<p>My son, and many like him, never heard of Intel, Siemens, robotics, etc. before applying to MIT. What he has is a passion for all sciences, and this shows in the classes taken in high school and at our local college, the six years of Saturdays spent at IMACS (Institute for Computer Science and Mathematics), and the four summers spent studying at Duke and doing research at the University of Florida. That’s not to say that you have to spend your summers and free time doing serious work just to get in to MIT; many kids go to camp every summer. But he just loves this stuff and would rather do physics problems and math proofs during free time on our family vacations than anything else.</p>
<p>One thing I think IS valuable to consider is a competitve summer research program, the kind you apply for, not the open kind where everyone gets accepted if you can pay for it. The MIT web site has a old blog by Matt McGann about this; search the archives. there’s a list of many such programs which implicitly are looked upon favorably.</p>