<p>So who’s applying to Ross, and how many questions do you need to get correct to make it?</p>
<p>I’m applying! I think it’s not necessarily how many you get right, but how you approach them and showing that you’re willing to work hard through how you attack them?</p>
<p>Hi, DataBox, I think collision has the right idea about what is important on the application quiz for Ross. </p>
<p>[The</a> Ross Program](<a href=“http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/]The”>http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/) </p>
<p>The program staff are probably looking more for thought process and thoroughness than for a rigidly defined number of correct answers. Your personal description of your previous math activities and interest in the program will also be important. </p>
<p>Good luck to all of you applying. I think Ross is a great program.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice!</p>
<p>Ross has begun selecting its junior counselors for summer 2009, and it looks like it will have a great year this year. I hear enrollment will be smaller than last year, in the interest of having a higher-quality program, so take your application seriously and gear yourself up for working steadily throughout the summer.</p>
<p>Collision has it exactly right. Try every problem, show how you are approaching it, show every step in your attempt even if you think it may not help, and if you can then arrive at the answer. Your thought process, as token adult pointed out, is most important and not the correct answer. For instance, giving just the correct answer will not look very good, but giving nearly all of the steps with possibly a mistake at the end will. The best advice I can give is to try your hardest and to not worry about how many you actually got the answer to or how many other people did.</p>
<p>Do you know anyone who has been to Ross? How intense and competitive is it?</p>
<p>Ross is not generally “competitive” in the sense of students being cut-throat once they are there. It is intense in the sense of being all pure mathematics, all the time. Ross is for people who enjoy math and who enjoy other people who enjoy math. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/[/url]”>http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/</a> </p>
<p>Whoa! They’ve just redone the Ross Program website. It’s newer-looking, and has more information about the program than before.</p>
<p>My sorta-ex did that =P</p>
<p>He said that they get a lot of work to do all the time, but they don’t expect you to ever be able to finish all of it</p>
<p>Do you think colleges really care which of these programs you attend, or in other words will Ross look better on an application than Hampshire? Or should you just go to the program you get into that sounds the best? Ross sounds like it’s all hard work and no play, is that really true?</p>
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<p>CountingDown (another parent) and I might respectfully disagree about that. 
Her oldest son went to Hampshire, and mine has been to Ross (and will be back as a JC this summer). I have another friend who I think is an alumnus of Hampshire, or who at least knows many alumni from a generation ago. As far as I know, Hampshire is a good program, and I think it gets respect from college admission officers. But I will always be happy to put in a good word for Ross. </p>
<p>After edit: to answer the other questions, </p>
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<p>You should go to the program that you think fits you. Don’t let your life be ruled by what you think admission officers think (especially because some of them think you should make up your own mind about such issues, without college admission too much in mind). </p>
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<p>That’s certainly what the Ross counselors say when they trash-talk other programs. And in actual point of fact, Ross has extremely minimal planned “fun” activities. But inductive study of number theory is a form of play to some young minds, and Ross is sufficiently unstructured in its schedule that the participants in the program can figure out how to have fun together when they absolutely, positively need a break from working on the problem sets. There are quite a few students who go back voluntarily, knowing what Ross was like in a previous year.</p>
<p>Tokenadult, I think you and I agree that both programs are terrific and that “resume value” is largely irrelevant! Ross and HCSSiM are both outside the math competition model, and that had a lot of appeal to my S. At the time, he was going to major in CS and was looking for something that would give him exposure to the higher level math needed for serious algorithmic programming. He liked HCSSiM’s approach and the experience changed his life. The folks who attend HCSSiM are quirky and unconventional, and they do intensely cool math. S found a path to his future there and has been out pursuing it ever since.</p>
<p>Yes, every college math/CS dept person with whom S spoke while researching and interviewing colleges thought highly of HCSSiM. As compared to other programs? I don’t know, and he didn’t ask. We do know that HCSSiM plus the excellent coursework he had in HS was a stellar preparation for advanced college math.</p>
<p>Yes, both programs are good. </p>
<p>As an update for students new to CC, I’ll mention that the new website for the Ross Program </p>
<p>[The</a> Ross Mathematics Summer Program for high school students, held on The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio](<a href=“http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/]The”>http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross/) </p>
<p>has good information about the program. Keep working on the problems in the application quiz if you are considering attending.</p>
<p>How do they ensure that one doesn’t ask their math teacher or a mathematician for help on the questions?</p>
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<p>No one knows that for sure, but the application quiz goes in in your own handwriting. Besides, the “prize” for completing the application quiz successfully is to be admitted to a program where you will be working closely with people who can see you face-to-face and see how you are doing your work, so there is little incentive to get a lot of extra help on the application quiz. Do your own thinking, and do your own writing–that’s what you’ll do at Ross.</p>
<p>But again, you can ask your teacher to do it for you, then do it in your own handwriting.</p>
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<p>Your teacher might also email the Ross Program and say that you are cheating.</p>
<p>hmm. i attended last year as a sophomore. I might go again this year cuz I just got rejected to SSP</p>
<p>tokenadult, I will most likely be applying to Ross this year and had a couple of questions for you:</p>
<ol>
<li>Do the students have time to work on research/summer homework while at Ross?</li>
<li>Is access to wifi readily available?</li>
<li>Are students allowed to leave the campus during the 8 weeks, or spend a weekend or two at home?</li>
</ol>
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<p>What you do at Ross constitutes research (except that it is about solved problems with known answers) and what you do at Ross takes up a lot of time if you do it well. It MAY be that PROMYS has a little bit more of deviation from the curriculum to do Intel-style research projects, but I’m not sure about that. </p>
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<p>No. Moreover, students have to get special permission to bring along computers (my son never has brought one). The Ross students all have access to Ohio State computers in libraries for access to email and the like, but pencil and paper is the tool of choice at Ross. </p>
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<p>It is strongly encouraged to stay at the program for the entire duration of the program. I’ve just left my son there for eight weeks at a time in two different summers. He got off campus briefly to go out to dinner with classmates when the classmates’ parents visited during each of the summers he was there, but he didn’t do any outings away from Columbus, Ohio. It is possible for students to go off campus. The only rigidly enforced rule is to never cross High Street (a major arterial street on the east side of the campus) unless accompanied by a counselor. But Ross students are expected to use their discretion and good judgment to get their problem sets done.</p>