<p>I'm a pretty boring person...I don't know that I'm going to have much of one. The only thing I can think of that even might be one is that I'm taking ~20 AP's and i'll be class rank 1-6/700. Would that count as a decent hook? Along with good rec's and essays, that's really all I'm looking at.</p>
<p>Wow, I didn't realize that 20 AP classes existed. </p>
<p>Anyways, I've been doing some math research(free resolutions) this summer. If all goes well, I'll publish, or win Siemens-Westinghouse or something. That should suffice as my hook. ; )</p>
<ol>
<li>what year are you (presumably in high school), </li>
<li>please tell me what i need to do to get to do research like you are. and yeah, simiens seems to be all but synonymous with accepted with axline. gl w/ that.</li>
</ol>
<p>I just finished my junior year. </p>
<p>This is a toughie if you are applying next year. Ideally, imo, you would take classes at a university, hang out around the math department, and try to impress someone. Once you get to know a professor, you can ask about research opportunities. This is basically how I went about it. If however, there is no time for building relationships with professors, I guess you could send out feeler emails to a nearby university asking for openings. </p>
<p>By the way, this is an opportunity to cultivate a questioning mindset. Whenever you are in a lecture, dont just copy down the material. Constantly be thinking about the implications, ask questions like, If we changed from the Reals to a metric space, does the result hold? or How can we generalize this? If your teacher doesnt know the answer, voila, you have a research opportunity. Critical thinking is essential for math and science, so start thinking critically. From here until college, and beyond, this is my advice.</p>
<p>I'll be a sophomore next year. Impress someone...how'd you do that?</p>
<p>Perhaps impress isn't the best choice of words. What I mean is, show the professors you really care about the subject, be it math or physics or whatever. This means, when you take a class, show that you really care about the subject material, and are not just trying to pass with a decent grade. If a there's a math club on campus, think about attending. If there are other people in a class who are really trying to understand the material, make friends with them, talk math with them. </p>
<p>I think the most important thing is to think critically, as I advocated in my previous post. Profs will be impressed if you are continually looking for new applications and are trying to truly grasp the meaning of the material. This is difficult, because it entails shedding fears about the next midterm or your grade in the class, but it is rewarding, because you are breaking away from thinking other's thoughts and moving towards thinking for yourself. </p>
<p>One last thought, don't be afraid to present your ideas to a professor, because you think they are silly or useless. You would be surprised at how few people attend office hours, and how open profs are to talking. In the end, they will respect you, not because your ideas are meaningful, but because they are yours alone, not some regurgitation.</p>
<p>You could also try applying to RSI. I personally did not do that, but I know of a couple of people who did and got good results out of it.</p>
<p>whats rsi [more than 10 char]</p>
<p>oh, teh mit thingy. what's it take to get in, especially relative to what it takes to get into caltech. aka, if you can get in at caltech, can you get in at rsi? if you can get axline, can you get in at rsi?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cee.org/rsi/%5B/url%5D">http://www.cee.org/rsi/</a></p>
<p>And, of course, wikipedia knows everything: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Science_Institute%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Science_Institute</a></p>
<p>I ask again: What's it take to get in? It sounds to me like somewhere around axline quality peeps? But of course, the main part of axliners seems to usually be one of the reserach things that you do through this and or intel and or siemens. So...is there a chacne board for sri? how's it compare to yess?</p>
<p>Okay, I can answer to the RSI thing because I was very similar to you in HS - perfect grades and scores, but no research opportunities by the end of junior year. I was going to apply for RSI, but as I read the app, I realized it was asking a lot about what research you'd already done, and I had none. So I didn't bother applying and instead applied for a NASA internship and did a robotics course (you know those Equinox summer programs that Northwestern is always sending brochures about?) Anyway, that's how I got my "research" and made some great friends along the way. So RSI is great if you can get in, but if not, it's not the end of all things! Ask your science/math teachers and your guidance people if they know of any internships you could do.</p>
<p>from what i heard, RSI is one of the most competitive programs, and one of the most difficult ones to get into. but it does not guarantee you acceptance, not mentioning the axline. by the way, neither does Siemens/Intel (or at least that's what everyone is saying)...but the chances are definitely higher</p>
<p>I have no clue what the criteria for distributing the axline might be. I say this because a friend of mine who was literally more qualified in math/science than anyone else in the country didn't get one, and will now attend a much lesser school named Harvard.</p>
<p>(By the way, I think that I can say "more qualified in math/science than anyone else in the country" with a good degree of precision, because the results in the most presitigious math/science competitions are all easily available and students' achievements are pretty easily compared. The only conceivable explanation would be that the selection committee focused on other, more subjective parts of the application like the essays, and decided that they weren't good enough. This is difficult to imagine, however, and I can't imagine that the recommendations were anything short of stellar. Frankly, I was mystified.)</p>
<p>Oh, and I personally think the most valuable aspect of research experience is the demonstrable passion you have about it. My research was limited in quantity (public schools care more about graduating the kids who are failing than challenging those who ace everything), but I wrote about it on my application in such a way that you couldn't possibly miss how excited I was about it. Also, I point-blank told the adcom that it was the only chance I'd ever had to do research and that I was applying because I found it utterly addictive. So your essays are a valuable component of your research experience - don't put your heart into what you do, only to assume the adcom will get the picture by osmosis.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm a pretty boring person...I don't know that I'm going to have much of one. The only thing I can think of that even might be one is that I'm taking ~20 AP's and i'll be class rank 1-6/700. Would that count as a decent hook? Along with good rec's and essays, that's really all I'm looking at.
[/quote]
If you're sufficiently qualified, admission to Caltech (unlike at HYPMS) doesn't really require an outstanding "hook." Let's say that you're first in your class, get near perfect scores on the SAT and 800s on the SAT IIS, 5s on your APs, get good recs from teachers, take some advanced math, and have some substantial math/science extracurricular involvement. You're probably in. And if you're Caltech caliber, none of these things are at all outlandish.</p>
<p>I agree except with the M in your HYPS - MIT does try to balance the class with respect to gender and race more than Caltech, but one does one need a "hook" per se as one does at the top Ivies. Convincingly proving your academic and specifically your math/science-oriented abilities is enough at both of the Tech schools - and if you prove them impressively enough, it'll even be enough for the HYPS. Hooks are one way to go about things, but simply being very very smart has not gone entirely out of style.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I agree except with the M in your HYPS - MIT does try to balance the class with respect to gender and race more than Caltech, but one does one need a "hook" per se as one does at the top Ivies.
[/quote]
This is a good point. I probably shouldn't have included the "M".</p>