<p>Regarding going to a university's summer program:
My theory is this. It CAN help if you do Harvard SSP, for example, but not because you went to the program. Rather, you should try to build a relationship with a professor there to get a recommendation from him/her. But it is a little hard to get to know a professor in the short span of a summer. But there are a few months after summer before applications are due, so continue keeping in touch with your favorite professor at summer programs.</p>
<p>The summer programms that will affect your admissions chances at top universities have to have the following characteristics:</p>
<ol>
<li>It should be Free or paying you an allowance.</li>
<li>It should be competitive.</li>
<li>it should be research oriented.</li>
</ol>
<p>Till now I was able to find those three RSI, SHARP and YESS.</p>
<p>If some one thinks and know about programs that have all the above three qualities than let us know.</p>
<p>Mostly, summer programs work as filters for university programs. Colleges realize that the best summer programs are just as selective as colleges are, so they can further choose from those pools of people. RSI is the only one I can think of that would give you a near-certainty of admissions (MIT&Caltech only), but anyone who's bad-ass enough to get into RSI probably doesn't need it to get in.</p>
<p>There are a lot of prestigious nonresearch programs. TASP is probably the most selective humanities oriented program. LEAD is a good business oriented program. Cornell's nanobiotech program is supposed to be selective. I agree that free programs are often the best (cough NSLC cough People to People).</p>
<p>Write on for Israel fits those three, as does (I believe) the Bronfman Fellowship.</p>
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<p>also what about the UPenn Summer Science Academy? you need to apply for it and they only take like 60 kids to do biomedical research w/ upenn.</p>
<p>overall acceptance is above 50%</p>
<p>cost >> $0</p>
<p>i doubt it will help much</p>
<p>^^buddy it depends on what you do. its probably easy to get into the precollege program as long as you meet the prerequisites since all you do is basically do what you can do at your local community college. but i dunno how many apply to the biomedical research program but only 60 get accepted. and it costs close to totaling 6000 bones.</p>
<p>in reality i dont think it helps that much except for the experience. colleges are still looking for the bast canidates and wont stoop down to take you if youve been to a college program. dont do it to get into the college thats the main point, and colleges know when you do.</p>
<p>also gives a nice topic to write for essays</p>
<p>NYU's summer musical theater program accepts 32 out of 200 applicants.</p>
<p>What about EPGY and CTY Summer Institutes?</p>
<p>Some people joke that CTY programs actually hurt your application, because colleges know that anyone who has rich parents can get in. While that's probably a bit of a stretch, the consensus is that CTY doesn't do anything for most applicants' resumes. It's fun, though!! Same with EPGY i think.</p>
<p>It's worth saying that the % admittance of different programs shouldn't be considered an absolute indicator of how selective or prestigious they are. Programs with difficult or long applications will usually receive applications from the kids who are motivated enough to fill them out -- i.e. self selectivity. Programs that are not well known may have low admit rates, but the applicant pool may be weaker as well. Basically a well known program with a medium high admit rate could be more prestigious and selective than an obscure program with a much lower admit rate, although it is true that the most selective programs show their prestige in the low % acceptance.</p>
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<p>Are the ones where you have to pay alot, but not very selective, helpful at all? Is Stanford EPGY or Harvard SSP good?</p>
<p>If you are making your summer plans based on what would look good on college applications, you're not the type of student selective colleges want. This kills me...I guess I did think a little about how it would look to colleges when I applied to Harvard SSP last year, but it was not my sole decision for attending. I loved Harvard and I would highly recommend the program, but only go because you want to learn, work hard, take classes that may not be offered at your high school, and meet some amazing kids. You will love being in Cambridge and being able to take advantage of the Harvard facilities (Widener!). Almost ALL of the friends I made at Harvard SSP last summer are going to very good colleges (Harvard, Duke, Princeton, Brown, UPenn, Stanford, Pomona, MIT, ect.) but it is not because they attended the program...most were smart, passionate, interesting people who wanted to spend their summer learning.</p>
<p>OP asked a reasonable question about the quality of expense heavy programs which doesn't mean he's "undesirable material" for selective colleges. Actually, he didn't mention college at all, so you're really jumping to conclusions! boo. Anyway, from what I heard, programs like Harvard SSP and EPGY are "what you make of them", but if you are talking about college apps, they're not much of a help because almost any above average student with some money would be allowed to go and colleges know that.</p>
<p>I was referring to the title..."Summer Programs that look good on college applications?" I was simply making the point that you should not go to these programs based on how they will "look". But ok...</p>
<p>anyone who says that they don't think about this at least a little bit when applying to summer programs is most likely being pretentious and self-righteous. it might have been true for you, cinnamon, but lay off the kid, this is an honest, relevant question from someone uniformed about these programs.</p>
<p>I didn't think I was being too harsh...and I said I DID think about it a little bit. Just suggesting not to decide which program to attend based on how it will look. </p>
<p>Jeez, people can be so mean on this board! Please calm down.. and good luck deciding where to go sdkdol, I think you will have an excellent time. I had an amazing experience.</p>
<p>Well, the title kind of explains it. I have heard that RSI and TASP look good on college apps, but do any others? Could you give examples? Thanks.</p>
<p>Anything would look good, just because it demonstrates that you can do college level work and have a commitment to academics/learning. I'm not sure how good the different ones look though.</p>
<p>Summer@Brown, in particular...</p>