First, let’s break down what data science even is as it isn’t common area of interest that we hear from high schoolers. Data science is a field that brings together math, statistics, and computer science to distill data and extract insights from the results. The best colleges for data science are also many of the best colleges for STEM, but it’s worth noting that not every school has an undergraduate Data Science major. Instead, schools like Harvard offer a variety of courses in data science that can be layered onto another major. If you want to attend a top-tier school with a data science major, consider Yale, UC Berkeley, MIT, or UChicago. Those aren’t the only options, though, so definitely get in touch if you want a personalized college strategy calibrated for your interests and experiences.
A key piece of any college strategy are the activities you are doing outside of exceling in your classwork. We work with our students to create exceptional activity strategies that lead to opportunities even before they apply to college, from prestigious internships to, even, job offers. In this post, we are going to give you a peek behind the curtain and into how we assess extracurricular activity opportunities with a future in data science in mind — and specifically for juniors.
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If you want to pursue data science at a top college, you are going to need to make your interest clear without relying solely on coursework. It’s possible that you won’t have access to a statistics class until senior year, or that your school has a limited number of computer science courses. If either of these situations apply, it can be difficult to differentiate your application from a student interested in straight math or solely computer science. This is why activities are so crucial. It’s not simply about filling time. Instead, your activities underline your interests and put weight behind your application.
Below we’ve broken the different types of activities you can do related to data science into four buckets: clubs and teams, internships, journalism, and summer programs. You don’t need to fill every bucket, but you do need to fill your time while, ideally, having fun.
CLUBS & TEAMS
It is unlikely that your school has a club or team related directly to data science, but you can triangulate your interest in data science through involvement in other, related, groups. First, join the computer science club if there is one available, or connect any computer science skills you have to an existing club that would benefit from your experience. For example, maybe a philanthropic or community service group could use your help with a website or app.
Alongside this, you need to be joining the robotics team, if there is one, and a math competition club, also if there is one. Ideally, you’ve already done this earlier in your high school experience. We often find, though, that students with very specific or niche interests often aren’t sure what to do when it comes to in-school activities. If you haven’t joined clubs related to aspects of data science, you need to start today. However, if there is neither a robotics club nor a math competition team, you need to make a choice: which one are you going to start?
Starting a club isn’t easy necessarily, but it also isn’t the hardest thing as long as you have good a relationship with a teacher you can recruit as a faculty advisor. Plus, a benefit of starting a club is that you are, by default, the head of it.
JOURNALISM
One activity we highly recommend for juniors interested in data science may be counter-intuitive: journalism. Data science is deeply connected to storytelling, as data science makes data a vehicle for conveying information. So, we advise our juniors to get involved with the school paper. Ask if there are ways that you can assist with graphs, charts, or other data visualizations that could compliment articles written by your peers. We love this because it creates opportunities for collaboration and teamwork, something that can be missing from STEM applications.
INTERNSHIPS
Outside of school, juniors interested in data science need to look for internship opportunities through a tech lens. Completing at least one internship before the end of your junior year goes a long way towards augmenting your application and ensuring that you stand out come application season. You don’t need to be doing data science, but you should be addressing at least one piece of the data science puzzle: math, statistics, or computer science.
You do, however, need to be working in person. Virtual internships can be great personal learning opportunities, but they do little to strengthen your college applications. We advise our students to avoid virtual internship opportunities unless it’s the only option given their location. If it’s a virtual internship or nothing, we’ll work with students to make sure that they learn enough to take their growing expertise off-line.
SUMMER PROGRAMS
One of the great off-line options for students interested in data science is summer programs. The best summer programs for data science-focused juniors are offered by strong colleges and universities as part of their institutional program — not independent programs that simply rent space at a prestigious school. This is an important differentiation. For a data science summer program to be a home run, it needs to include instruction by college-level educators, not simply graduate students hired for the summer.
Not everything you do in the summer needs to be data science focused, of course. In fact, it shouldn’t be. You are more than your academic interests, and that should show in your applications come senior year, but the data science thread needs to hold strong through more than simply the school year, so make sure that there is at least one thing on your summer schedule that amplifies your data science interests.
Getting into a top college isn’t simply about strong grades. Once you have the grades and scores, what matters most is your story. This is well-known but often misunderstood. Students hear “story” and thing that is solely focused on your personal life and upbringing. Those things matter, but they actually aren’t the be-all and end-all. When we say ‘story,’ we’re talking primarily about the story of your interest in data science as told through how you pursue the subject throughout your life.
And if you want to tell your strongest story, let us know. We can help.
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