What is like to apply to UCSB Summer RMP?
This post was written at two of my junior friends (who are applying to RMP this year)' request.
You've arrived here probably because you are a prospective applicant/participant of the UCSB Summer Research Mentorship Program (RMP).
This series of blog posts (update 02/2018: Well Part 2 and 3 have been sitting in my draft box for years and as of now, I have no intention of finishing them....) is an account of my own RMP experience. There's nothing official here--I'm just a past participant recording my application and research process, and hopefully this will serve to give you some ideas about the program.
Warning: I'm very verbose...
Had I not been accepted to any of the programs, I still had a plan B, which was to personally contact professors at UCSB to see if they would take on a high schooler to do research with them.
After learning more about all of those programs, I only applied to one (you guess it *wink*). I finished most of the UC COSMOS application but at the end I felt that, although the courses seemed interesting, they weren't as intense and exciting as conducting original research; I really wanted to get my hands on science research--it had been my childhood dream.
I was also not bold enough to apply for SSP, which is one of the most competitive summer science programs out there (the other one is RSI). The other ones are more bio-chem oriented,and I don't like chemistry (getting good grades in AP Chemistry and doing graduate-level chemistry research are two heterogeneous things).
I think RMP is the only high school summer program (in the country?) that offers interdisciplinary research in both sciences and humanities. So one definite advice: be open-minded-- if you come in as, say, a Physics person, you might actually end up with a computer graphics project (and probably loving it). But not matter what program you attend, what really matters is what you make out of the project.
Before you apply, think about what you are passionate about, what excites you, what makes stay up until 2 am and not feel tired. Don't do research (or anything) just because it will look good on college applications, you will hate the experience, and it shows. Do it out of sheer curiosity; do it because you want to dive into solving some problems; do it because you want to challenge yourself and learn a ton.
Do I just sound like a 30-year-old admission officer by saying that stuff? Uggh. I hope I got the point across.
Okay, let's get to the real meat.
1. Rolling Admission. The term is self-explanatory: the earlier you apply, the sooner they review your application (as early as February, I think), more spots are available, thus the higher chance of you getting one of the spots. So, apply as early as possible. But it's never too late to apply, as long as it's before the posted deadline. I submitted my essay on the last day. Oh well. You may submit your online application as soon as you are done with it, you can then get started on the essays and requesting transcripts.
That's a wrap for the interview. I left out some irrelevant details. After the interview, I honestly thought I did bad... So I took a shower and tried to forget about it.
Usual evening, I did homework, lingered on the Internet for a while and hopelessly searched for some other research opportunities that were still open (there wasn't any).
The day after, I got the "yes" email around 11am when I was on my way to AP CS, and was offered a partial scholarship; thought partial, I was pretty happy.
That's the end of my application process. I did everything within a two-week span, right after I came back from a competition/convention in Florida and I was suffering from fever (never overly consume Turkey Sandwiches!).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now the only question left for me was, "how am I going to tell my mom about this?"
My mom didn't know anything about the whole application process, not even the interview and the $95 application fee. She didn't even know I was searching and wanting to attend a summer research program.
As expected, her first reaction was concerning about the fee, even after the scholarship; given the financial status, her worry was reasonable.
Somehow she has a colleague whose son (top student from my high school, now at UC Berkeley ME) also applied to RMP two years ago but didn't get in. It was until then my mom realized that RMP wasn't just a pay-the-money-and-you're-in for-profit summer camp.
Congratulations, you have made to the end of a wordy post.
Here's a prize for those who've come this far--a photo I took of a leaf's chloroplast under the microscope. ; D
This post was written at two of my junior friends (who are applying to RMP this year)' request.
You've arrived here probably because you are a prospective applicant/participant of the UCSB Summer Research Mentorship Program (RMP).
This series of blog posts (update 02/2018: Well Part 2 and 3 have been sitting in my draft box for years and as of now, I have no intention of finishing them....) is an account of my own RMP experience. There's nothing official here--I'm just a past participant recording my application and research process, and hopefully this will serve to give you some ideas about the program.
Warning: I'm very verbose...
Before RMP
I began looking for summer research programs when I was a sophomore, but I eventually decided to wait until my junior year to apply. By then I had come across (SSP, UC COSMOS, SAMS at Carnegie Mellon, Research Internships at Boston University, Jackson Laboratory, a couple MIT summer programs, and RMP. Some of these are research-based and some course-based.Had I not been accepted to any of the programs, I still had a plan B, which was to personally contact professors at UCSB to see if they would take on a high schooler to do research with them.
After learning more about all of those programs, I only applied to one (you guess it *wink*). I finished most of the UC COSMOS application but at the end I felt that, although the courses seemed interesting, they weren't as intense and exciting as conducting original research; I really wanted to get my hands on science research--it had been my childhood dream.
I was also not bold enough to apply for SSP, which is one of the most competitive summer science programs out there (the other one is RSI). The other ones are more bio-chem oriented,and I don't like chemistry (getting good grades in AP Chemistry and doing graduate-level chemistry research are two heterogeneous things).
I think RMP is the only high school summer program (in the country?) that offers interdisciplinary research in both sciences and humanities. So one definite advice: be open-minded-- if you come in as, say, a Physics person, you might actually end up with a computer graphics project (and probably loving it). But not matter what program you attend, what really matters is what you make out of the project.
Before you apply, think about what you are passionate about, what excites you, what makes stay up until 2 am and not feel tired. Don't do research (or anything) just because it will look good on college applications, you will hate the experience, and it shows. Do it out of sheer curiosity; do it because you want to dive into solving some problems; do it because you want to challenge yourself and learn a ton.
Do I just sound like a 30-year-old admission officer by saying that stuff? Uggh. I hope I got the point across.
Okay, let's get to the real meat.
Application
There's nothing stressful, just be yourself
1. Rolling Admission. The term is self-explanatory: the earlier you apply, the sooner they review your application (as early as February, I think), more spots are available, thus the higher chance of you getting one of the spots. So, apply as early as possible. But it's never too late to apply, as long as it's before the posted deadline. I submitted my essay on the last day. Oh well. You may submit your online application as soon as you are done with it, you can then get started on the essays and requesting transcripts.
2. Be honest on the essay (same for college applications). The essay should be specific--shows your academic interests by talking about your past experiences and connects back to what you want to learn out of the program. The prospective project mentors might read your essay.
During the whole application process, I just stayed true to myself and showed my genuine love for different things, and open-mindedness and willingness to take on challenges. Remember to show, not just tell. (Again, I'm sounding like an admission officer/some successful college applicant writing retrospectively)
3. Coursework. I can't say more about it, just be sure to make the most out of what's available to you and take the time to explore your various academic interests.
My brief stats: up until the time I applied, I've taken ten classes at local college, finished four AP exams in sophomore year, and was taking AP and IB courses in junior year.
Science/math-related courses I've done/was taking: AP Physics B, AP Chem, AP Comp Sci, AP Calc BC, AP Statistics, AP Psychology, college Linear Algebra, college Astronomy, college Logic.
Don't be held back if you haven't taken many (or any) advanced science courses.
Everything else on the application (actually, including coursework) should be very straight-forward--you either have it or don't.My brief stats: up until the time I applied, I've taken ten classes at local college, finished four AP exams in sophomore year, and was taking AP and IB courses in junior year.
Science/math-related courses I've done/was taking: AP Physics B, AP Chem, AP Comp Sci, AP Calc BC, AP Statistics, AP Psychology, college Linear Algebra, college Astronomy, college Logic.
Don't be held back if you haven't taken many (or any) advanced science courses.
The Interview
This is probably by far the scariest thing of all.
Answer the questions with your true heart and convey yourself as an interesting and unique human. That's my general advice.
I certainly didn't do as well as I had hoped to. But for those juniors like myself, this can help you a lot in terms of college interviews that are coming up in several months. At least I got a lot out of my RMP interview and totally did way better on my college interviews.
The entire interview was conducted over Skype. Although I live fairly close to UCSB campus, there was still obvious lagging (I don't think it was my Internet problem; based my experience, the UCSB Secured WiFi was not that reliable). There were two interviewers in the room, Lina and Kathy. Lina was the main interviewer who asked me all the questions and Kathy just audited the whole interview.
Here are the few things we've mentioned during the interview. Maybe they give you a sense of what type of questions to be expected. But the interview is really informal, you could go off tangent and talk about, say, ice-skiing, with the interviewer if you both happen to love it.
I certainly didn't do as well as I had hoped to. But for those juniors like myself, this can help you a lot in terms of college interviews that are coming up in several months. At least I got a lot out of my RMP interview and totally did way better on my college interviews.
The entire interview was conducted over Skype. Although I live fairly close to UCSB campus, there was still obvious lagging (I don't think it was my Internet problem; based my experience, the UCSB Secured WiFi was not that reliable). There were two interviewers in the room, Lina and Kathy. Lina was the main interviewer who asked me all the questions and Kathy just audited the whole interview.
Here are the few things we've mentioned during the interview. Maybe they give you a sense of what type of questions to be expected. But the interview is really informal, you could go off tangent and talk about, say, ice-skiing, with the interviewer if you both happen to love it.
- We did not get to personal things (favorite TV shows, sports...) like some of the applicants from my school did. I know a sophomore girl who was told that if it wasn't because of the interview, she would not have gotten in. So, interview is definitely something that pushes you into the door--but if in any case it went bad, it won't be the sole factor that kicks you out of the game.
- They appreciate out-going and interesting people who can benefit from and positively contribute to the RMP community. If you are a usually shy person, like me, you don't need to act like you are excited about everything, just be enthusiastic when talking about whatever field you are interested in/intend to study.
- One absolute thing to remember: be open-minded; I've briefly mentioned it above. Don't narrow yourself in what projects you want to do--it's great if you already have some ideas on your mind--note that they is a wide variety of projects available. If you come in wanting to do, say, something with nano technology, you might not not find any project that is directly connected to your area of choice because all projects are interdisciplinary, meaning they touch upon a little bit on many fields. Be ready to try new things
- During the interview, Lina asked me whether I though physics was more important or the doing research in other fields. In other words, would I be willing to accept projects that are not relevant to physics? I paused and replied: "Although I loved physics, at current stage of my education a research experience would be more valuable; if I wanted to learn more about physics I could just go to a summer class at a local college."
- Lina also asked me to describe a recent major step-back. I just explained a sudden decrease in my academic performance and my reflections and consequential changes I made in response to it. The point is to see how you handled the failure and what you've learned out of it. PROTIPS: be prepared to talk about both your strengths and weaknesses.
- The question I struggled the most with was using three words to describe myself. Basically, it's asking what attributes of you make you standout among all those equally hard-working, passionate and intelligent applicants. I squeezed my brain and said hard-working. Then Lina, looking all critical and serious, said, "well, everybody here says they are hard-working. What makes you different?" I don't exactly remember my response (pretty sure, thought, it was bad). At that point I definitely thought I screwed up the interview. Tip: If this ever happens to you, don't be scared like I was, Lina is just trying to lead you to think about your unique characteristics, not to be mean.
- I talked about my interests in both sciences and arts and how media technology is a combination both fields, then tied it back to the many film, media arts classes I've taken at local college (unintentionally showed my open-mindedness).
That's a wrap for the interview. I left out some irrelevant details. After the interview, I honestly thought I did bad... So I took a shower and tried to forget about it.
Usual evening, I did homework, lingered on the Internet for a while and hopelessly searched for some other research opportunities that were still open (there wasn't any).
The day after, I got the "yes" email around 11am when I was on my way to AP CS, and was offered a partial scholarship; thought partial, I was pretty happy.
That's the end of my application process. I did everything within a two-week span, right after I came back from a competition/convention in Florida and I was suffering from fever (never overly consume Turkey Sandwiches!).
Now the only question left for me was, "how am I going to tell my mom about this?"
My mom didn't know anything about the whole application process, not even the interview and the $95 application fee. She didn't even know I was searching and wanting to attend a summer research program.
As expected, her first reaction was concerning about the fee, even after the scholarship; given the financial status, her worry was reasonable.
Somehow she has a colleague whose son (top student from my high school, now at UC Berkeley ME) also applied to RMP two years ago but didn't get in. It was until then my mom realized that RMP wasn't just a pay-the-money-and-you're-in for-profit summer camp.
Congratulations, you have made to the end of a wordy post.
Here's a prize for those who've come this far--a photo I took of a leaf's chloroplast under the microscope. ; D
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