Is there any evidence of specific summer programs boosting admissions chances?

entomom
Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:13:11 +0000

Here’s another case study, my D applied for TASP, got as far as the interview but didn’t make the final cut. Last year, she did however get accepted to HYP as well as invitations to Emory Scholar and WUSTL scholarship weekends and a full ride academic scholarship at UMichigan.

So no, TASP is not a requirement for admission to the most selective schools. However it is still the most selective and highly regarded humanities summer program in the country. I don’t think anyone has said that a student has to attend one of these programs to be admitted to a selective college, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t prestigious or a positive addition to a college application (not to imply that that is the reason that the student attended).

Tyler, like you, I would like to see rigorous, systematic studies, but that’s not going to happen, because college admissions isn’t that black and white. It’s holistic, there is no one attribute that makes or breaks an application. But that still doesn’t mean that one of these programs isn’t helpful. About your assertion:

“I’m very skeptical because if TASP truly was the “most prestigious summer program in the nation” I’m sure they would compete a lot harder to recruit the brightest students in the country, beyond just sending them one brochure in the mail, while most of them have never heard of it before.”

I agree, TASP recruits very little, whereas we got lots of mail for paid summer programs. As an analogy, HYP never sent my D anything in the mail, but WUSTL and a lot of other schools did. Truth is, HYP and TASP don’t have to spend a lot of time, effort and money recruiting–due to their reputations.

My point is in no way to say that TASP/RSI are better than another summer activity a student chooses to do. The question asked by the OP was whether or not they are a boost to college admissions chances.

As far as cause or correlation…grades, SAT scores, essays, summer programs, letters of recommendation…which are cause and which are correlation for college admissions? They all take partial credit as the cause and they are all correlated IMO.