UCSD Futures Program

Answered

Congrats on your summer scholarship for this program.

Anytime you get a full scholarship to attend one of these summer programs that's a good win for you. I would definitely take full advantage of the IOS course and learn as much as you can especially if you want to be a CS major in college. This will look like a good Intellectual Vitality/Curiosity boost to your academic narrative.

How you measure the incremental benefits of getting into a top US college with a summer program like this is complicated and there is no exact science to it. I think its a plus to have something like this in your college application but this alone is not going to make or break your application since top colleges like Ivys may have 100-200 data points they look at when scoring you against your peers.

As an Australian, I would be more concerned with how you stack up against the peers in your school district or city of those applying to similar colleges. Why? Because admissions officers will compare you to other Australians applying to the same colleges.

Summer Courses are not ranked in prestige because frankly there are hundreds of them. I would say off the top of my head the most difficult ones to get into on scholarship are the MIT ones or may JHU, Stanford ones. They have both paid to play programs and more selective ones where you have to apply against a very competitive pool of applicants. I don't think the UC ones are particular difficult to apply to.

UCSD is a great college and consistently ranked about 35 in top national universities in the US. It's closest rivals would by UCI and UCSB while the more difficult and prestigious UCs would be UCLA and UC Berkeley. As a non-resident of California, the cost for attending a UC will be quite high and comparable to attending Private Universities. So I think if you are applying for some sort of financial aid, you might do better at a Private college that is well funded for International Students. The best examples would be most of the Ivys (sans Cornell and UPenn) and top Elites like Stanford and the top liberal arts colleges like Pomona, Amherst and Williams, and Swarthmore.

Good luck.