DISCLAIMER: I am not a qualified college counselor. At the time of writing, I am simply a high school junior (who hasn’t even gotten any college decisions yet). These are simply my thoughts and should not be taken as definitive “this is what you should do” at face value.
Additional note: this blog post was NOT written by me. It was written by ChatGPT (some edits by me, 90% ChatGPT), based on a chat transcript I had with a (currently freshman) friend who was asking me for advice. This does NOT reflect my writing style lmao.
Every year, freshmen ask some version of the same question:
“What should I be doing so I don’t fall behind?”
It usually comes dressed up as a question about COSMOS (the most famous summer program in the Bay Area fr), research programs, internships, or summer plans. But underneath, it’s really about fear — fear of wasting time, fear of missing opportunities, fear of not doing “enough.”
This is what I wish someone had told me earlier.
Start With Why, Not With Programs
Before you search for summer programs, you need to answer a much more basic question:
Why do you want to do one?
Take COSMOS. It doesn’t give college credit. So why do so many students apply?
Because it offers things that are genuinely hard to get otherwise:
- Living on a UC campus
- Meeting real professors and forming long-term connections
- Experiencing what college life actually feels like
- Making friends you wouldn’t have met otherwise
Those are real outcomes. They’re not lines on a resume — they’re experiences.
Different programs offer different things. Some focus on research exposure. Some are about college life. Some are mostly about prestige. Don’t apply to programs solely because of prestige: you’ll be miserable. One of my friends got into UCSC SIP (Science Internship Program) and he said he was sooo bored. Since I did COSMOS at UCSC last summer, I actually crosssed paths with some SIP kids when my cluster was doing a lab tour. These kids were literally just doing graphene exfoliation (put graphite on scotch tape, and fold and unfold it) over and over.
If you don’t know what you’re trying to get out of a program, it’s very easy to end up disappointed.
Maybe you don’t need a summer program
Most summer programs are not great value.
They exist because high school students (and parents) are willing to pay a lot of money for anything that sounds impressive. That doesn’t mean they’re all bad — but it does mean you should be careful.
A few rough signals:
- The strongest programs are often free (like MIT RSI), but extremely selective.
- If a program costs hundreds of dollars per day, you should ask what you’re guaranteed to gain.
- Many “research programs for high schoolers” are only loosely connected to real research and mainly money scams.
- Online programs often struggle to justify their price unless they offer something very concrete.
I did an “online high school research program” freshman summer. Maybe I didn’t fully lock in. Maybe the value of the program depended too much on factors outside my control. Either way, its value wasn’t guaranteed and I kind of regret it.
On the flip side, last summer I went to COSMOS. I loved that, and I definitely do not regret it. Even if it didn’t provide me with any “actual” academic value (e.g. college credit or a published research paper), I learned a lot about quantum mechanics and had lots of fun with friends.
But you don’t know if you’ll have fun or not. How should you decide which summer programs to apply to? Let me give COSMOS as an example. With COSMOS, I knew exactly what I’d get:
- A professor
- Campus life
- A new city… or at least the UC campus (Santa Cruz… but we went to the boardwalk!)
- A summer with friends
That certainty mattered.
Freshman Year Is for Exploration, Not Optimization
If you’re a freshman applying to programs that prioritize juniors, your odds are honestly low — and that’s normal.
Freshman summer isn’t supposed to be impressive. It’s supposed to be formative.
You don’t need to have a perfectly planned path. In fact, most people who think they do end up changing it later.
This is the time to:
- Explore interests
- Try things you’re curious about
- Figure out what you don’t like just as much as what you do
You Don’t Need Permission to Build Things
One of the biggest regrets I have is not spending enough time on projects I genuinely wanted to build.
A lot of students think projects require:
- Experience
- Mentors
- A big idea
- A clear end goal
They don’t.
Engineering and creative projects can be simple. Many great products already exist in some form. That’s fine.
What matters is that you made something.
Why? Because projects give you:
- Real problem-solving experience
- Stories you can actually talk about
- Skills you didn’t know you’d need until you needed them
College applications love prompts like:
“Describe a time you solved a problem.”
Projects generate answers to that question naturally.
Some real examples:
- Someone built their own car and got into MIT.
- My friend built small, simple projects, posted them on YouTube, and ended up being noticed by a startup CEO who reached out to hire him.
- Someone built their own laptop from scratch and received major media attention.
- I wouldn’t know cryptography if I hadn’t decided in middle school to build a chat app and Google everything (there was no ChatGPT then).
None of these started as “resume projects.” They started as curiosity.
Sharing Your Work Helps — But Isn’t Required
Documenting projects online can amplify their impact. Blogs, YouTube, Twitter — visibility creates unexpected opportunities.
But even if you never post anything, the experience still matters. You can still talk about what you learned and what you built.
One caveat: If you ever do frame a project for applications, numbers help. Impact helps. Specifics help.
Just don’t start projects for applications. That usually backfires.
Research into college Can Wait…but you can still do it
A lot of upperclassmen give this advice for a reason:
“Don’t stress about college research freshman year.”
You probably don’t know what kind of college you actually want yet.
Use this time to figure out:
- Do you like small or large classes?
- City campuses or quieter ones?
- Lecture-heavy or hands-on building?
That’s also why residential programs can be valuable — they teach you what environments you thrive in.
Obviously since you can’t get into programs for all of the schools you may plan to apply to, you could (and should?) visit those colleges campus to interview students (…or not if you’re too chicken) to get to know student life or simply to get a vibe-check of the place (I personally LOVE the vibe of UCLA).
Jobs and Volunteering Are More Valuable Than They Look
Part-time jobs are underrated. They’re real responsibility and real experience, even if they don’t sound academic.
Volunteering is common — what matters is what you actually do:
- Who did you help?
- How did things change because of you?
- Can you explain your impact clearly?
In the end, it’s about how you understand and reflect on your experiences, not just listing them.
However, since everyone does them, you must be able to frame it well. At the end of the day, when you start your college applications, it’s all about how you paint your own story.
The Bigger Picture
Freshman year is not about locking yourself into a career. It’s about building momentum, confidence, and curiosity.
Explore widely. Build things you care about. Work, volunteer, try, fail, adjust.
You’re not behind. You’re early.
And that’s a good place to be.