Is summer science program (SSP) still worth attending?
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Anonymous
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This year they expanded the program to nearly 600 people with a fee close to 10K. Kids will be conducting experiments designed by SSP, and are not allowed to publish anything resulting from the designed experiments. Doe it sound more like an enrichment camp than authentic research? The upside is that the kids got to socialize with their peers for a summer. And if they happen to get in HYPMS in the future, they will have some existing connections when they landed.
SSP is affiliated with Caltech, MIT and Harvey Mudd. AOs will be there looking for potential admits. The theory is that if you pass the selection process, you presumably will pass the college admission process. Thoughts? Any previous attendees? |
Anonymous
| It is a fantastic program that will absolutely benefit your child. As for admittances, search SSP24decisions on IG to see where those kids ended up. |
Anonymous
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SSP has a great reputation. I suspect your child has an interest in the subject matter; otherwise, they would not have applied. If your concern is that there's no publication at the end, I think that's not really the right point of view - there are no meaningful breakthroughs in scientific research occurring in one summer, especially by anyone who is in high school.
What are your child's alternatives for the summer? |
Anonymous
| Pssst it was always about enrichment. Or do you actually believe your 16 year old is a professional scientist? |
Anonymous
What's wrong with enrichment if you can afford the 10K to pay to play? The program looks amazing. |
Anonymous
| My kid didnt get in, congrats, what were there stats? |
Anonymous
Oh to be clear, I think there’s a nothing wrong with enrichment. It was OP who suggested that there was. |
Anonymous
| SSP has very generous financial aid, so it's not completely "pay to play." |
Anonymous
| The publication restriction would not bother me at all. As researcher, the idea that a high school student could design a ground breaking experiment and publish something legitimate after spending 6 weeks in a lab makes me chuckle. Those researchers are doing these kids a huge service by inviting them into their labs and letting them participate in ongoing work. |
Anonymous
| SSP is very, very prestigious. Most kids go onto an Ivy/Stanford/T20 |
Anonymous
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My son went to SSP, and learned a lot of science. It is a very selective program, with an app based on MITs; the application alone is worth doing as a test-run before senior year. And the college results for my son and his peers were very strong. MIT in particular takes a lot of SSP kids. Maybe correlation, not causation, though.
The expansion of the program to roughly double the size might change the selectivity of the program, and it is hard to imagine them rolling out that many new programs (though the curriculum is standardized, so I assume it would mean expanding the number of campuses doing one of four programs). I think the way the particular campus my son was it was run by administration left a lot to be desired, however, so much so that I considered writing a letter addressing the issues to SSP leadership. I did not. These problems might have been confined to this particular campus... |
Anonymous
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Which campus, PP?
Is your son in college now or graduated? What major/job is he doing now? |
Anonymous
| To keep things semi-vague, he was at one of the biochemistry campuses, and is now at Brown. |
Anonymous
| Same poster: his closest friends in the program ended up at Caltech, Columbia and Rice. As a whole, the group had very good results, and I think AOs respect the selection process and the content of the program. |
Anonymous
Could you expound a little on what the issues were with the way the program was run? |