Acing The ASSIP – Aspiring Scientists Summer Internship Program Essays 2025
ASSIP is a highly competitive and intensive summer research program that accepts high school students age 15+ who have already demonstrated aptitude for research. Its inclusion on an applicant's resume carries weight in the college admissions process. As a result, it is an opportunity that all high school juniors with who have been challenging themselves as much as they can in STEM should apply for. Unlike other programs, they don’t give a word or character limit for the essays that they ask for. However, we recommend that you aim for 300 words for each of them. This article will tell you how to approach the numerous essays that they ask you to write as part of your application.
1. Describe work/volunteer experience
For this essay, start with a vivid anecdote that draws the reader in by describing something impactful you did at work or while volunteering. Throughout the essay, clearly convey your impact by citing quantitative figures that demonstrate your success. Try to unite all of your work and volunteer experience under a common goal or theme. You don't need to include everything – only discuss experiences where you made notable contributions. Finally, conclude by explaining how these experiences have shaped you as a person or influenced your aspirations as a researcher in STEM.
2. What do you hope to gain by participating in the ASSIP program and why?
As with all essays of this nature, specificity is key. Being vague, silly, or whimsical for the sake of whimsy will not suffice for a serious research program like ASSIP. There are a limited number of valid goals and aspirations a young researcher should expect from this program. These include: learning how to navigate peer-reviewed literature; understanding how statistics can be used to generate insights from data and quantify how reliable or meaningful those insights are; learning to communicate scientific findings effectively to both colleagues and laypeople; identifying a problem that sparks your imagination due to the depth and complexity of its exploration and related challenges; and fostering the desire to push your limits by tackling problems that have yet to be solved.
I may have overlooked a few other valid motivations, but as you can see from the examples provided, the only truly valid ones are intimately tied to the research process itself. The key isn’t to cram all of these motivators into an essay. Instead, focus on selecting the reasons that you prioritize the most given your lived experiences and show the reader a snippet of those experiences to establish a strong personal motivation for those reasons.
3. Describe an area of science, computing, technology, engineering or math that interests you and why you would like to participate in that research area:
Before you nerd out about your favorite field of STEM or subfield of STEM, it is key that you give the reader a strong personal motivation for this field, so they'll be personally motivated to understand what you have to say about this subject. You don't want to start talking about some childhood fascination. The reader wants to know who you are as a person now, and if you still currently possess your childlike sense of curiosity and wonder for the unknown. You want to either present your recent personal motivation for this field or give an anecdote of how this field has personally enriched your life in some way. From there, you want to nerd out about it. Demonstrate that you have an understanding of its contemporary state, and convince the reader why solving contemporary problems in the field is something society should invest time and effort into. You want to teach them something about this field and get them to be at least a quarter as excited about it as you are. Finally, conclude with either a core message from this discipline that you believe everyone should be made aware of, your personal excitement in playing a role in solving the contemporary problems within it, or a vivid description of how advances in this discipline can change people's lives for the better.
4. Describe a creative idea you had on any topic. This can include but is not limited to how you creatively solved a problem or developed a new idea:
This essay is essentially one extended personal anecdote, but it should center on you solving a problem. The problem doesn’t have to be STEM-related, but it should highlight your ability to deviate from merely following textbook approaches. It should demonstrate your comfort in situations where you don’t immediately know the answer and your capacity for original, yet critical, thinking. As you describe how you tackled the problem, aim to convey the emotions you experienced as you confronted each challenge, grappled with uncertainties, and gradually pieced together the solution. This essay is designed to assess both your critical thinking skills and your passion for solving challenging problems. You want to come across as someone who would thrive at ASSIP, fully embracing the rigorous research opportunities and relishing the journey of discovery you’ll embark on there. If you don’t talk about solving a problem, it is key that you showed how you stress tested whatever creative you had to in a meaningful way. Show the reader that you accept complacency in thought.
If you want help applying to ASSIP or any other summer research program, or would just like someone to help you strengthen your overall extracurriculars, schedule a free consultation with us below.
