<p>I was at Socorro. </p>
<p>And FYI, I’ve heard people from a number of schools talk about how absurd CC-style retaking of the SAT makes you look undesireable… it suggests that ‘the SAT is your EC,’ as an admissions officer from Caltech put it, and that you’re not bringing much to the table beyond absolutely insane test scores.</p>
<p>Selena731: what do you mean “last year there were only ~4”??
wish we all good luck</p>
<p>I wish admissions was more test-score based :P</p>
<p>@ funnyname
i meant applying as a sophomore, sorry =P</p>
<p>and it wouldnt be fair to judge just by scores imo
because there are certain circumstances you ought to consider
for example a dude with a 2400 applying to this program just for the heck of putting something on his college app, in contrast to someone with a 2000 who is actually interested in science and math and eager to learn more…</p>
<p>someone told me that the majority of SSP alumni change their majors when they get into colleges to stuff completely unrelated to what they’ve been through in SSP
O_o</p>
<p>That’s because astro is tough - but everyone comes to love it (eventually) (;
I hear 30% of alumni are medical majors, 50% physics/other sciences, 10% nonscience, …or something like that (and that doesn’t even add up to 100 so I must be mis-remembering).</p>
<p>that’s true…are there lots of astrophysicists around too?
and how about you, bks85, did you decide on your major? =)</p>
<p>Yeah, some. Last year, there were two people who came in who had already gotten medals at the International Astronomy Olympiad…they were crazy!!</p>
<p>Otherwise, the rest of us got to love astrophysics soon enough. I think I am going to go with biophysics. :)</p>
<p>Well, the US doesn’t compete in the IAO (and any other, smaller astronomy competitions are not well publicized here). so I don’t think US applicants should worry about lacking astronomy competitions on their resumes.</p>
<p>hmm i remember somebody mentioning how SSP picks half the students who are very knowledgeable in physics/astronomy/calculus and the other half the students who barely know anything about those, so that it would balance out or something…</p>
<p>@bks</p>
<p>Do you have the link showing where previous SSP’ers went to college?</p>
<p>i went to socorro last year, heres ojais college list</p>
<p>[sspojai2009</a> / College Admissions](<a href=“Workspace not found”>Workspace not found)</p>
<p>every campus seems very comparable to that. sorry, i cant show you socorros cuz its private from outsiders lol (because of the stupid cheesehead who made it lol), here are highlights from the socorro one</p>
<p>8 MIT
7 Caltech
5 Stanford
5 Columbia
4 Yale
3 Cornell
3 Harvard
2 Princeton
2 Williams
2 Amherst</p>
<p>24 of us got into at least one of the above schools. The acceptance rates also arent like 8/36 or 3/36, a lot of us only applied to a fraction of these schools. Note that about 6 of us (internationals + juniors) didnt apply to American schools.</p>
<p>“Well, the US doesn’t compete in the IAO (and any other, smaller astronomy competitions are not well publicized here). so I don’t think US applicants should worry about lacking astronomy competitions on their resumes.”</p>
<p>-yeah, most of us didn’t know anything about astro. </p>
<p>Ojai!! =D (although i suppose its now Westmont…)</p>
<p>So from that list, I see that Caltech/MIT seem to weigh SSP more than the other colleges.</p>
<p>because they sponsored it.</p>
<p>And more SSPers apply to Caltech/MIT than other colleges. And because the admissions criteria used by SSP and Caltech/MIT have a lot in common.</p>
<p>But yes, the admissions staff at Caltech, MIT, and to a similar extent Pomona/HMC and Stanford are very familiar with SSP.</p>
<p>HMC is?
I don’t know liberal arts college will appreciate this kind of scientific research or not? And ivies may not care about SSP…</p>
<p>Is Stanford only familiar with SSP because it’s relatively near by? Or does it involved in some way?</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd College</p>
<p>I don’t think Stanford has any connection with the program, but a LOT of ojai ssp’ers got in to stanford.</p>
<p>SSPers are a pretty motivated group so hard to know if SSP helped them get in or just was another feather in an already feather-full cap. ;)</p>