<p>Also check out Duke TIP- they have scholarship money avail as well. D did it for first time after 10th grade as a field study, and absolutely loved it!</p>
<p>I don’t think someone of mid high school age would be happy with CTY. Most kids age out before then, because the supervision is way too tight for a mature HS kid. JMHO.</p>
<p>The oldest kids can be for CTY is 16; for many kids, that’s 10th grade, so there are indeed rising juniors at CTY. A lot of kids lament after their “nomore/nevermore” year that they cannot go back (or couldn’t, at least, until the new courses for older kids started up at Princeton and JHU).</p>
<p>That said, my son will not turn 17 until he’s a senior in high school, so will be eligible for CTY when he’s a rising senior, and he’s been very clear about wanting to go Every.Single.Summer he is eligible!</p>
<p>The dynamics of CTY experiences certainly change as the kids get older, and the supervision is generally one of the sticking points. In general, the RAs for the 7th graders treat their charges much differently than the RAs for the 16 yr olds… I felt, as a mom, that the supervision (esp. at Lancaster) was good. Granted, there’s a lot more going on in Baltimore than Lancaster, or Carlisle, PA.</p>
<p>As older kids, some feel the nerd/geek brand that they have at their high schools much more than a middle school kid… The opportunity to be with kids “like them” gives them a place to feel at home, and not have to apologize for truly loving to learn. I know for my oldest D especially, it was an assurance that once she got to college, and outside her sometimes snarky, sometimes just rude high school world, that she’d find a lot of “her people” out there.</p>
<p>thank you. He actually will graduate from HS at 17, so will still be 15 (barely) when he is thinking of going. I was just afraid that it would be so unlikely to get in as a first timer, that maybe we shouldn’t get our hopes up. We are looking toward summer 2009. He desperately wanted to go when younger, and now is a little doubtful. We wish we could have sent him sooner, but some family illness got in the way…
life happens!</p>
<p>orjr, my son will also graduate from HS at 17 (assuming he goes to HS for all four years). Sounds like our kids are the same age/grade.</p>
<p>Right now, my son is still finding courses he is very interested in at CTY, but after this summer, he’ll have taken six different ones; I wonder if he’ll run out of courses in which he’s interested!</p>
<p>Consolation, the issue is that they did not track the kids after they were in 9th grade. The only reason we bothered was that we hoped for ether the Duke or JH program we were adding to research on talented kids from all economic levels. The hope we would better know how to deal with them an enrich them, not based on parents ability to pay for programs.</p>
<p>I grant that the programs are nice, and both schools have done good things. But it was not a few catalogs, it was a never ending set of marketing materials. I never saw a study out of the place profiling the talented kids.</p>
<p>hlkids, Johns Hopkins is doing a study of the most talented kids. I believe that the threshold is a score of 700 on either math or verbal SAT. They are not tracking kids who did not qualify for this study (SET; study of exceptional talent), although they offer extremely valuable summer and distance-learning courses for them.</p>
<p>SET is a longitudinal study that has been going on for years. Julian Stanley started it way back in the 1970s. Initially the focus was on high math scores, if I recall accurately. It is these exceptional kids that led to the formation of CTY. In studying them, the team came to realize the value of offering something to highly gifted kids that were just a notch down the SAT scale. And this led to the programs they offer today.</p>
<p>I can tell you it did great things for my daughter, giving her self confidence in the value of her interests, and the recognition that the relative social isolation of middle school would not last forever.</p>
<p>What good is tracking how many times a kid takes the SAT and the scores if nothing else is ever asked of them?</p>
<p>Interesting that SET has come up; my son is a SET kid. He has filled out one, maybe two questionnaires, but hasn’t used any of the services available (all of which are free, BTW). He hasn’t been interested. The summer camps are his favorite CTY program, by far.</p>
<p>Both sons qualified for CTY. Older S, who always hated school, but loved learning, said he didn’t want anything over the summer that was like school at all. So, we sent him to sports camp, journalism camp, and a language camp. </p>
<p>Younger S always loved school, and went to TIP U Kansas, studying philosophy, and CTY Loyola Marymount studying existentialism. We had no idea he was interested in philosophy until he chose those programs. He wanted to go again, but we got some summer travel opportunities due to H’s job, so S got to join us for 2 summers in Paris, and then did a free engineering camp for URMs that U Wisconsin offered.</p>
<p>S is now 20, and a freshman with merit aid at a 2nd tier LAC after doing a gap year with Americorps. He was a low grade, high scoring, student in high school who got organized with his studies after his gap year. He loves most academic areas, so a LAC is a good fit for him. He chose a LAC because of the broad education, small classes, and nurturing professors who like teaching – the same reasons he’d like CTY/TIP.</p>
<p>orjr, my understanding is that they discourage people with incomes over $60K from applying for scholarships, due to availability of funds. Free/reduced lunch wasn’t mentioned. But everyone’s circumstances are different, and you won’t know if you don’t try.</p>
<p>As far as getting a spot, I think that the wisest course is to follow their published advice and avoid the JHU and Skidmore campuses, which are the most heavily subscribed. Certainly my S never had a problem getting into his course of choice, even the first year. (They admit new kids in order of score, IIRC.) I also wouldn’t hesitate to call them and ask for advice on where to apply, depending on what he’s interested in studying.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, I still remember my astonishment when my seventh grader informed us that the course he wished to take was Philosophy of Mind! (He then went on to do Ethics and Existentialism.) It sounded excruciating to me. I thought he’d opt for history, or perhaps Crafting the Essay so that he could go on to other literature courses. No dice. :)</p>
<p>
In a word, funding. Or more properly, research support.</p>
<p>It is unfortunate, IMHO, that very little research funding is available for the study of academic performance (or indeed, anything) of highly intelligent kids. They’ve been ignored for years. Contrast that with low performers, or even average performers, who are well studied.</p>
<p>CTY has been able to get funding to study truly exceptional youth, mostly from private sources. (the feds don’t seem to like to invest in studying our highest performing children!), but even that has been a struggle.</p>
<p>My source for this: a long private conversation I had with Julian Stanley about 9 years ago.</p>
<p>newmassdad, I was referring to hikids’ comment about TIP only tracking SAT scores but not asking for any other information.</p>
<p>Consolation, which campus is most desired/subscribed depends partly on course selection. Cryptology at Lancaster gets more requests than Cryptology elsewhere, IIRC.</p>
<p>My son’s favorite site so far is Skidmore. (Wish it were closer!) He gets to pick his courses, but I do suggest various ones to him. I’ve suggested every summer that S take Crafting the Essay; he has studiously ignored the suggestion… up until this year. He’s actually considering taking it, yahoo! I think it will help him in school a lot.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, interesting about your older son; my son loves learning and hates school, too. Loves CTY, though.</p>
<p>orjr, one can list up to 15 different site/courses that one wants to attend, so if one’s first choice is full, the course assignment system moves on to the next, and so on down the list.</p>
<p>owlice, my S finally took Crafting the Essay his last year. 
He really enjoyed it, and I noted a marked improvement in the sophistication and effectiveness of his writing product and in his thinking about writing. For those who may be considering it, be aware that they normally have many sections of CTE, so that kids who take it when in HS are not placed with seventh graders, but instead have classmates who are at a similar level of maturity.</p>
<p>Consolation, sooooo close! S listed out the courses he wants for second session: Logic came first. We talked about it a little, about how Crafting the Essay would be good to have this early in his high school career, and he then moved CTE up to the number one spot. I felt bad; I do want him to take CTE, but it’s so much better if/when he wants to take it. I told him I thought Logic would also be good for his high school career, and Logic went back to the top of the list.</p>
<p>I probably should have left well enough alone! But they’re his courses, it’s his summer, and I don’t want him taking a class just to please me. (Doing the dishes, cleaning his room, running the vacuum, sure [oh, as if ever!], but his summer classes? His choice.)</p>
<p>Owlice,
I thought that Crafting the Essay would have been good for my son, too, but at the same time, it sounded too much like some kind of prep to hone skills for college.</p>
<p>I wasn’t surprised when S didn’t list it as a choice. It didn’t sound like something he’d enjoy doing on vacation.</p>
<p>I was delighted that S used CTY/TIP to delve into some subjects that weren’t taught in his high school. And, he has had plenty of time in high school and college to learn about crafting the essay.</p>
<p>NSM, S did put CTE in his list, just not in first place. He has come to recognize that it would be helpful in his upcoming AP courses, though Logic will be helpful, too, and apparently more fun!</p>
<p>I told him I thought CTE would be majority female; he responded with he thought Logic would have plenty of girls in it. Darn – there went my best argument!! :D</p>
<p>I thought S might take more science courses, but he’s taken only one so far. He’s liked the summer math courses he’s taken; the distance learning… not so much!</p>
<p>Owlice, my daughter did writing through CTY’s distance learning- very enjoyable with lots of feedback from the instructor. She enjoyed that far more than the math done through the distance program. Don’t worry about the writing- they get plenty of exposure in the AP courses doing the DBQs and essays so by the time the test rolls around they’re well prepared.</p>
<p>My son also took Crafting the Essay online, and found it to be very useful. My daughter is going to take Creative Writing this summer. She thought Crafting the Essay didn’t sound like as much fun.</p>