Avani Jain: Not a SISP by the Book

When it comes to SISPs at Mass Academy, students often gravitate toward science experiments or technical projects. Avani had a different idea: she would read her way through the Goodreads list of 100 books to read before college and write a review for each one. What followed was over 100 hours of reading, writing, and a few hard lessons about stepping outside her comfort zone.

The biggest challenges, she says, came in two forms. The first was time management. College application season layered supplemental essays on top of regular schoolwork, and adding book reviews on top of that made for an overwhelming amount of writing, especially for someone who does not naturally gravitate toward it. "Writing supplements, schoolwork, and reviews were just a ton of writing," she said, "especially as someone who doesn't tend to write a lot or enjoy writing."

The second challenge was diversifying her reading. Avani admits she tends to stick to familiar genres, which skewed her ratings distribution early on. "I had to just force myself to read books from categories I normally wouldn't," she said. It was uncomfortable at first, but pushing through it became one of the more rewarding parts of the project.

Her biggest piece of advice for future SISP students is straightforward: pick something you genuinely enjoy, and something you can sustain. "Pick something fun," she said. "A hundred hours is a decent time commitment, and you should actually want to do it." "Don't think about college apps and what would look best when picking a SISP," she said. "You will have other stuff." For Avani, choosing a non-STEM project also turned out to have an unexpected upside when it came to applications. Pursuing something outside the typical science and math track helped demonstrate range to colleges, particularly when it came to letters of continued interest. "Picking a non-STEM SISP allowed me to show my diversity in what I do," she said.

For anyone staring down their own SISP choice, Avani's experience is a useful reminder that the best projects are not always the ones that look the most impressive on paper. Sometimes they are just the ones you actually want to spend 100 hours on.