MIT Junction or volunteering/interning research professor

Pre-College Topics Summer Programs
1

<p>Alright the title is kinda misleading because I don’t really have a position to volunteer or intern anywhere yet. However a Harvard senior told me that when she was in high school, she just emailed around professors working on a research project and asked them if she could volunteer for no pay. Apparently, it took her about a 100 emails to different professors till she finally landed one. </p>

<p>My predicament is that I’ve been accepted to MIT Junction and the deadline to RSVP is June 8. I don’t know if I should just go ahead and accept or I should pursue a volunteer position in a research lab. I’m willing to email a 100 different professors till one of them lets me volunteer but I won’t be able to do it in 2 days. So I need to make a decision now.</p>

<p>It pretty much comes down to the question of whether Junction on an application. has any merit/prestige. The application process was kinda a joke. Am I better off not going at all and attempting to find a volunteer spot? Or is the volunteering thing a hopeless endeavor and I should just take what I have and attend Junction?</p>

2

<p>Trying to impress on a college application is not a reason to attend Junction – or at least, we hope that’s not why you would come. Junction’s culture is about learning for the sake of enjoying the subjects. Junction looks as good on an application as doing anything else over the summer that’s important to you or that you enjoy, and no better. A good number of Junction students go on to attend MIT and Ivy League colleges (without having also worked in a research lab) but that’s because they’re awesome students :slight_smile: not because putting Junction on their apps made them look extra-special. </p>

<p>If you decided to come, we hope your goal is to meet lots of new people and learn a cool subject that’s hard to find in other places, not to impress a college.</p>

<p>~A Junction staffer</p>