Cool DC Government/Public Policy Summer Program (Rising Seniors)

Orfling
Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:24:49 +0000

Hey flora, I think that’s a legit question. I probably wouldn’t try to label it as ‘prestigious’ in the sense of really famous – it was kind of a well-kept secret in some ways – but I got a good response when I talked about it in my college essays/interviews because I was pretty passionate about some of the substantive stuff we did. For example, in the classroom we used the case study method, which is what they use in law school and business school I guess, and my interviewers thought that was interesting and wanted to know what that was like in a high school setting. A number of them had also heard of St. Albans as a school, which I think maybe gave the program more credibility than a commercial program or the type of program where the “application” boils down to “parents’ signatures on the big fat check.”

It was fairly competitive to get into – and my St. Albans School of Public Service “classmates” were really smart (I definitely felt pushed but in a good way, plus no tests haha) but there was a good mix of people and a lot of kids were not your typical rich kids but had gotten scholarships, etc.

Lastly, a few of my classmates have gotten the program director to write them supplemental college recommendations – one of my friends did this, he goes to what I think is a pretty top private school, and he said that his college counselor suggested that he get the rec letter & said that the School of Public Service was a strong enough program that it was worth getting a supplemental rec to highlight his interest in public service etc.

The last thing is that the people we met with in DC thought this was a really great program and talked it up a lot, so I suppose when a Senator or Supreme Court Justice says you made a great choice it makes you feel pretty good about it!

Hope this helps, I know it wandered a lot!