<p>@saelanares
I feel the same way. There are so many great students at my school that I feel like my recs will be good but not anything special. I’ve had the same math and science teachers the past few years so I don’t really have any options nor am I close with either of them. How much weight does RSI actually give to the recs? I love science and that’ll show through my essays but not so much through those letters…</p>
<p>@numbersense
If you look at the 2012 thread people got in with psat scores nowhere close to perfect</p>
<p>Saelanares, try your best to get your teacher’s recommendation from your science or math teacher and not your athletic coaches. RSI is looking for science and math talents and your athletic coach can not speak to your ability in those areas.</p>
<p>@shinexalive - Well, I don’t know if I speak for everyone, but I certainly haven’t! STS is only for seniors, who won’t/can’t be applying to this. Though there will definitely be people from ISEF applying. Maybe even the prizewinners. Though again, I haven’t heard that there’s really any advantage in that; there are people who have no research experience getting in OVER the ISEF finalists, so I really feel that teacher recs and essay responses are the most important of all.</p>
<p>I noticed this thread was up and running and wanted to offer my help to all applicants this year. I applied to RSI last year and did NOT get in. I can’t emphasize how important the essays are for RSI (I kinda blew them off), so work hard on them and get a lot of people to look at them. HOWEVER, what I want to emphasize with this post is that it’s ok if you don’t get into RSI. The acceptance rate is unbelievely low (lower than MIT’s acceptance rate) and the reality is, many of you will be rejected. Don’t be discouraged. I just got my Stanford acceptance later, so it IS possible to get in somewhere good without “attending RSI”. The point is, work hard before, be prepared to rejection (but hope for the best), and move on. Good luck to all!</p>
<p>Oh and PS: if you have any questions, feel free to PM me!</p>
<p>I finally finished writing everything for this. I’m actually pretty happy with my essay responses, now if only my PSAT scores weren’t leering at me waiting to shoot me in the foot, I would feel like I actually had a chance. (WHY didn’t I know about the “recommended” scores for this BEFORE I took the PSAT and study harder? <em>tear</em>. Too late now, anyway.)</p>
<p>I’m applying for Biomedical and Integrated Biology! And I have had no research/award experience. Good luck to everybody and I hope to see you there!</p>
<p>Hi again! quick question- from what I can tell from the essays it only specifies single-spaced, 12 pt font, and three pages but nothing about margins. Would it be acceptable to make the margins small to accommodate more writing? Or am I missing something.</p>
<p>@theseabean - I don’t know about margins; I’d expect default margins from them. But if you’re really concerned, you can try hitting them up at <a href="mailto:maite@cee.org">maite@cee.org</a> with whatever questions you have. Pretty fast response time (got mine in 3 hours), and it can’t really hurt. Also, does it say only 3 pages? Can you point me to that? The only restrictions I was aware of was single space, 12 pt font, and 3 paragraphs per question. Looks like I might have to do some trimming down… :D</p>
<p>@AmaranthineD - I know how you feel about dem PSAT scores… But do you not meet the math requirement or the total requirement? Or both? Because if you don’t meet the math, then all you need are a few math competition awards to show you just messed up a little. If it’s the total, then I think you just need general scientific accomplishments or something (kinda quoting the website). And obviously, the most important part are the essays, which you’ve said you’re confident with (I sure as heck am not) and your teacher recs… so don’t overthink or anything.</p>
<p>To any rickoids out there - If it’s allowed, would you be willing to give your essays as an example? I feel like I’m just throwing things on my essay responses without any real direction or anything. #freakingoutabouteverything</p>
<p>My essays are all over the place. Need to clean them up. I WANT to focus on an activity or two that has REALLY impacted my life so that I can show them I’m not a shallow person who just joins activities, but I have so many to talk about that I have wound up just mentioning them in passing… Urgh!! The maximum page number of 3 is killing me</p>
<p>The maximum length for the teacher recommendations is 1000 characters? That’s incredibly short! How do you get a message across in that few characters? I’m worried that the recommendations won’t be very helpful, if they are that short.</p>
<p>Ha, I think it’s a joke how unqualified I am. I’ve been looking at people’s posts on here, on the RSI 2012 thread, and around the internet. I don’t even know what got into me to apply. (I was bored? Seeking external validation? I was on something?) But I figured it won’t hurt, and it’ll help with my app-writing skills at the very least. I have a combined 211 PSAT score, with a 63 math(feel free to roll your eyes/nudge each other) XD and pretty much no research/science competition experience whatsoever. I’ve never applied to anything like this before and don’t expect to get in(duh).</p>
<p>It would be hilarious if I did though.You all have a far better chance. I can imagine the admissions people opening up my application and staring at each other with looks of mixed horror.</p>
<p>Ok thanks guys Ill email them for an answer on the margins. More importantly, the teacher recommendations are 1000 characters long only?!?! My mentor wrote one thats three pages long with synopses of my papers I completed with him. Of course there would be an issue after all the careful planning it took to get my crap together.</p>
<p>Also, where are you supposed to submit the 1-2 page list of accomplishments online, as it says to? Obviously sending them in the mail is not a problem.</p>
<p>HEY guys, I was just wondering, how important is the PSAT score? I took the SATs and did fairly well, and I do not want to really take the PSATs. Can I just send the SAT scores instead?</p>
<p>@Agrasin, I am assuming so. I did the opposite - was not happy with my SAT so I sent PSAT instead</p>
<p>@theseabean you should call/email them and tell us what they say I was just going to print and attach them but if you have to submit them too…? I hope my teachers saw that requirement. Haven’t gotten them back to me yet, after over a month - cause to worry? School ends this Friday</p>
<p>Hey so emailed them and got a quick response. Margins for essay not a big deal as long as the pages are readable. The length of the teacher recs are flexible and if you have a mentor who happens to write much more then goes to another continent it doesn’t matter. As for where to attach the achievements online, no answer yet.</p>
I was just going to print and attach them but if you have to submit them too…? I hope my teachers saw that requirement. Haven’t gotten them back to me yet, after over a month - cause to worry? School ends this Friday</p>