Hey all, I just got accepted into UCSB RMP. I have secured my spot in the program. It seems pretty legit in terms of the experience it provides. I wanted to get a review from others as well as someone’s perspective on the prestige of it, and how it looks on a college application.
bump!! anybody?
My son attended RMP as a rising sophomore and got a lot out of it. But we are locals, so the price was a lot less for us with no room and board.
One difference between RMP and some similar programs is that your project, or even the general area of your project, isn’t decided until the first week of the program. So, it helps if you are open to a variety of subjects. The projects they decide you are eligible for may depend on which AP classes you’ve taken so far. At that point, my son hadn’t taken Calculus, so he didn’t get his first choices, which were physics and mech eng projects. He did have a lot of CS experience and the AP test in CS at that point, and got a CS project. He was disappointed at first, but made the best of it and came to really enjoy it.
Doing the research and creating the poster, paper, and presentation were very valuable learning experiences.
The following school year, he was able to talk with the UCSB astrophysics professor who had been his first choice, and got work in his lab. Basically, at UCSB, professors want HS students to have done something like RMP, even if it’s in another field before they work in a lab outside of RMP. So, the following summer he worked with RMP students in that lab, even though he didn’t do RMP a second time. (He was thanked in the acknowledgements section for help with data collection and analysis by a lot of the students doing RMP in that lab.)
I don’t know about the prestige or admissions percentage of RMP. I do know that my son was accepted to SSP this summer, and already recognizes one person from last year’s RMP on the Facebook group for his SSP session. But, that may be because he and the other person worked in an astrophysics lab at UCSB, so that correlates with SSP attendees.
Sorry not to be more help about how many applications they get.
There is also a 4 weeks summer program at USCB: Science & Engineering Research Academy (SERA)
Anyone attend this and know the major difference between this & RMP?
My son is 15years old (rising junior) just got accepted in this 4 weeks program and we have not heard back from RMP yet.
Since we are not local, either one will be quite expensive to us.
If he is not accepted at RMP, is the 4 weeks program worth to go?
thanks!
They just started the 4 weeks program this year. I would say it’s good, but RMP is the super prestigious one.