[iyulaev]

Also, a good internship will look much better on a college app than a few extra points.

Sadly, nope, unless you're applying to a high-end private school. I know the UC system doesn't care at all about your work experience, and even if you founded a company when you were in HS, that would at best be worth 150-300 SAT points.

Now that I think about it, it's scary that I still remember this.

[argonaut]

Completely disagree. I too went through the college admissions process.

Yes, public schools care more about standardized numbers (SAT/GPA), but you don't need a very high SAT score (in strictly relative terms to private schools) to get into a top public school, even the top UCs.

Put it this way: An elite public school might weight SATs 40%, but the median SAT will only be 2000 anyway.

Whereas an elite private might have a median of 2150 with a weighting of 20%.

The fact is that public schools will give more weight to SATs, but the threshold for what above average for admission is already lower.

[vineel]

I'm guessing Shalin is aiming for MIT, Stanford, and schools of their ilk. These fall under "high-end private schools".

[flylib]

it will look better on a resume for jobs/further internships down the road though which is just as important anyway

[philangist]

Probably more important. Going to a good school is great, working on cool projects and gaining work experience is awesome.

[iyulaev]

Agree that it will look better, and is probably a better experience. Sadly college admissions is a game, and it is risky to ignore it.

[adamzerner]

not only that... but it'll be better for finding your passion, for being better at what you do, for networking etc.