Hi, I’m a rising junior from the Philippines and I just wanted to share my 2 cents on SSI just in case anyone wanted to look it up at some point. It’s only been a week since the program started so please take these with a grain of salt. I’ll be adding another review once it ends as well. Anyway…
Conclusion/Summary
In my opinion, the SSI is really good as an introductory program for research (specifically data science). However, heads up, it’s fast-pacing and not as selective. For me, what makes it good (and bad) is that their speakers are college students who were in your shoes as well. To add, they have Fin Aid but I’m not sure with how generous their FinAids are, in my case however, I was given $1000 out of $2500 (waitlisted; regular deadline). IMO, the program is NOT ‘not worth it’ since it covers pretty much everything you need to know to get started on your research journey but I do think it’s too expensive for what it can offer.
I still can’t say if it’s a cash-grab since it’s only been 1 Week but I’ll be adding a review once the program ends :))
I’ll be discussing more deets below.
On FinAid, Application
I applied on Regular Decision (no application fee needed), got waitlisted, and eventually got in. As an international student, USD-PHP rate is expensive so I applied for FinAid and they gave me more or less $1000 in FinAid. And to think I was waitlisted, I didn’t expect a generous finaid. That covered almost 50% of the cost for the Bootcamp Program. During the opening convocation, they mentioned that about 2500 students applied and 300 got in to the Bootcamp Program; 50-100 for Research (ps. Not sure about these numbers but ik they’re quite close to the actual). So just a heads up, it’s not that selective.
On the Program Content & How it works
The Research (~$6.5k) and Bootcamp(~2.5k) Program are quite similar (you get similar class content) except that for the research program, you focus on making your own research, you get a personal mentor to do a data science project in 6 weeks.
The Bootcamp Program consists of 2 courses - Programming (Python, Data Science, overview of ML) and Conducting Research (they teach you the details of doing research). The programming course is quite fast-pacing so if you don’t have prior coding experience, it might be a bit of a challenge. The Conducting Research course on the other hand, focuses on teaching you the details of conducting research - from cold emailing/finding mentors, choosing a field, etc.; you can find more stuff in their website I think?). I honestly initially thought the Conducting Research course was useless but it actually covered a lot of the stuff you need since their speakers were in your shoes as well.
The program also has Masterclasses(in Research, Engineering, Humanities, Business, and Personal Growth) where everyday, they invite speakers (like Erin Smith, Amy Jin, and Amol Punjabi). They also have optional Masterclasses assignments where the speaker gets to pick 3-7 students to have “virtual dinner” on gather.town.’
They also have Research Workshops and Weekened Challenges.