Is summer science program (SSP) still worth attending?

[Anonymous]

It's rather involved, but one real drawback is that students had very little freedom to explore the campus/town they were on/in, with a tight spatial perimeter, strict curfews, having to go everywhere in twos, etc. It was pretty draconian for a group of 16/17 yo kids, most of them serious and responsible. There were other issues involving how "discipline" was administered, and then there's the fact that some of the faculty never submitted recommendations for attending students, which they are supposed to do.... It was a mess. But the kids were bright, lots of science was learned, the TAs were great, and the students seems to have generally had very good to excellent results when applying to top colleges (my guess is 60-70 percent Ivy/MIT/Caltech, lots of MIT, with a smattering of Rice, Duke, Berkeley, etc.).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's rather involved, but one real drawback is that students had very little freedom to explore the campus/town they were on/in, with a tight spatial perimeter, strict curfews, having to go everywhere in twos, etc. It was pretty draconian for a group of 16/17 yo kids, most of them serious and responsible. There were other issues involving how "discipline" was administered, and then there's the fact that some of the faculty never submitted recommendations for attending students, which they are supposed to do.... It was a mess. But the kids were bright, lots of science was learned, the TAs were great, and the students seems to have generally had very good to excellent results when applying to top colleges (my guess is 60-70 percent Ivy/MIT/Caltech, lots of MIT, with a smattering of Rice, Duke, Berkeley, etc.).

Do you think having attended SSP helped your DC get into a (better) college?

[Anonymous]

I think he would have gotten into the same college either way, honestly, but I think it represented a very strong, widely respected EC that differentiated him from some of his peers (at a very competitive private), which is the key. I think he would have been a viable MIT applicant (he also did very well, nationally, on one of the olympiads) but he did not choose to apply there.

One more point: the vast majority of kids in the program are from competitive public schools. I know of one person (second-hand, of course) who attended a very competitive California public who said 30 kids from her high school applied to the program!