Summer app season becoming a second college app season

Sophomore Clifford Yin sat in front of his MacBook Pro, eyes red and head ready to sink into his desk. His fingers scuttled rapidly on the keyboard, then came to an abrupt halt as he frantically racked his brain for more ideas. On this Sunday night, he had been working on eight essays for the past six hours.

Surprisingly, all of this work was done for a single summer program, Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes. Students like Yin apply to multiple programs because their acceptance rates can be lower than those of elite colleges. This adds to the amount of work they must put in during summer app season, which usually lasts from December to March.

“Each day, I was spending four to six hours writing these essays, and there was so much for me to manage on all five of my apps,” Yin said. “There were so many deadlines, and that was just constant stress that I had to deal with.”

Though students spend countless hours working on these applications, most people get rejected in the end due to the tough competition. Yin felt lucky to be accepted into the Stanford program.

In recent years, summer programs have become increasingly selective, with prestigious programs like the Research Science Institute (RSI), Yale Young Global Scholars and the Telluride Association Summer Program (TASP), having acceptance rates as low as 5 percent.

Junior William Hu applied to seven science research-based summer programs because of these notoriously low acceptance rates. He believes that although these programs are mainly meant to boost students’ college resumes, the more selective programs are, the more meaningful the experiences they provide.

“Part of it is that it looks good on college apps, but my personal goal is to get experience in research and maybe publish some work,” Hu said. “Based on my research, less competitive summer programs are a waste of time because you don’t really accomplish anything.”

Less competitive programs still yield the same problem many competitive ones have: price. Four-week programs like Yale Young Global Scholars can cost $6,000. Application fees, which typically cost around $50, add up very quickly when students apply to multiple programs. Still, many of these programs offer financial aid to families that may not be able to afford the steep price. However, applying to financial aid is often very competitive.

Hu believes that summer programs generally aren’t worth the price. He guesses that the programs are making huge profits because food, housing and teaching fees cost around $3,000, yet many of these programs are double that figure.

Besides the high fees, Chemistry Honors teacher Janny Cahatol sees another flaw with summer programs: They don’t teach the right skills to students.

“Summer programs are run a lot like a school, and it’s unfortunate that students have to focus so much on school,” Cahatol said. “Students miss out on life skills and character-building opportunities. I would much rather see kids have opportunities to transition into adulthood, like getting a job or an internship.”

Teachers like Cahatol are often thrown into a second college application season during summer app season, as hundreds of students now ask for recommendation letters. Because of the load, some now impose strict deadlines that require students to ask for letters two or three weeks before they are due.

For some students, summer programs do have benefits and can parallel future success.

“For me, I found research camps beneficial because it helped me decide whether or not I wanted to get into research into the future,” said junior Austin Cai, who attended the SSTP program in his sophomore year. “I think that they really help with future college admissions as well.”