Next summer my son will be a rising junior and still 15. He is interested in an academic program with a fair taste of college life, but does NOT want a program for college credit. He wants to stay in the northeast for the program (Maine down to DC, as far west as Pittsburgh). He’s interested primarily in computer science, with a particular interest in game development, but also interested in hard sciences and math. He wants as little as possible of a “camp” experience. In this context, that means he doesn’t want to be told he has to go to this evening activity or that trip. He doesn’t want his free (non-class) time organized for him. He would like to be with smart, nice, interesting kids who are reasonably serious about about the school work, while recognizing that the for-credit programs will often have more academically focused kids.
Although he’s not interested in a credit program he’s not interested in Explo (too “camp,” not enough courses he’s interested in) or ID Tech (been there, done that, got many t-shirts). He doesn’t want an academically oriented camp that happens to be located on a college campus. He wants a taste of college life.
I would like him to be at a program for several weeks. For various reasons he’d benefit more from being somewhere for 3-4 weeks, rather than 1 or 2, but a short program isn’t necessarily a deal breaker.
We can afford these programs, although my husband and I have drawn the line at Columbia, which crosses our personal line from expensive to preposterous.
Here’s what I’ve got so far.
Penn - Summer Academies
Brandeis - App Design
URochester - Intensive Studies or Rochester Scholars
CMU - Game Academy
Champlain - Game Academy
Harvard - Pre-College
Cornell - Fabricating the Future
Brown - Summer@Brown
Harvard Pre-College says kids are required to attend 2 activities from each of 4 categories. I assume that’s per 2 week session. My son is rolling his eyes at 8 required activities in 2 weeks. Can anyone offer a list from previous years of what there was to choose from and which ones were mandatory? If he were to do two 2 week sessions, would he end up having to repeat things a lot?
The child of an acquaintance of mine did Summer@Brown this summer as a rising junior and was NOT happy. Obviously, that’s one kid’s experience and lots of people like it, but I’d be interested in hearing what anyone else who has experience with the program thinks of her complaints. She goes to an very good public high school and fulfilled all the prerequisites for the bio course she took with excellent grades. She says that despite that, she was not prepared for the level the course was actually taught at because she’s spent most of her childhood summers at camp while many of the kids in her classes had already spent several summers doing academic programs and had knowledge far beyond what was taught in her high school bio course and the teaching ended up pitched to them. She complains that the program as a whole was very disorganized, although I don’t have any more detail than that. Finally, she says the dorm was disgusting.
I’d be very interested in any other programs my son should be exploring and/or any more detailed information you have about the experience at the programs I’ve listed.