<p>My D, off to college in the fall, went to Carlisle before her after 8th grade and after 10th grade (was ill the intervening summer) then aged out. Loved it, still facebook friends with many of those she met. The interesting thing is, when we were doing college visits last summer in the Midwest and PA, she wound up on the same tours as CTY friends at Chicago and Carnegie Mellon!</p>
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<p>I’m not sure how to interpret this. Does it mean they did not have the time (though they had the time to take the call from the OP)? Or were they fobbed off by the OP’s son?</p>
<p>Tokenadult: Yes I received a long message, plus a very prompt response to my reply. My S loved his RAs; I was surprised at the attitude reported by the OP.</p>
<p>Marite, I’ve since found out that some of the details of the incident didn’t occur precisely as related in the post, so perhaps the description of the attitude is imprecise as well.</p>
<p>The CTY experience has been wonderful for my children. My D has matured tremendously. (She began in “baby CTY”). She just completed session 1 at Hopkins and the e-mails from her new friends are flooding her “In Box”. S is still in “baby CTY.” I can’t believe he’s actually looking forward to taking the SAT so that he can remain in the program. CTY has been a positive life changing experience for my family. We look forward to continuing with the program until the children “age out.” CTY offers not only stellar academics, a brief opportunity to be independent, but an opportunity to create international friendships as well. CTY staffers are very receptive to hearing from parents. If someone is experiecing a problem please do not hesitate to contact the main CTY office in Baltimore.</p>
<p>We finally heard from our rising junior, attending her third sessions at CTY. She mentioned that the rules are more restrictive this year, but I don’t know if the rules have changed, or if she’s just older. It doesn’t seem to bother her because she went into the camp with the expectation that there would be many rules. She did chafe a bit at not being able to walk to class without a TA escort. </p>
<p>I hope the homesickness is getting better; it’s really tough to try to deal with that from a distance. I remember dd’s first year; we dropped her off, and most of the kids seem to be old hands who already had friends from previous years. However, dd found a set of friends and activities the first week; there’s so much going on, from frisbee and unusual card games to “monty python madness” and “cloud watching” that it really seems like there’s something for everyone. Lancaster is full of rituals, though, so that aspect might be harder for new kids who don’t expect to celebrate Halloween or wear bathrobes on Thursday. Or understand what the ‘canon’ is. </p>
<p>She said the food was really good this year, so that’s a positive!</p>
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<p>I found out about most of these things via Web searches before my son went to Lancaster. He had a bathrobe along, and he knew that the most important song in the canon is “American Pie.” If there was some ritual he didn’t want to perform, he would just say, “Conform to nonconformity” when asked to join in.</p>