New Jersey Scholars Program 2018

lesjubilants
Thu, 12 Apr 2018 03:43:08 +0000

@hihelloheyhi

First off, congratulations on your acceptance to NJSP! It is truly an amazing accomplishment.

I am a scholar from last year, also with a sharp creative writing spike. I had taken a New York Times creative writing class, was published in multiple magazines, and had won a few national awards at the time. While I didn’t necessarily have an alternative summer plan at the time, I obviously chose NJSP. I stand by my decision, as it was the single most formative experience in my high school career. Even if I could have done something else that would’ve gotten me into Harvard or Brown (my two top schools), I would not trade my experience last summer for those acceptances.

Your guidance counselor is wrong. New Jersey Scholars, if explained properly on a college application, is more prestigious than Governor’s School. Gov School only has a written application process; there is no interview, so you wind up with many more book-smart kids than intelligent, interesting ones, if you recognize the distinction. In addition, many states have programs that are called Governor’s School, but admit hundreds of kids across many disciplines. These programs are not as rigorous and do not have the selective application process of NJ Gov School, and colleges will assume that New Jersey’s program is no different from these. There is no equivalent to NJSP in any state, nothing to compare it to, and nothing to bring down its reputation. When we spoke to a Princeton admissions officer last year, he said that the office considers NJSP to be the highest academic achievement for juniors in the state of New Jersey. The only summer programs that would trump it would be the free, national academic intensives like TASP or a couple of math camps.

NJSP will not be the magic thing on your resume that gets you into every college, including all eight Ivy Leagues. There are many, many other factors: public v. private school, intended major, race, quality of your essays, grades, recommendation letters. And, before you start the college process, I want you to know that even if everything is perfect on your application, if you have the huge creative writing spike and the awards, you still may not get into these elite institutions. To put it bluntly, it is a crapshoot. Choose your summer activity on the experience that you want to have, not for its merit on an application. I know it’s hard to ignore college when you’re a junior. To ease your mind, here are some of the colleges that NJSP scholars got into this year (that I personally know of, there are many more that I can’t remember):
Duke University (2)
Columbia University (4)
Stanford University (2)
Princeton University (4)
MIT (2)
Vanderbilt (2)
University of Chicago (1)
Yale University (3)
UC Berkeley (1+)
Smith College (1)
Georgetown University (3)
All of us received large merit packages from state schools like UNC, Rutgers, University of South Carolina Honors College, University of Maryland, UCLA, University of Michigan and admission to their extremely competitive honors colleges and programs. There’s also quite a few who got into Boston University, Boston College, Tufts, College of William and Mary, etc. Some, myself included, advanced to finalist rounds of nationally prestigious scholarships like the Jefferson Scholarship, the Robertson Scholarship,and the Stamps Scholarship. The year before us, there was a girl who got into all eight Ivies and another who got into Harvard EA. Again, do not worry about college.

That being said, I got into every single college that I applied to where I featured NJSP and the research that I did there in supplement essays. It is wildly rare to have a high school student who has participated in high-level seminars and research; on many scholarship and college interviews, professors and alumni always lean forward in their seats, incredibly interested when I talk about the discussions that we had: arguing if time is real, debating whether the Armenian genocide was really a genocide, comparing the emperors of Japan to the fascist leaders of Western Europe, discussing the scientific ethics of chemical weapons. It’s interesting to be the interviewee who excitedly talks about political theory instead of the sports they did or that award they won. In addition, as corny as it sounds, NJSP completely changed my way of thinking and processing information. It gave me lifelong friends that could only be gained over five weeks. Is that something Iowa can give you? An internship at NBC? No. In addition, they bring in former admissions counselors and alumni (like me!) who will give you valuable college advice and guide you through the admissions process, which is something that your other summer plans will not help you with.

Sorry for the long post-- there is quite a lot to say about the program. I recommend it wholly and completely. If you have any questions, you can just @ me in this thread or personal message me; I don’t mind either.