<p>I’m a Junor in high school right now and I’m about to get an exclusive (no other high school students there) internship at a political think tank at a top ten (USNWR Ranking) university that I will not mention. Is this especially impressive?</p>
<p>I saw someone on here talking about an internship at a lab at Harvard and it was considered extremely impressive by posters. Although the university I’ll be working at is not HYP, it is extremely distinguished. Basically what I’m asking is this: will the prestige of the university and the fact that I’m the only high school student there add significantly to the impressiveness of my internship compared to someone working at a lab at the University of Cincinatti (random example) or some other (relatively) unknown or insignificant research venue. I mean research in general at any lab is impressive, but will the circumstances surrounding my situation enhance how colleges view my experience?</p>
<p>This is the same type of post as the people who say “I am valedictorian and captain of 3 varsity teams and president of my class and founder of a state-wide food drive program…what are my chances at community college?”</p>
<p>I think that they will see the research as a waste of time honestly. I mean, these days, everybody gets research opportunities at universities like Harvard, Yale, or at least Princeton. You’d be better served spending your time trying to get a 2400 on the SAT or something useful if you even want a chance anywhere.</p>
<p>First of all to Dwight Eisenhauer, I honestly didn’t know the answer. I’ applying to Princeton and Stanford and even though I know that to the average person this internship is impressive, to the adcoms at Princeton and Stanford who get thousands of applications from students who have interned in India and won international math and science competitions, there could be something to be said for the difference between your (relatively) avergage research internship at a random lab and one at a more distinguished institution. BUT, adcoms may simply look at it as me getting lucky for happening to live near this university and equate it in terms of impressiveness to any of the aforementioned random research oppurtunities.</p>
<p>BUT, despite both DwightEIsenhauer and monroylobo’s cynicism and sarcasm, you two have answered my question. I’m glad to hear that it’ll look good!</p>
<p>And thank you Dbate, you cleared up the second post for me. Originally had skimmed it and thought that monroylobo was serious.</p>
<p>Honestly, we don’t know. That’s the closest to the truth we could tell you. </p>
<p>I think it looks impressive in its own way. However, it depends on what kind of work you are doing really. Are you co-developing the cure to cancer, or are you running coffee from the Starbucks three blocks away?</p>
<p>Don’t think too much about these things, and NEVER ponder about what kind of amazing things your fellow applicants would have on their apps. It changes nothing and just makes you a lot more paranoid. Just do it if the internship looks like a nice benefit. Otherwise, forget it.</p>
<p>LOL @ goldenratiophi, I don’t know why I did that, it just seemed appropriate.</p>
<p>And I am actually helping with field work on a research project. I don’t see how developing the cure for cancer would be appropriate for a political think tank. Also, all the of the rest of my extracurriculars are political/socially based. I’m the founder of a nonprofit that’s building a school in Asia and I’m the president of a couple city-wide cultural youth organizations.</p>