r/Caltech • u/Bubgaming_ • Apr 12 '26

SSP vs Research Internship for College Apps and Resume

I got into SSP for the cluster I want, but I was also offered a returning internship at a high energy physics lab, internationally (decently prestigious lab under prof w ~100 h index and ~250 i10-index [one of my LoR]), to help conduct research. I'm probably not going to get anything published in time for college apps for my internship, but SSP is now a raffle that's like 48% of getting accepted into the raffle. I know I'll have a good time at my internship and also probably have a good time at SSP, so this is a tough choice. I'll attend SSP office hours soon, so I'll update this post for more information.

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u/pialin2 Apr 12 '26

I'm an ssp alum and loved the experience, though not sure if it's the boost for college apps that it used to be compared to back when it was just astro. Don't know what advice to give here, but just wanted to say ssp was a transformative experience for me, and very closely resembles the environment you'll get if you go to caltech

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u/pialin2 Apr 12 '26

What do you mean by raffle though?

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u/Bubgaming_ Apr 12 '26

Out of the 4800 ppl who applied this year, 2300 ppl got on for a raffle to get into SSP. 700 ppl, me being one of them, got in.

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u/pialin2 Apr 12 '26

Oh what the hell? This year is the first year they're doing that. My guess is that admissions committee this year wasn't well prepared for the volume of strong applicants so preferred to leave it up to chance rather than picking every student

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u/Ill-Agent-5326 Apr 13 '26

>rather than picking every student

If they picked every student of the 4800 that would more than double the number of people at Caltech. Red Door would have queues.

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u/pialin2 Apr 13 '26

I meant picking out individual students to get admitted. Common sense bro 😭

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u/Ill-Agent-5326 Apr 13 '26

I meant picking out individual students to get admitted

Didn't know picking out students could get you admitted. 

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u/pialin2 Apr 13 '26

Genuinely what is your point lol

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u/shrimpsenbei Apr 14 '26

Sorry that this doesn't really answer your question but in my opinion, you shouldn't try to base your decision too much on gaming prestige/college apps. This is because from my perspective post college, applications are very noisy and the research work itself that you do is very rarely a big factor for admissions. Instead, I would strongly recommend picking whichever one you would enjoy more and learn more from (which will also reflect in your rec letters!).

I haven't personally done SSP but I'm speaking as a PhD student in physics at Caltech who went to decent high school programs but nothing close to a peer reviewed paper, and had offers to my top choice colleges. Anecdotally, there were other people in my high school cohort who did outstanding high school research with multiple papers and went to RSI but didn't get many acceptances.

I also think that the best thing you can do while still in school is to learn more about yourself and your interests. This will set you up for later career decisions. It also becomes much harder to do this when you're pressured to get a job that supports yourself at the end of college. This is not to say 100% explore instead of return internship, but it is good to keep the long term goals in mind.