCSSiM is just as enriching, if not more so.</p>
<p>But, if you don't believe me, ask [url=<a href="http://www.sciserv.org/sts/61sts/winners.asp%5DEmily">http://www.sciserv.org/sts/61sts/winners.asp]Emily</a> Riehl](<a href="http://www.hcssim.org%5DHCSSiM%5B/url">http://www.hcssim.org) HCSSiM alum, Harvard 06, and Intel STS Winner. (She came in third, and her field was math.)</p>
<p>Daniel</a> Ullman, previously the lead editor of the Problems Section of the American Mathematical Monthly and the DC Director of the 2001 IMO, gave our last prime time lecture.</p>
<p>I reference these alums, because HCSSiM stimulated both of them, as they heartily assested.</p>