Do summer programs help in admissions?

[cortana431]

In addition to summer programs, if there are universities nearby within reasonable distance, your daughter can contact professors there and see if she can do basic research with them over the summer.

[intparent]

Would like to see a list of these "free or reduced cost" programs... my D was interested in science programs for last summer, and we worked for over a year ahead of time researching all the options we could find. I have a spreadsheet with about 100 programs on it, and only a VERY small number are free, very low cost, or offer a stipend. And every one of those has a very low admission rate. There used to be a few more, but some of those have gone away (victims of the recession, I think). If you are an underrepresented minority, then there are more options, but I don't get that impression from the OP's post. Just don't want her to take away the impression that these programs are easy to find or get into.

[ecouter11]

High School Internships has a good list of programs that aren't paid

Young Scholars Program | Summer Research Opportunities for High School Students (Specific program)

and http://cogito.org (Gives you list)

and City of Hope Eugene and Ruth Roberts Summer Student Academy for biomedical research located near Los Angeles, California.
(Specific Program)
and NIH Summer Internship Program in Biomedical Research (High School Students)
(Specific Program)
are good "official" programs for research type stuff. Also check out the CC "Summer Program" forum.

I agree with the "work with a nearby professor" but if your daughter wants to do that, unless she has some connections, she will have to be very persistent and motivated. I have some documents on e-mailing professors as a high school student that I made for a club/organization I run so feel free to PM me if you're interested.

Finally, I'm no adcom or even parent, just another HS student, but i think having a real job is not a bad thing and can indeed look good on apps. That being said, while a summer job clearly teaches you skills like hard work/teamwork etc. , it's not very academically enriching (in my experience) and that's when summer programs, paid or otherwise are good.

Edit: I didn't really read the thread well because I should be doing something else at the moment but I just wanted to say: let your daughter lead the way. If she wants to do a program like the aforementioned ones, she should do it; if not, don't pressure her! Not saying that you are, just my 0.02 cents. High school students are old enough to figure these things out (i.e. what they want to do) and discuss them with their parents who can then provide their input.

[2016BarnardMom]

My D had it in her head that she wanted to go to college in NYC (preferably Columbia because she did NOT want to go to an all girls school) without ever having been there. She applied to Barnard's Young Women's Leadership Institute pre-college program and I supported that so she could get a true feel for whether she could live in NYC and get a feel for the Barnard/Columbia campus at the same time. Ironically, she fell in love, not just with NYC, but with Barnard itself because of the passionate women she met (participants and faculty), and their overall philosophy. I don't know if her participation and recommendation from YWLI gave her an edge, but I do know that her "Why Barnard?" essay was totally from the heart, based on that experience. In that regard, I'm sure it helped.

[anxiousmommy]

Thank you to everyone for all of your input. I will be sure to look at the thread mentioned that covers the various summer programs. My daughter wants to do some sort of program. The issue I think is that she seems to have been bitten by the prestige bug and perhaps thinks that one of these programs will make a difference for her. I can't help but think (or perhaps just want it to be so) that hard work and commitment to certain activities over a number of years should count for something. Her volunteering activities are primarily to do with the medical field or autistic kids. I think that perhaps one of the pre-college programs might have some benefit. The doctors without borders program she is looking at is two weeks long which would eliminate her ability to participate in one of her summer jobs and the one she is looking at is in Jamaica. Now I'm not an admissions person, but to me that sounds more like a vacation. This same program has many other more legitimate sounding locales like India and China. And at the end of the day, I want her to have an enriching, and rewarding experience and not have it be about college admissions. I just don't want to do something that will look like its detracting from a solid and responsible path. We are in a suburb of NYC so she could very possibly just take a summer course at one of the schools in the city and that could show just as much initiative and dedication.

[2016BarnardMom]

Don't believe that a program in Jamaica will be a vacation. I have a college friend who joined the Peace Corps after a few years of practicing as an Occupational Therapist and was placed in Kingston, Jamaica for two years. She worked as a home health pediatric OT and it was most definitely NOT a vacation. Jamaica, outside of the resort areas, is poverty stricken. Many people don't have electricity or running water.

[OHMomof2]

What Barnardmom says is true about Jamaica, though IMO safe drinking water is everywhere just not INSIDE many homes, and electricity is very expensive so a bit of a luxury. However, I can't find a Medecins sans Frontiers (DWB) program there...are you sure it's that org? When I google I find some other group saying their program is better/similar/possible for inexperienced to help.

[SinkOrSwim123]

Programs that cost a lot of money generally don't have any benefits. Programs that are free and very hard to get into (like MIT's MITES program, Governor's school, etc.) are looked well upon. Still, they're not necessary and I wouldn't put the time / money into it if it's not a huge benefit. Have fun in the summer, travel, spend time with family. Sometimes, things like starting your own research project, etc. in the summer will help a lot more than the expensive programs that just want your money.

[UMTYMP student]

This is somewhat tangential but might be of interest to some. Last summer, I worked as a counselor at Ross, which is one of the more selective math programs [not free but heavily subsidized with financial aid for needy students, ~40% acceptance rate] and a decent amount of the students there were only there because of parents/college admissions. It's unclear if students actually get much benefit from simply attending but clearly many believe they do. Such students rarely work hard and are often a major annoyance behavior-wise, so the counselors have tried to think of ways to lower the number of such students. In order, to discourage such students from applying and to try to get them to work when at the camp we typically claim you only got an admissions boost if you do well and are invited back as a junior counselor or can get a recommendation from the head of the program [I have no idea if that is actually the case]. That hasn't been particularly successful but we haven't come up with any better ideas. Students who do work hard while at Ross typically get much better at math though.

[intparent]

So last year we had reviewed every website and program that ecouter11 posted on. These are very good lists -- go ahead and look at all of them, you may find something in your area or that makes sense for your D, but here are a few specific comments:

- The Young Scholars Program costs over $5,000 for the program.
- City of Hope is very difficult to find housing for. There are threads out here from other summers for kids who got into the program, but could not find housing...
- NIH didn't seem to be hiring hardly any high school students last summer. My D put in an application in early December and emailed with about 15 different labs hoping to land a spot. None of the labs she contacted hired ANY high school students last summer. And the stipend for high school students isn't really enough to cover housing, travel, and board for a summer in DC, either. I am sure a few labs took HS students last summer, but numbers were really down, I think due to government spending cuts at the labs.
- Some of the best programs are limited to students living in a specific geographic area. You have to visit the website to figure out which ones. Others seem to give admissions preference to students in their area (even though the web sites don't actually say this).
- Many of the programs also take undergrad and even graduate students. It is often very difficult for a high school student to compete with that.

Just saying, it is MUCH harder than these websites make it look to land a spot in a "good" program. If you go down this path, make sure your D has a backup plan of a couple of paid programs she is more likely to get into.

[colorado_mom]

" I can't help but think (or perhaps just want it to be so) that hard work and commitment to certain activities over a number of years should count for something. "

They do. For some very competitive colleges (aka "lottery schools"), it may not be enough. But for the most part summer programs won't improve the odds. Consider them if they would be useful for refining college priorities, making it easier to make "the list" of potential majors and colleges. Or if they would be a good "life opportunity".

[critter]

We have a couple of kids that applied to very selective summer programs but they each did 6-10 applications over a couple of summers. They both were very successful with summer acceptances at several programs mentioned above and said that college apps after that process did not seem daunting.

I know D'10 was helped in the admissions process. She had so much to talk about and everyone said she was a very interesting kid. S'13 says his interviewers have been very interested in what he did during his summers as well and he always takes along 'show and tell' items. He has been getting very positive feedback so far. We will know soon how it all turns out for him.

I say go for it if it is something that they want to do with their summer. We have two other kids that did not go this route and it was the right decision for them. The two that did were looking for the specific opportunities they applied for-we just helped them find options and let them do the rest.

[glido]

Attending a summer program at a particular university will not help your admissions prospect at THAT university, except for service academies, where attendees are specifically evaluated. But attending the programs does tend to show an interest in learning in general and in a particular area of study, but colleges know that many applicants have to spend their summers earning money and cannot afforded the expensive summer programs at some universities.

[Beliavsky]

I think paying for a summer program makes sense if the subject is something the student is very good at and interested in and if admission is selective. Gifted students who do not have many intellectual peers at their schools may find kids like themselves at summer programs run by the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and the like. Interacting with such kids may give them a better idea of their own abilities. I don't think working at McDonald's for the summer is a good use of time for most high-IQ youth, since it has little to do with their future aspirations.

I recommend the book "What High Schools Don't Tell You" by Elizabeth Wissner-Gross for a discussion of worthwhile summer programs and how they relate to college admissions.

[YoHoYoHo]

In following up with health/medicine related ECs and in response to a previous poster...yes, volunteering at a Hosp helps. As with what others have posted, the level if competitive selection or vetting to obtain a health related EC also has an effect on the amount that it is valued by the evaluators/ad coms. Thus, a ranking of med ECs might look like this: no involvement, volunteer at Hosp, shadowing a MD, working at drs without borders, working an an mD office, becoming an EMT, involvement in a lab, chosen for NIH, name on an abstract or presentation, name on a manuscript in a scientific journal. Of course, At the HS level, most ate able to get to the volunteer at Hosp level, which is ok but realize that there is no competitive selection here; mainly it shows initiative.

Jamaica is very much in need of medical care.