r/summerprogramresults

CEE just announced that they’re going to be starting another RSI program next summer at Stanford that will have 50 students: https://www.cee.org/newsevents/press-releases/center-excellence-educations-research-science-institute-mit-will-expand

I'm a current junior in my school and am thinking of applying for MIT MITES Summer and want to know if its worth it.

A little background, I'm currently in a program my school district offers that allows high school students to earn an associates degree in a field of our choosing as long as we're accepted. I'm in my 3rd (of 5) year earning an associates in Mechanical Engineering.

STATS (HS):

4.4 W/ 4.0 UW HS GPA

National Senior Beta Club

SGA

Student Ambassadors

M1-4, ENG 1-3

VP and co-founder of schools News Club

STATS (College):

4.0 GPA

President's List

Phi Theta Kappa

OSHA 10 HR Industrial Safety Certification

Snap-On HVAC Diagnostics Certifications (Facilities Managements, TPI-View, Heating Systems, AC Systems)

EC:

Recreational Softball (5+ Years)

Summer Job doing Mechanical work with trailers

Internship with local museum recreating historical items using Six Sigma White Belt

Any recommendations to make me stand out?

Earlier this year I saw some posts questioning the PULSE research program for high schools. I applied and got accepted and everyone involved was extremely helpful. We were divided into ~7 person groups and were guided to research amongst eachother with weekly checkups. So I recommend any sophomore or upperclassman in highschool to keep your eye on their updates.

This is the paper we made: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=7268798
This is the linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pulse-organization/posts/?feedView=all

- coolidge senator '26

I have applied from India and have not received any emails for further processes. Soo any of you guys have any info regarding tht?

idk man the pay-to-play schemes are js too saturated and kinda all over the place. anything actually useful for students who genuinely wanna make a move (not that im always expecting to be spoon feeded)

This post was deleted on the official YRI fellowship subreddit. Someone needs to say this out loud for the high schoolers and parents browsing this sub trying to figure out if YRI is "legit."

I am not saying you won't get matched with a PhD student or write a paper. You will. But calling this an "elite fellowship" or a "merit prize" is one of the biggest marketing illusions targeting ambitious students right now.

Here is how the machine actually works:

1. The Hackathon "Prize" Marketing Funnel If you won a "YRI Fellowship Voucher" or "Full Scholarship" at a student hackathon, congrats, you were used as a sales lead.

• Pay-to-play prep companies offer organizers "$10,000+ in prize value" for $0 out of pocket.
• The hackathon gets to parade a massive prize pool, and the program gets direct access to hundreds of ambitious students.
• The "runner-up $1,000 vouchers" aren't prizes; they are discount codes designed to lower your parents' price barrier for a $3,000 program.

2. Look at the Comments in Every Thread Notice a pattern on literally every post asking if the program is worth it? Scroll down. Look at every single account commenting "Interested!" or dropping a glowing testimonial about how it got them into an Ivy.

• Account created: 3 days ago.
• Total Karma: 1.
• Post history: Only comments on YRI threads. Every single person replying "interested" or defending this program with the exact same scripted lines is a brand-new alt account created purely to pad the numbers and manufacture fake hype. It is astroturfing in broad daylight.

3. "Guaranteed Publication" & Pay-to-Play Academia In real research, peer review has high rejection rates. When a program heavily implies guaranteed publication, they aren't placing you based on raw scientific breakthroughs.

• Most of these papers end up in low-tier open-access journals or preprint servers where the fee is baked right into your tuition.
• Admissions readers at top universities know exactly how these $3K pipeline programs work. Paying thousands of dollars for a mentor shows financial privilege, not raw academic initiative.

The Bottom Line If your family has $3,000 to burn and you literally cannot figure out how to cold-email a local professor or build an open-source project on your own, fine. You’ll get structure.

But stop dressing this up as a prestigious, hyper-selective achievement. It’s a paid tutoring service with a shiny marketing team and a fleet of brand-new Reddit alts. Downvote away.

Edit 1: The YRI drones got here, big suprise

I’m thought I’d share my honest review of this program bc I saw so many conflicting posts, so hopefully I can help anyone who is interested in applying for next year. 

I applied for SRI on a whim. I had tried for so many other summer programs and got denied for all of them. SRI was open a bit later than most programs. And honestly, I didn’t spend a ton of time on the essays, probably because they were similar to essays I had written for other summer programs. So I submitted and forgot about it, pretty much assuming I wouldn’t get this either. 

So I was pretty surprised when I got the email that said I was accepted, and even more so when I saw it was an under 5% acceptance rate. So it was a stroke of good fortune that I really needed. 

The program is 8 weeks long, totally virtual. I think a lot of your outcome is based on the mentor you are assigned. They are not necessarily from Harvard. But i think they must do a good job of finding committed mentors because mine was amazing. I met with him over zoom a few times a week, and he really leaned in and helped me figure out how to ask the right questions, conduct the actual analysis, and write the paper. He gave me a list of topics to choose from, and he said he was determined to help me get the most out of this study. 

Beyond the research, there were are few speakers that talked to the entire cohort over the course of the 8 weeks. That was good just to hear from them, but it wasn’t anything earth shattering.

Then the final week culminated in small group presentations. I was on the original research track, but there’s a separate track for literature reviews. From these, SRI chooses the top five papers to be published in a STEM journal, and the rest of the cohort gets their abstracts published. I don’t think they’ve released the winners for this summer yet. Or if they have, I wasn’t one of them because I personally haven’t heard haha.

All in all, it was truly a great experience. I think my end product is compelling, and I’m going to try to see if I can maybe do a variation of it as an independent project this year. My mentor was fantastic. He was a mentor last year too, so he understood what I wanted to get out of it, and he helped me get there. The topic was exactly up my alley in terms of what I want to go to college for, so that helps build my story in the application process too. And it’s totally free! That was the best part for me - it’s not pay to play, so it feels like true academic research that is meaningful. The mentors get their name on the papers too, so they obviously want it to be strong and innovative. 

The only negative thing I would say is that it’s entirely remote. I wish I could have met the other kids doing it too. But maybe this is a good thing? I was able to work a part time job and make it to all of my school sports practices this summer, so I guess not overly terrible that it was off-site. But still - would have been cool to meet in person for the presentations even. Oh another negative - acceptances didn’t come out until the end of May. I wish it was in March or April, along with other summer acceptances. Because, once I didn’t get anything else, I panic cold emailed some professors and lined up a few other research options for the summer, then this came through in the 11th hour.

I know the program is fairly new, and there was a lot of frustration with how they rolled out the acceptances. I was a little concerned that it was one of those student-run research labs that is more to help the organizers build their resumes than a legitimate learning opportunity. But I was worried for nothing. And at the end of the day, don’t forget that it’s free (minus a small application fee) so you have nothing to lose.

All in all - I think this was so worth it to do. I have a few other research papers I’ve worked on with professors as comparison points. This by far is the most impactful research I’ve worked on to date.

Tl;dr:
Yes, the acceptance letter roll out this year was weird and frustrating. But he research was interesting and legitimate. And it’s free.
Definitely worth applying to for the summer.

Hello! I am looking to chat with 2025 completed student finance interns from Standout connect programs.

(1) would like to know if standoutconnect partner with bunch of FINTECH companies or is it just repeatedly the same 2/3 companies they do every year.

(2) Also what are pros and cons to this program ,any limit to number of interviews we attend?

(3) Once recruited by intern company, do we need to stop interviews with other companies ?

(4) Is the description of work and your responsibilities in that internship clear before you accept the offer ?

(5) Also are these internships good from learning perspective and getting recruited for future high school internships ?

(6) How valuable is it when it comes to college applications?

Im a rising junior, and I'm currently thinking about how I should plan out my summer next year. I was thinking about doing an internship (to also help with college apps) but my school partners with CIEE every year to give students the opportunity to spend 2 months abroad every summer. I think it'd be a great chance for me to broaden my horizons, and doing a program like this would definitely be fun. However, I'm not sure if that'd be the best option for next year considering I have to focus on preparing for college apps.

What do you guys think?

On another post I saw that a lot of people were also waitlisted. I have bad overall stats but a strong upward trend, good course rigor, and I definitely cooked on the essay.

Title, not that I will get in to either, but still I lowk want to know, Please repost for more views, thx

Hi everyone, so I’m applying to qb ncm, and I was wondering if anyone has become a finalist without test scores, no AP, and no SAT. My school doesn’t offer AP, and I haven’t taken the SAT, but I’m not sure if I’m going to take it. But yeah, I have pretty strong stats, but then I don’t have test scores.

Only did Brown and got rejeted :(

Anyone accepted plz share stats~

So, in high school, where do we submit and get awards for service hours? Like, if I want to get a service award (like the U.S. President's Volunteer Service Award,d ik its paused), and I worked at a local hospital, how would I gather and authenticate service hours(google sheet, specific sheet, or none?), how woudl i submit service hours to get awards? I'm just wondering how it would work

Decisions are out who got it! I got waitlisted does anyone know the chances of getting off the list? 🫩

rejected ✌🏻🫩

anyone else? lets connect. also how many parliamentarians does each track have?