Experience the 2024 Summer College Exploration program

Learn. Explore. Enjoy.

  • Learn about the college application process

    Led by Stanford and Berkeley graduates, this program will teach you how to prepare for applying to colleges in the US. You’ll learn how to improve your essays, optimize high school activities, how majors intersect with career choices, and more.

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  • Tour local universities

    Spend time looking around the best colleges in Southern California including UCLA, USC, CalTech, UCSD, UCI, and more! You’ll learn what each campus feels like, and how student life varies from college to college.

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  • Sight-see all of California

    You’ll have the opportunity to visit famous Hollywood sites, go to world-renowned museums like the Getty and LACMA, and even a day at Disneyland. You’ll also have plenty of time to go to the beach and do breathtaking hikes overlooking the Pacific ocean.

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A day in the life

The summer program consists of 10 days based in sunny San Diego (with ample trips around LA and Orange County). You’ll spend the mornings learning about American culture and the college application process, while the afternoons consist of either college tours or engaging (and fun) activities. The daily schedule will look something like this…

Morning

Afternoon

Evening

1-2 hour lectures on college applications and american culture, followed by a breakout session

This will consist of either a college tour, or an enrichment activity such as going to a museum

Primarily cultural dinners and free time to relax and get to know fellow classmates

Education

Each day starts at 9am on the beautiful UCSD campus. The first 1-2 hours will entail lectures, primarily about college applications, majors, essays, test scores, and more. These sessions will then have a brief break before going on to a related interactive task, which will end at lunch time.

The morning sessions will be led by Sam, a Stanford materials engineering graduate, and Liyang, a UC Berkeley cognitive science graduate. They have worked across the tech industry, healthcare, and finance, before spending the past 4 years helping students with their college applications and high school resumes.

College tours

One of the main objectives is to expose you to many of the different types of colleges that exist, so you can see which ones best suit you. You’ll see a vast range of campuses from public universities to private ones, STEM-focused colleges, those with smaller and larger student populations, etc. Currently, the plan is to visit at least 5-7 colleges, including (but not necessarily limited to) the following:

  • CalTech (California Institute of Technology)

  • USC (University of Southern California)

  • UCLA (University of California Los Angeles)

  • UCI (University of California Irvine)

  • UCSD (University of California San Diego)

Cultural enrichment

The final major portion of this program is cultural enrichment, otherwise known as sight-seeing and engaging in a plethora of fun activities. While not fully set in stone, you can expect a weekend trip to Los Angeles (which would include a tour of Hollywood, exploring the world-famous Santa Monica pier, a trip to the Getty museum, and more). While in San Diego, you’ll also get the opportunity to visit a host of local museums, enjoy the stereotypical San Diego sun with a beach day, and even take a day trip up to Anaheim to visit the original Disneyland!

Interested?

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