Ideas for Competitive Programs

Pre-College Topics Summer Programs
1

<p>My D recently finished 9th grade and is ranked at the top of her class after having taken all honors classes including chinese and french and achieving straight As. She founded a chapter of JSA, currently volunteers at the city’s natural history museum as an education assistant, is elected secretary of student council and plays field hockey on the JV team. She won several school awards. We are looking for interesting ways for her to spend next summer. She enjoys public speaking and leadership types of activities, but does not really like science/math. She appears to be moving towards some sort of global interest - like international relations/law/communications and wants to attend a top school (her sister is currently at an Ivy-but had very different interests). </p>

<p>We receive advertisements for many summer programs, but so many of them look like programs that would not be useful or interesting to her - and basically are open to anyone who is willing to pay. She is incredibly driven and self-motivated and I’d like to help her capitalize on her personality and intelligence. I assume she should spend one summer abroad (not sure what program) and one summer pursuing some sort of educational interest. What are the competitive programs (either aborad or domestic) for non-science types? jsa summer school is definitely something we will look into.</p>

<p>Any ideas would be appreciated! Also, if she were to go to a summer program at one college, would other colleges view that negatively?</p>

2

<p>A lot of the really competitive programs aren’t open to students going into tenth grade, so I would probably go abroad that year instead. </p>

<p>[School</a> Year Abroad | SYA Summer](<a href=“http://www.sya.org/pages/sitepage.cfm?id=296]School”>http://www.sya.org/pages/sitepage.cfm?id=296)</p>

<p>This program is run by three of the best boarding schools in the entire world and have a full year program as well as a summer one. If your daughter is seriously interested in study abroad, go with this program because it is the only one which keeps up with a regular American curriculum while being very rigorous (probably more so than the one she is in now if she goes to a public school).</p>

<p>[Rassias</a> Summer Language Programs High School France Spain China](<a href=“http://www.rassias.com/]Rassias”>http://www.rassias.com/)</p>

<p>[Dragons</a> : Programs : Summer Abroad for High School & College Students in China, Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, Latin America & Africa<a href=“doesn’t%20offer%20French”>/url</a></p>

<p><a href=“http://www.chinasummerstudy.org/[/url]”>http://www.chinasummerstudy.org/](<a href=“http://www.wheretherebedragons.com/programs.summer.php]Dragons”>http://www.wheretherebedragons.com/programs.summer.php)</a></p>

<p>[Foundation</a> Programs](<a href=“http://www.foundationprograms.com/]Foundation”>http://www.foundationprograms.com/)</p>

<p>Other than study abroad, look at summer programs at boarding schools.<br>
[Phillips</a> Academy - Summer Session](<a href=“Phillips Academy Andover Summer Session”>Phillips Academy Andover Summer Session)
[Phillips</a> Exeter Summer School](<a href=“http://306.exeter.edu/summer/index.htm]Phillips”>http://306.exeter.edu/summer/index.htm)
[Choate</a> Rosemary Hall: Summer Programs » Overview](<a href=“Summer Programs at Choate Rosemary Hall”>Summer Programs at Choate Rosemary Hall)</p>

<p>Also look at <a href=“mailto:Summer@Brown”>Summer@Brown</a>. There are a lot of rising sophomores that go.<br>
[Summer@Brown</a> - Pre-College Programs at Brown University | Brown University Office of Summer & Continuing Studies](<a href=“http://www.brown.edu/scs/pre-college/]Summer@Brown”>Pre-College Program | Brown University)</p>

3

<p>She might also want to look at some of the talent search programs such as John Hopkins CTY and Duke’s TIP.</p>

4

<p>Oh. And colleges definitely won’t view taking college courses at another college negatively. Nor will it help your chances at that particular college. College course = college credit (usually…unless you pay the big bucks to get an “experience”) = same credit, equal consideration. It’s like taking a community college course, no one will view it negatively.</p>

5

<p>^^ Even if it doesn’t directly help your chances at colleges whose summer program you’ve attended, it helps a lot with the “Why Harvard?” essay, as well as demonstrated interest which many colleges consider.</p>

6

<p>Global interest? NSLI-Y. Full-tuition scholarships to study critical-need languages around the world. Given how amazing the program is, it’s surprisingly not THAT hard to get in (at least not compared to TASP–which is something else you should have your daughter consider).</p>

7

<p>lookbeyond, I really wanted to apply to that this year but missed the deadline before I found out about it. I’m definitely applying next year! Do you know what the acceptance rate is? I know it varies by language. I will be applying for either Arabic, Persian, or Turkish. Do you know if it’s possible to apply for more than one?</p>

8

<p>For study abroad or at “home” for languages: [Concordia</a> Language Villages - About Us](<a href=“http://www.concordialanguagevillages.org/newsite/about1.php]Concordia”>http://www.concordialanguagevillages.org/newsite/about1.php)</p>

<p>And like others have mentioned TASS will be open for her next summer and TASP the year after: [Telluride</a> Association](<a href=“http://www.tellurideassociation.org/]Telluride”>http://www.tellurideassociation.org/)</p>

9

<p>@ca87: I think the acceptance rate is hovering around 33% overall, but it’s different for every program.</p>

<p>You don’t apply to more than one language: you apply for the program, then rank the languages in order of preference.</p>

10

<p>The acceptance rate this year was about 1 in 6, but if you make it to the second round, about 70% percent of the people get in. And you can apply for up to three languages, but you are not guaranteed to get your first choice.</p>

11

<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.jsa.org/princeton/princeton.html]Princeton*-*JSA[/url”>http://www.jsa.org/princeton/princeton.html]Princeton*-*JSA[/url</a>]</p>

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<p>This program sounds perfect for your daughter.
Along with the program being held at Princeton is also held at Georgetown, Stanford, and in Beijing.</p>

12

<p>She might be a good candidate for Davidson Institute’s THINK summer program if she will still be 16 or under next summer. My D is there right now, and busting her tail on the workload. But loving it!</p>

<p>[Davidson</a> Institute?s THINK Summer Program](<a href=“http://www.davidsongifted.org/think/]Davidson”>THINK Summer Institute for Gifted Students | Davidson Institute)</p>