Just Apply: After attending the Research Science Institute program, staffer recommends applying to programs of interest

As math proofs and historical document analysis made their way on and off my to-do list during the first semester of my packed junior year, one item was perpetually stuck on it: finish Research Science Institute application. 

Last summer, a friend told me about RSI: a cost-free six-week residential research program run by the Center for Excellence in Education, hosted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I was hooked — living in the city, working in my own lab and meeting diverse friends? Count me in.

But as much as I wanted to live in Cambridge for the summer, writing five 800-word essays just to potentially receive a rejection letter was deprioritized compared to my AP Physics 2 problem sets and Harbinger story drafts. And, even as a Santa-believing, sparkle-loving optimist, the 5% acceptance rate still looked grim. Only one hundred U.S. and international students entering their senior year are chosen to participate.

A complimentary stay at MIT felt like a sketchy pop-up ad promising too-good-to-be-true bonuses, especially from my desk nestled 20 miles away from genuine farmland. The application was daunting — I had tennis practice anyway.

Except the December deadline kept approaching, so I sucked up my doubts, gathered my transcripts and test scores and crafted up 4,000 words — fueled by the possibility of adventure. Six months and a few tears of joy later, I flew into Boston Logan International Airport armed with two comically large suitcases and my TI-84 calculator. 

It’s not an exaggeration when I say those six weeks were the most insane days of my life. 

Crossing Harvard bridge on the way to my new home (MIT’s Baker House dorm), I watched skyscrapers pass by out of the rolled-down taxi window, hair blowing — basically starring in my own personal cliché coming-of-age movie. At the dorms, I met my roommates from Barcelona, Saudi Arabia and Philadelphia whom I still FaceTime with today. 

Each morning, I walked through Cambridge and scanned my new ID card into my research lab to work alongside undergraduate researchers. I went to math class in grand MIT lecture halls. I was blessed to hear Physics Nobel Laureate Wolfgang Ketterle speak about the Bose–Einstein Condensate and meet CRISPR inventor Feng Zheng and Mathematica creator Stephen Wolfram.

I watched in amazement as my peers solved graduate-level math problems and quite literally wrote computer programs more efficient than Meta’s latest large language AI models. I learned more about Javascript, LaTeX and academic writing in six weeks than I did in a semester of school. 

To be fair, I know that definitely doesn’t sound fun to everyone. But I also made friends from places as far as Hong Kong and Bulgaria — who joined me walking to Chinatown, Newbury Street and through the underground tunnels below MIT. We took a boat ride around Boston Harbor, watched Fourth of July fireworks explode over the Charles River from the Great Dome front lawn and ate Boston’s specialty Toscanini’s ice cream. It was awesome.

Completing my lengthy and detailed RSI application was one of the best things I crossed off my to-do list last year, even though I had to stay up extra late to do it. 

So to everyone, especially to underclassmen: don’t feel silly applying for things that might seem out of reach. Maybe research isn’t something that you would enjoy, but I urge you to go online and find your own adventure. Interview for that internship, try out for that sport, apply for that art scholarship. 
Maybe you end up writing an abundance of essays and hurting your ego from a rejection, but you could end up having a beautiful and memorable experience. It’s worth a shot. At the very least, you’ll get practice writing for college applications and applying for jobs. Go put yourself out there — I’m rooting for you.