<p>My kid is attending an elite prep school with full financial aid and is in 10th grade. He is taking the hardest course load like AP BC Calc, AP Chemistry and AP European History. Next year he will take the AP Chemistry, Linear algebra and AP US History. He is ranked maybe in top 10% (guess, we do not have any proof). So far he has 1490 in SAT in junior high, 800 in Math IIC and 231 in PSAT in 10th grade. Recently he has won a grant through his school, which will pay for his summer enrichment up to $$$$ for each 10th grade summer as well as 11th grade summer. </p>
<li>Do you think attending a business leadership program is good way to spend summer or volunteer work?</li>
<li>He has applied in some competitive summer program. Last year he got accepted to some outstanding summer math program on full scholarships but is not very keen to go there, as he has no desire to pursue math as a carrier.</li>
<li>Do you think it is wiser to do a summer language immersion, as he can certainly improve his language skills? He is thinking to apply Wharton.</li>
<li>Any other suggestion you might have.</li>
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<p>I agree with 1sokker that he might want to do something that rounds him out a little more. From what I have read on here, lots of kids who look like this one on paper are left scratching their heads when admissions don’t pan out the way they want - and some wise parents on here can predict such cases with great accuracy. He’s got money to use, so that’s an interesting situation. I would do something non-academic with it - perhaps somewhat related to language immersion but also working. I would avoid the business leadership and/or science/math related summer experience. I think he should do what nobody expects him to do this summer.</p>
<p>I think your suggestion is excellent. Thank you. I think skills earned in these jobs are very valuable. He tried last year but his undergae became an issue. Anyway, last year he end up working for a professor in a chemical lab on a volunteer basis. The professors has liked his hard work and offered him a summer internship depending on my son’s schedule. This year professor has told him that he will pay $$ for his work. Oh yeah he is a junior varsity athelete for few sports. Thank you.</p>
<p>What does he want to do? Is he entrepreneurial? I actually like getting a job or even better starting a business, and having some fun as a summer experience.
Like Sokker1mom, I do not mean to offend, and Jamimom could put this better than I, because she has worked with Asian families in college admissions, but what this kid doesn’t need is “academic enrichment”, he needs to be differentiating himself from the Asian stereotype of all academics/violin/etc. This could be through pursuit of a passion, or through doing something totally different - like Landmark volunteers, Outward Bound/outdoors type thing. Send him to France to live with a French family for language immersion or Quebec or one of the Concordia camps. Send him to the Virgin Islands to build schools and sail around on a sailboat doing coral reef research (ie learning to snorkel). Try something that doesn’t take the whole summer so he can be a kid.</p>
<p>Would sailing really be considered enrichment for the purpose of the scholarship? Here is a camp that teaches kids to sail for the summer in the Caribbean…</p>
<p>I don’t know, but it sure sounds like fun! My daughter looked at one last spring that was a little more volunteer work than this appears to be - I don’t remember the name. It was about 3 weeks, the boat worked for a week basically as a trawler helping a team from a university net sea life for study. Then they anchored at an island, and had a choice of a couple of volunteer projects : camp counselors to organize games, etc for the elementary age kids who were going to summer break day camps and helping build ?school maybe.</p>
<p>It might not fulfill the terms of the scholarship :D, but still sounds like fun. Landmark might not either (DD looked into that one as well), which would be too bad, Landmark seemed to be a very worthwhile summer activity, and is relatively inexpensive.</p>
<p>I agree with the idea of finding out what he feels like doing. And if he’s too stressed and driven to know, then he needs time to figure out what he feels. </p>
<p>If schools are looking for kids who have passion and are self directed, you have to give that a chance to happen. I don’t think filling a child’s every vacation with enriching experiences, is going to do it.</p>