General Program Questions
1. What is Brightspark, and how does it help students get into top universities?
Firstly, Brightspark does not offer tutoring. SAT and subject specific course tutoring offerings are quite common and if needed, our founders are happy to connect you with qualified 1-1 tutors outside of the Brightspark program tracks. Brightspark programs differ in two key areas: Individualizations and results. All other programs focus on optimizing course scheduling for school, and giving general advice on what extracurriculars to pursue.” to “Many admissions services commonly offer tutoring for individual subjects and the increase of grades as the primary mode of focus for students. Brightspark recognizes that in order to be a competitive applicant to top ivy league and equivalent caliber schools, grades are only the start of the conversation. Grades are the baseline. Brightspark tracks focus on the factors after the baseline that ultimately separates students in the admissions process.
2. At what age or grade level should a student start the Brightspark program?
Standard track is students entering grade 10, as this provides a perfect segway for the timeline of the learning process, internship setup, research, and essay writing process.
3. How is Brightspark different from other college admissions programs or tutoring services?
Firstly, Brightspark does not offer tutoring. SAT and subject specific course tutoring offerings are quite common and if needed, our founders are happy to connect you with qualified 1-1 tutors outside of the Brightspark program tracks. Brightspark programs differ in two key areas: Individualizations and results. All other programs focus on optimizing course scheduling for school, and giving general advice on what extracurriculars to pursue. Brightspark directly engages in the “levelling up” of current activities that students are pursuing, helping students who are members of a school club, become president, then hosts of international case competitions and hackathons, founders of nationally recognized clubs. This is done with pairing of students with one on one mentors for writing of the research paper, and placement into an internship. On the essay side, this is done with one on one essay classes with the founders.
4. Is Brightspark only for students interested in Ivy League or top-ranked universities?
Not necessarily, a few of our students choose to only apply for Canadian universities, but want to maximize their chances of being admitted with scholarships to the most competitive programs, such as UBC’s Computer Science, University of Toronto’s Engineering Science and Rotman Commerce, McMaster’s Health Sciences, McGill’s Health Sciences and Pre-Med, University of Waterloo’s Engineering and Computer Science, Western’s Ivey Business School, Queen’s Commerce, and otherspecialized programs like University of Calgary’s Biomedical Engineering and University of Alberta’s Petroleum Engineering.
5. How are students selected to join the Brightspark program?
Is there an application process? With the limit of 25 students, the program has to be selective in order to maintain the highest quality for current year students. The three core criteria are: diligence and starting profile strength, and humility. All three are weighted equally. Students submit most recent high school transcript pdf, one page describing their top three current extracurriculars, and brief one paragraph introduction of idea university goals that they are aiming for.
Mentorship and Academics
6. How are mentors chosen, and what qualifications do they have?
Mentors are industry leads, not mere professionals, and are limited resources, as once a student is paired with a mentor, they are together for at least a year. They are at the forefront of their respective fields, and not merely working within the industries. In academia, our mentors are professors and leading PHD research students. The current span of sectors that our mentors can cover are: tech, finance, health sciences(biology and chemistry focused), business, English, philosophy, economics.
7. What if my child doesn’t know their primary interests or career goals yet?
The core goal of Brightspark is to help students discover their passion at the same time developing their profile to be at competitive strength for elite university admissions. 1/2 of all Brightspark students discover their passion during the program, vs coming in with a very specific spike to develop.
8. What does the mentorship process look like on a day-to-day basis?
The standard time commitment is, two 1 hour classes a week: one essay and one class with the mentor. Each students case usually differs.
Research, Internships, and Extracurriculars
9. Are internships guaranteed, and what types of companies or industries do students intern in?
Internships are guaranteed and specifically tailored to match the limit of what a student’s abilities can handle. At the upper level, this includes placement into Hedge funds, VC firms, UBC science labs, Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab, MIT Media Lab, University of Toronto’s Vector Institute, Algorand, Notion, Google GitLab.
10. What is the Spark Network, and how does it support students’ career development?
The Spark network refers to the current year students and your paired mentor. The Spark network while in high school is the group of current Brightspark students going through the same growth process as part of one of the high school tracks. In the past, students have opted to collaborate with other Brightspark students in their extracurricular activities, whether it be hosting a case competition together by linking two high school clubs, forming a close knit trading team to compete in the Wharton Trading Competition in Pennsylvania, or co-writing a scientific paper on specific gene sequences while conducting research at Cornell. After graduation, the Spark network is the student relationship with the mentor and founders. In our current year, graduating students have been able to be directly placed into internship and full-time roles right after graduation, as mentors are often hiring managers in their subject area.
11. Does the program help students publish research, and how competitive is this process?
The specific journal that a student submits to for publication will depend on the specific topic that they have written on. For example, for one of our past students interested in trading and finance, he submitted his research paper to Open Journal of Business and Management (OJBM), Journal of Emerging Investigators (JEI), Journal of Student Research (JSR), International Journal of Scholarly Research and Innovation (IJSRI), Curieux Academic Journal, The Schola, National High School Journal of Science (NHSJS), The Journal of Research High School (JRHS), STEM Fellowship Journal (SFJ), Stanford Intersect, and The Whitman Journal of Psychology. The research and publication process is extremely competitive, and as a result, students that do either one of completing a full research paper for their portfolio or becoming published in a student research journal increase their chances of admission into top ivy league and equivalent caliber schools significantly.
Application and Admissions Support
12. How does Brightspark support students with college essays and personal statements?
Does Brightspark provide assistance with scholarship and financial aid applications? The essay portion of a students admission profile includes all university specific essays + common app personal statement+ common app extracurricular filing+ financial aid statements + scholarship essays. The essay writing aspect of the students application profile is done with one of the founders, and includes all financial aid and scholarship supplemental essays required for consideration. In our experience, students admitted as international students from Canada to top U.S. universities often receive both scholarship and financial aid assistance.
13. What role do mentors play in the college application process?
Research learning and writing + internship guaranteed placement. Founders work with students on the essay writing aspect.
14. Does Brightspark assist with applications outside the U.S., such as in Canada, the UK, and Europe?
While Brightspark specializes in Canadian high school students admission into top universities in the U.S., we have helped students apply to top universities across the world.
15. What are Early Decision and Regular Decision applications, and does Brightspark help with both?
Early decision is a binding type of admission category that means if the student is admitted, they have agreed to attend the university. In almost all cases, Brightspark students apply to both types.