<p>I have been surprised this summer to hear how restrictive some pre-college programs have become in their rules and regs on student behavior. I viewed the pre-college program as valuable in large part because it gives a high school student a taste of the freedom and responsibility that they will have in college. That was my experience many years ago at Northwestern, and my son’s experience about 3 years ago at Stanford. However, this summer I am hearing from my daughter (in an as yet unnamed program) and from parents of other high school students that the pre-college programs are watching their every move. They have gone beyond curfew to measures like requiring the student to be standing at their dorm room door at a specific time, or requiring the students to lock themselves into their dorm rooms at a specific time, prohibiting the students from leaving campus to go into the local town, restricting laundry hours to a few specified hours on the weekend, requiring them to be at meals and not allowing them to go elsewhere, not allowing visitors, restricting the use of the campus gym to certain limited hours and only in the company of an RA,etc. etc. . And it’s almost like this programs are using the same manual. Does anyone know what’s going on? Was there an incident somewhere that provoked this? Do more free pre-college programs exist anymore? Interested in what your experiences have been this summer.</p>
<p>This is 100% conjecture, but I’d guess that the programs are reacting to our litigious culture. Since the kids are minors, the people running summer programs are legally responsible for their safety. Fearing enormous lawsuits if one hair on the head of any kid is touched may scare the directors into applying strict regulations.</p>
<p>Logistically, it would probably be impossible to allow the same kind of freedoms that college aged adults have to groups of kids without risk. And parents today do not seem to understand that life comes with inherent risks. Parents tend to want guarantees that their children will never come into contact with anything dangerous, scary, or harmful. Guaranteed. </p>
<p>If I were running a summer camp program for teens who were on their own for the first time, I’d definitely have them scheduled within an inch of their lives so I wouldn’t have to run all over looking for stragglers, smokers, drinkers, shoplifters, vandalizers, etc.</p>
<p>My youngest is at Columbia Summer Program, and I can tell you that it is not being restrictive. She has been everywhere–unfortunately to the stores and malls, not the museums and cultural activities. Personally, I wish they had been a tad bit more restrictive and required participation in some activities. Too much choice for a younger child, who tells me all the organized activites are “too expensive.” (Has to save that money for H&M and Anthropologie). On the other hand, she does say that several older children have been asked to leave for violation of the liquor and drug rules. I can’t argue with that. They are warned the first day and actually sign something saying they acknowledge these are prohibited substances.</p>
<p>Before my junior year, I did a summer program in Paris run by a private company (Summer Study) which was as you described. When I came back I knew I wanted to do another summer program before my senior year but I intentionally selected it largely based on how strict they were. I ended up going to Harvard SSP, which as a rising senior is great (rising juniors have curfews) in that it is essentially living for two months as a college student. I had no problems going where I wanted when I wanted to or even taking a trip with three friends to NYC on our own. The only rules strictly enforced were the drug and alcohol rules which is understandable. A LOT of kids got kicked out. I don’t know why you’d come to Harvard for the summer just to party. You can do that at home without wasting $5-8,000.</p>
<p>I don’t know of any other summer programs that are this free unfortunatly.</p>
<p>Bobbi, are you referring to NJ Governor’s School? Heh, it sounds a lot like my experience. Actually, everything you listed was in our rulebook except restricted laundry hours and an RA having to be present while at the campus gym.</p>
<p>I know they wanted us to be in our rooms and have our lights off and all that stuff by a certain time because we all had class at 8 AM the next day. The fact that we didn’t get grades meant that some students might not have been as motivated to work very hard, and so there would be no incentive for us to willingly sleep at the right time so we can be fresh for our class the next day. So, instead, they made us be fresh, hehe. Actually, we didn’t have meals that we HAD to attend, but we had to participate in activities like waterballoon throwing contests, movies, and dances. I think that’s because there were only about 100 of us at the program, and they wanted us to get to know each other very well. That and the motivation thing also apply to not allowing visitors or letting us go home.</p>
<p>Even though we all complained at the time, it didn’t take away from the experience at all.</p>
<p>No, it wasn’t NJ Governor’s School. The replies to my question have been really interesting. Perhaps there’s a trend in the summer programs toward wanting to make sure that the group bonds with each other, and also making sure that the work, though ungraded, gets done. It seems that there are always kids kicked out for drugs and/or alcohol, regardless of what restrictions are placed on the program participants, so I’m starting to think that the restrictions don’t do anything to stop that kind of behavior. Maybe the restrictions reflect what David06 said, that it doesn’t make sense to waste your money at a summer program by partying, when you can party at home. I guess I still would have preferred that my daughter had gone to a program that was more like college - but I see that there are two sides to this question. I hope that people considering programs for next summer will read this thread and look at the extent of the restrictions in choosing a program.</p>
<p>Well, it really depends on the program. NJGS is selective and free for students, so it’s a much smaller program that’s very focused on giving students the experience of a lifetime. Harvard’s and Columbia’s programs are much less selective, so they have more students and bonding with everyone isn’t very feasible, so they have much more freedom.</p>
<p>I think there are several reasons and kids often don’t show good judgement…my Ds summer program, a couple of kids were sent home from Europe, at the expense of the parents for various rule breaking, mostly drinking, bringing in strangers to their rooms, etc.</p>
<p>safety, if you have kids meeting people in town and letting them come into the dorms, do you think would be a good idea…i mean you have a 16 year old bringing some guy on campus who has no responsilibty for what goes on there</p>
<p>my D did a program last year that was tightly controlled, but with freedoms…ie, they didn’t force you to go into the museums, but yo had to be at a certain place by a certain time</p>
<p>the rule about being in their room, by a certain time, why does that bother you? do you want your kid wandering around 1am bothering other kids who are trying to sleep, kids have NO IDEA how loud they can be, and if you have kids, like mine at UCLA that had to be up at 700am some days, if you let kids just roam around making noise late at night, that can be very disruptive</p>
<p>as for the gym, kids fool around, accidents happen, and maybe that program had some bad kids, and the college itself made the restrictions</p>
<p>as for going into the local town, it may be the TOWN itself that is not the best place for the kids to be wandering around, maybe kids would go into town and not come back for programs, etc</p>
<p>some camps can get very very very cliquish, with the “coool” kids wondering off, and kids not sociallizing with everyone, which is the point of camps</p>
<p>if you wanted your kid to just have free reign, send them to a youth hostel</p>
<p>but if they are in a program, they are in the program, and they are supposed to meet those kids, participate in their programs, and not just escape </p>
<p>if they go off with their few buddies eating off campus all the time, not participating, not joining with the other kids, it can create an atmoshere of us and them, the entitled and those that don’t make friends as easily to go wandering around</p>
<p>the visitor thing, that to me is a no brainer…no one should be in the dorms that is not a registered person in that program…with phone #s, parents #Es, contacts, and having signed a contract to behave</p>
<p>I mean, if they bring in booze, they have no consequences</p>
<p>I did a program at UChicago. Basically, the only rules enforced were curfew (which meant to be in the dorm building, where everyone lived, not necessarily in your room). Drug and alcohol rules were obviously there, but RAs never actually checked anybody’s room. The rules they took the most seriously and emphasized the most were about academic integrity. </p>
<p>I would really recommend the program (great classes, people, etc.) especially for those looking for more independence during their junior/senior summer.</p>
<p>I did precollege at UPenn…and I found that absolutely none of those things that you mentioned were an issue here. We could take the subway into Philly whenever we wanted as long as we were back to our dorm by curfew (even on days when we had classes). We had absolute independence. Some of the rules were a bit harsh though (like detention for just about any minor infraction), but in terms of being on your own and acting w/pure independence I’d say it was to the highest reasonable degree. Even in what could be considered a moderately unsafe environment (West Philly) I found that I was never in any danger and that no one really got in any trouble (besides the obvious drug/alcohol use that usually went unmonitored).</p>