<p>Could someone clarify what this means?
How should we format "science projects"? </p>
<p>I have 2 projects in mind:
1) During a CA State Summer School of Mathematics and Science I did a project on deriving the mass of Saturn using its lunar orbital parameters. I went out to the observatory with a telescope and a CCD and took exposures. extracted data points from the pictures and then graphed points on position vs. time graph to find period and semi major axis then used to derive Saturn's mass. I did this with 3 moons and my answer was within 2% of the accepted mass. </p>
<p>2) During this past summer I interned for JPL and did a small project with Microsoft SharePoint and custom JavaScript... </p>
<p>Would either one of these count as a "science project"? Would you recommend sending either one of these in? (I don't think I can send the second one... just an extended description) </p>
<p>Neither one of these seems to even compare with some of the research other students I know did/ do in high school so I'm a bit confused on what I should do. </p>
<p>Any ideas will help. Thank you!</p>
<p>Anything you can send in to substantiate your dabbling in science will be helpful. but there will be many that will send in published/publishable research reports.</p>
<p>Most students (former applicants) DON"T have such projects to tout. Not everyone has had opportunities like yours to work on. So those of you who read this thread and think “Oh NO - my science project consists of building a boat out of wood slats!” - not to worry. You may not want to send in such a project, but you certainly don’t have to have publishable research. Most of us didn’t…</p>
<p>I think I’ll send in the first project I did at COSMOS and then the second one is discussed in my extracurricular essay and my boss is also writing me recommendation so I think I’ll leave it at that. </p>
<p>thank you for your responses poppingcorn and itsme123</p>
<p>itsme,</p>
<p>If a student hasn’t published anything or even written up the research report yet, how does one “send in” the info? Since the summer, my son’s been working on research in optics; he designed and built a piece of equipment and apparently, the prof got a grant off the work my son did but won’t get it for several months and the research will probably not get into full swing until the spring. He hasn’t written anything up beyond notes, and I haven’t a clue what they are, but I’d guess he’s not written much. His mentor wrote a LOR explaining a little of what he’s done. Is that enough?</p>
<p>i would say, use the “Additional Information” section of the common app.</p>