I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or a snide jealous child. Congrats to everyone who got in though.
Cc has this stupid thing where u can’t dm until u hit 15 posts
Does anyone have info on the waitlist?
@QuantumGamma kids rarely turn down RSI. Over the past decade or so, on average, fewer than two alternates (domestic applicants, it works differently for internationals) end up moving off the wait list each year.
I’m making this post mainly for one reason. I have spent hours on this site looking at everyone’s stats and trying to compare myself to them. A lot of people get caught up in this idea that we need to be “cookie cutter” students with USACO, PRIMES and science bowl, along with a 4.0 GPA. I too believed this and when I applied and thought I had no chance. In fact, I almost never pressed submit because I did not wan’t to waste the admission officer’s time. However here we are 2 months later, when I get this email:
On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Excellence in Education (CEE), it is my pleasure to invite you to attend the thirty-sixth annual Research Science Institute (RSI) held in collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and CEE.
To my absolute surprise I actually got in. For a bit of context, I live in a super competitive town in Massachusetts. And I felt that I would not stand a chance against other people, because I saw my peers who all did MIT PRIMES and won science bowl and are gold in USACO and whatever. But somehow none of them made it into RSI. This is because RSI does not care about being a “cookie cutter.” They want people who are unique. They want people who care passionately about one thing, and want to devote their life to it. What RSI wants is someone who will come to them and put all their effort into research and make scientific discoveries that they are passionate about. If there is one thing to take away from this, it is that to get into RSI, you need to show that you care about the work you do, not the awards you may get from your work. With that, keep it in mind when you look at my stats. I wish you all the best, good luck!
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown):1500
SAT II: Bio M 760, Math 2 780
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.65
AP (place score in parenthesis): Bio 4, Micro 5, Macro 5
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.):
- International finalist at the National Economics challenge
- I did this thing called Invention convention (science fair but for engineering products) that was not too big, but I still won a lot of awards from them, including Henry Ford innovator award
- Patented my product
- Featured in Henry Ford’s magazine
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
- Created a program where I taught young kids in my community Arduino at a local computer school. I taught kids the basics of Arduino and eventually helped them build inventions similar to my own and win awards at the same competitions I went to.
- Interned at an Aerospace lab at MIT for the summer (this was my main research experience)
Essays:
- In one I really wrote about my love for aviation and aerospace, and talked about how I wanted to revolutionize aircraft design in the future
- Talked about my passion for inventing, and my love to help other kids across the country make their own inventions
- Described in detail my internship at MIT
Again, take my stats with a grain of salt, everybody is different, so you will follow a different path. Just remember that whatever you do, you need to show that you really love what you research. When I look at how accomplished my peers were compared to myself, I could not understand how I got in. But I think the only way I could explain it was that I was able to better convince the person who read my application that I am ready to put down my heart and soul to study Aerospace engineering.
I got in too, want to connect on DM?
I got accepted too, want to connect in DM?
Can you DM my username? I need to have more posts in order to Dm you
Nice! Want to connect over DM? I got accepted too
That’s the spirit
same
I have enough posts but it will not let me dm still… do you have messenger?
@DoubleClawHammer I can give you my messenger and then delete the post immediately after
Lol nvm
@salexma Congratulations on your acceptance. However, please tone down your anger towards PRIMES or USACO or Science Bowl kids, as you will meet some of them at RSI. They have done no one any harm. And plenty of PRIMES students have attended RSI in the past along with others for who PRIMES is not available because of geography. You obviously had something worthy enough, and admissions process has lots and lots of inputs. Now go enjoy your success.
rejected
@salexma, Congratulations. I’m sure you passion spoke through your essays and your activities. I was wondering if you can provide some more insight about your essays. For example - can you say which of the above topics you used for which prompt. There was a question that asked about what questions excite you about your current field and why ? Also which prompt did you use to write about your research experience. Your responses will be extremely useful. Thank you.
Would you mind sharing your essays privately?
@cognizance ofc, I’m just saying that there are other options to get in that don’t include PRIMES and sci bowl.
Salexma, thanks for sharing. RSI is no longer so competitive, it just needs luck. If you can share your Race, that would be better :-).