<p>Are there any RSI alumni that will volunteer to read over my essays? It would be greatly appreciated, as I have never applied for a program like this before.</p>
<p>How are you guys mailing in your application? I guess Iâm doing mine through USPS.</p>
<p>my my my luoscioly youâre such a trooper. btw i can still hear your voice in my head when iâm reading all your posts. </p>
<p>and to all you current applicants, iâm not sure if this is too late, but iâll be happy to read some essays after Jan 1. best wishes. :)</p>
<p>My question 3 and 5 essays are considerably longer than the rest of my essays. They each take up just under a page. I fear that the rest of my essays might be too short. My 6, 7 and 8 essays are 13, 16, and 15 lines long, and my 4 essay is only 6 six lines (I was very broad.) Suggestions?</p>
<p>^^a wild Rickoid appears! :O</p>
<p>ohhhhhhhhhh randomjason, remember those good olâ pre-RSI days when we met via College Confidential private message? those were the times; they are forever lost. :p</p>
<p>@run1116: I wouldnât necessarily worry. Your lengths donât sound horribly unreasonable. That being said, if you think you didnât get your desired content across in the shorter essays, you could go through the longer essays and look at each sentence and ask yourself: is this sentence really necessary to show my interest/aptitude in scientific research? If your answer to that question is no, consider deleting that sentence or merging it with another sentence. You can remove a lot of fluff by simply assessing whether any concrete benefit would be lost by deleting the sentence. But I will reiterate that those lengths you state are not necessarily too unbalanced. Itâs up to you to decide.</p>
<p>My #5 essay goes into detail of how I didnât really do anything (my middle school wasnât all that great, no kind of academic clubs or anything) and then slowly got involved at my math/science-focused magnet high school. A lot of it is me saying how I got started, and then I went into my achievements last year (since before high school, I had nothing, and 9th grade is when I started to become involved, although I wasnât any good yet). For example, I told how my school, though math/science based, never sent anyone to state in a math competition, and then how I was the first to go last year. I think the âstory-tellingâ is good to show my background and how I was determined enough to achieve things, but it does seem like a lot (itâs just under a page long.) Also, it feels that Iâm not answering the question directly with my response (because of the âstory-tellingâ that explains my background, instead of directly going into how it relates to my ability to do research. I am hoping that showing my accomplishments despite having a good foundation prior to high school shows my capability to undertake a research project.) In my third paragraph, I go into what I am doing to help my team this year and how Iâm expanding my competition preparation (for example, preparing for the AMC series and starting a math club at my school, because I did not know the series of tests existed until last year.) Does that sound acceptable? I know a lot of people have been doing math/science competitions throughout their lives, but Iâve only had the chance really since 9th grade, and going into 9th grade I was naive and didnât know anything (and my school doesnât have a tradition of perennially winning state-championships or producing great competitors in extracurricular activities, so much of my success is due to myself and not the school.) </p>
<p>Also, Iâve never done research (or known that those opportunities even existed for high school students) and I went into this in my #8 essay (I also fear that my essay may sound a bit âcheesyâ.) Were there a good amount of students without research experience at RSI? I know many have, and Iâve heard of some students that had no previous research experience, but do you think it would be a major issue?</p>
<p>I apologize for the long post, because it seems like it is a real burden for someone to read and formulate a response to. Thanks!</p>
<p>Do not be discouraged by your lack of research experience. Plenty of people at RSI (including me) had no prior research experience. If you have no research experience, simply focus on the science/math stuff youâve done that is not research. It is also important to show how much you love science/math. Also, I was similarly concerned that my essays would sound âcheesy.â But in hindsight, I think that essays only sound cheesy if they are specifically written to be cutesy or fake. If you wrote âfrom the heartâ and expressing your true interests, Iâm sure they sound fine.</p>
<p>In general, I do not think it is necessary to expound upon your âlack of opportunitiesâ; rather, I think it might be better to focus on the things you have done. My perception is that very few students (even the very best science students) have much (if any) exposure to ârealâ science research or competitions prior to high school. In fact, I did not mention my pre-high school days in my essays at all. My intent was to avoid drawing attention to my weaknesses (namely, lack of research experience) and instead shed light on some of the cool science/math stuff I had done.</p>
<p>You might consider tamping down the âstory-tellingâ aspect of your essays a bit. Iâm not saying that a âstory-tellingâ approach is bad, nor am I saying you should eliminate it entirely; I just think it might draw attention away from the things you actually have done and are currently doing. The stuff you say you wrote about in the third paragraph (namely, what youâre doing to contribute now) would probably put you in the best light.</p>
<p><em>Disclaimer: this advice is just from my personal experience. I am not on the RSI selection committee, so I do not know with certainty what they look for in essays.</em></p>
<p>LuoSciOly, youâre such a huge help! I would just like to thank you for what youâve done so far. Also, I just caught your post on the Semioverachiever blog, and itâs great! RSI sounds like an excellent experience, and it just gets better and better.</p>
<p>My #5 begins like this: âWhen I first entered high school, I had not participated in any math or science competitions, as my middle school had no after-school clubs dedicated to any academic pursuit. I entered a magnet school, with an emphasis on science and math, and for the first time, I was able to participate in academic contests and join clubs and teams formed for the purpose of competing in these contests. I joined one math club to start my freshman year -â (Note: I have plenty of revision to do, so this is definitely not the final submission.)</p>
<p>I then went into how I got involved, then how I took up leadership positions in multiple clubs (forming the first paragraph), how I went on to succeed in competitions (second paragraph), and what Iâm doing this year (third.) My initial post might have been slightly misleading (or not, I am not entirely sure.) I didnât write that much on how I had no opportunities (Pretty much, just the beginning of #5 and in #8 where I talk about how I have no prior research experience and how RSI would allow me to enter the world of research.)</p>
<p>I hope Iâm not putting out too much of my essaysâŠ</p>
<p>Also, I donât have any research experience, but I do have a year of lab experience in my school (my school offers a program where we have a âlab classâ to supplement our science courses.) Should I put this in my application?</p>
<p>In the essay explaining our interest in a particular research field, would it be wrong to include a sentence describing what our sub-field deals with and what our research field deals with? or would that be redundant considering the people at MIT already know these things?</p>
<p>Also, should these essays be a little on the informal side and include emotion? like college apps?</p>
<p>and continuing my previous post, should we also discuss why our chosen subfield interests us?</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>I never received a reply to my previous post. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>I self-studied for the AP Computer Science exam, although it doesnât show on my transcript. Is there a way I can include my score on the application?</p>
<p>@research543, LuoSciOly replied to @researchin who had a similar question to yours:</p>
<p>Post #180
@LuoSciOly:
âFor a subject I self-studied, I wrote âself-studyâ in the âDate Completed/Expectedâ field in the coursework section. I asked my school to include a list of my fall semester classes in the envelope with my transcript. You could send an update later, but it is neither required nor expected. I did not update RSI with my fall semester grades.â</p>
<p>hope this helps! (thanks to the wonderful all-knowing LuoSciOly!)</p>
<p>I saw that, although âAP Computer Scienceâ nor the comparable is a selection in the coursework tables. Is there a way I can still show them the score?</p>
<p>I donât think they consider APs at all, or at least thatâs what I read previously. I think you can just submit a photocopy of your AP score report, if you wish.</p>
<p>Hey, my question lengths are random as well. #5 is now ~1 whole page and #6~3/4 of a page. How much does RSI care about non-science extracurriculars; I have done charity work, sports, etc⊠so I went fairly deep into that. </p>
<p>Also, my question number 8 is literally 6 lines long to save space for my other questions. Is 6 lines too short? And just really quickly, I do not have especially much for the first question. I simply have stated/âarticulatedâ why the fields I choose are of interest to me as well as the "interesting questions, but what did you all to to âexplain why the questions interest youâ?</p>
<p>Errr⊠I have not done the first or last essays yet⊠but my middle ones are quite long and detailed. I feel like Iâm bragging in most of them, ahaha. 6 is definitely my longest, because I have a million extra-curriculars. I only have one science EC though for essay 5⊠whoops. Only one my school offers, so bam. My essays go from being very robotic and almost âlistingâ to very poetic and descriptive, so I am definitely still all over the place. Still waiting for one more rec letter, but my teacher says sheâs working on it :D</p>
<p>^@babolat1, 6 lines is not too short. My essay 7 is about5 lines because I have no idea about computers. Which is probably bad in hindsight since I accidentally clicked âbeginnerâ on the online form for EVERY single computer language thing and it wouldnât let me uncheck it⊠Also, they match you to your lab based on your answer to the first question, so you may want to go a bit more in detail. Then, if you are put into a lab, they can better gauge a good fit.</p>
<p>@run1116: youâre welcome; Iâm happy to help! You could mention the lab class in your essay(s) if you feel it adds beneficial information to your profile.</p>
<p>@penguinlover2016: it would not be redundant to include a sentence of explanation about your chosen subfield, especially if it is just a single sentence. I do think you should definitely discuss why the subfield interests you. Regarding âformalityâ and âemotion,â that is totally up to you. I saw Rickoidsâ essays that ranged from rather informal/conversational to very rigid/formal. Mine were quite formal. I would recommend choosing whatever style fits your personality best. In fact, I think that would apply to all essays in general! Donât try to contrive a tone to impress the readers - write in the style that fits you best.</p>
<p>@research543: my response to researchin was intended to apply to you as well. Computer Science is listed in the coursework table, so you could write âself-studyâ in the âDate Completed/Expectedâ field as I recommended in post #180. The coursework table even includes an âAâ checkbox to indicate AP Computer Science A. To show them your AP score, you could include a copy of your AP score report with the rest of your score reports, as I recommended in post #166. (As run1116 said, it is not necessary to send AP score reports, but you can do so if you wish.)</p>
<p>@Babolat1: I wouldnât worry about the lengths in and of themselves; just worry about whether you included all the content you wanted to include. I would not say that 6 lines is necessarily too short unless you think itâs missing some content you want to include. Regarding non-science extracurriculars, I canât precisely answer your question about âhow much RSI caresâ because I simply do not know.</p>
<p>@WeIsCool: if you want, you could potentially expand your essay #7 by talking about the other items the question names (modeling, simulation, and data analysis), which do not necessarily involve intense computer skills. But itâs up to you.</p>
<p>also, since iâve taken ap bio, i marked âcollegeâ for that but with ap physics b, should i mark âbâ or âcollegeâ? because it will only let you mark one
thank you!</p>
<p>This major accomplishments thing is killing me. I have no national awards or research experience, really not that much besides a bunch of school wide awards. I wonât even be able to get a page of mildly significant things⊠thereâs no way I can possibly get in. I feel like the more I put on this page, the more they will laugh⊠this is horrible. Iâm so underqualified!</p>