[RyanIyengar]

You've done great things, but I find it slightly disingenuous for you to imply that the only thing standing between your average high school student and a great internship is talking to their teacher, attending an event and collecting business cards, and applying at NASA. Your particular situation is so massively weighted towards the unlikely that you can't really safely extrapolate from it.

Reading back a bit into your blog, you're clearly aware of the advantages you have had, and are trying to “not to be one of those people.” Just try to be aware that laying things out in overly broad blog posts about common sense networking techniques does not quite count as not being one of those people. Not that it's not good advice, but I think there are far more valuable uses of your time than trying to generalize from your experience and evangelize. Acknowledge your advantage, but don't assume that telling people to do the things that were successful with that advantage, maybe try to work against the systems that systemically give advantage to a select few while ignoring most.

Sorry for what has turned into a pseudo-lecture, you're doing good things, keep doing them. Just stay cognizant, that's all I ask =)