Monetary, intellectual, social value of HS summer experiences

Parent Cafe
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<p>I just found out that a friend’s daughter is going on a European “teen tour” for a month, at a cost of…$6900, not including airfare (my friend didn’t share the cost, obviously, but I Googled the company, and easily found the tour).</p>

<p>I know another kid spending a month in Thailand on a community service project; the trip that costs nearly $5000, excluding airfare.</p>

<p>I was positively floored, and it got me thinking about summer experiences for high school kids. I would never spend that kind of money for a teen tour, even if we had it, and even if I think it might be fun. Doesn’t seem like a valuable way to spend money, but apparently others disagree, since the testimonials were very positive, and all the trips this summer are apparently full.</p>

<p>We spend a pretty penny on music camps and experiences. Perhaps other people think that is a waste of money too, since, obstensibly, my son could work all summer, not part, instead of further developing his skills. </p>

<p>Do you feel like teen tours and adventure programs are worth the money? Some people claim they are doing it “to look good on college applications”. To me, it looks like spoiled kids trying to have interesting experiences. But, perhaps I am missing something.</p>

<p>What activities and experiences do you value during the summer for high school students? Would you encourage your child to select activities for their resume, or for other reasons? What is the value of working during the summer (I have my own opinions on all of these questions, but am curious to hear others’)?</p>

2

<p>My parents tried to get me to do a summer program that would look good on my resume, during the summer before senior year. I didnt like any of them so I ended up going on a trip that I wanted to do…a month long hiking trip on a Scout Ranch. It ended up being an excellent experience, only cost about $1000 including airfair/food/services for a month. I did sorta use it for college though, I wrote about it in each of my essays…but I def. did not do it because it would look good on a resume.</p>

<p>As far as summer work experiences…it depends where the work takes place and what you do. After talking to a couple of admissions officers I found they were impressed by two places I worked and said that would help on the application. Not to mention the extra money I earned :)</p>

3

<p>I do not suggest that h.s. students select summer activities for their resume, but I do suggest that they select summer activities that will allow them to explore their itnerests, develop their talents and/or show them how the real world work.</p>

<p>I personally think that those pricey European tours and community service projects are wastes of money for most people who seem to sign up their kids for them thinking those enhance their college apps. I’m an alum interviewer for Harvard, and IMO those trips stick out in a bad way for elite schools.</p>

<p>Why? The trips announce that the kid comes from a family with lots of bucks, but the kid isn’t independent or creative enough to create opportunities for themselves. Basically, whoever pays for those activities gets to go – no matter how they are packaged to make the kids feel that they are special for getting those offers.</p>

<p>Now, if a kid managed to work a job and raise the $ to go on one of those trips, I would be impressed, but that hasn’t been the case with any kid whom I’ve met.</p>

<p>Second-- I have seen those tours and have talked with students taking them. Basically, the tours allow the students to spend lots of time socializing with other Americans while being guided by adult chaperones. Not impressive! </p>

<p>As for the community service projects – the same deal exists. </p>

<p>I’d be far more impressed by students who spent the summer working doing in fast food jobs that they found for themselves, and used as an opportunity to learn about the work world , their own character, and society in general. Similarly, I’d be impressed by students who created their own community service opportunities in their hometowns. A teen who volunteered at a community center in a project that they designed themself would be far more impressive than a teen whose parents enrolled them in a packaged community service project in a distant country.</p>

<p>I also don’t get impressed by students who go to their immigrant parents’ countries in order to allegedly do community service. I know that in virtually all cases, the students are living with relatives who lined up the so-called opportunities for the students, and more than likely family friends wrote the recommendations, which probably are exaggerations. How do I know? I ask the students how they got the opportunities, what they did in the opportunities, what they learned, and what their volunteer days entailed hour by hour.</p>

<p>Students who have vague responses such as not being able to remember specifics of what they did on a typical day or who learned such banal insights as “People are people,” aren’t impressive.</p>

<p>What did my sons do over the summers? Older S, 22, when in h.s. took some family vacations including across country and to Europe, went to journalism camp and did a paid journalism internship out of state that he got through his own efforts and talents. He was interested in journalism, which was why he did the journalism things. The vacations were simply vacations. We didn’t expect anyone in admissions to be interested, though S had a good time and learned a lot about the world.</p>

<p>Younger S explored his interests by going to engineering camp that was virtually free(found out he doesn’t want to be an engineer! That was a wonderful insight), spending a couple of summers in Paris with us, and becoming facilitator trained in a youth program that he was interested in, and that he eventually helped reintroduce to our town, including over the summer in volunteer work that he lined up. He also did some other traveling with us. </p>

<p>All of those things were done to help him pursue his interests or have a good time. None were done for resume decoration. All paid off in that he either had a good time, learned more about his interests or developed skills that he’ll use for a lifetime. The facilitator training paid off with his overcoming much of his shyness, learning that he has a lot of talent in that area, and probably wants to major in some kind of field that would allow him to use that talent. He also eventually got some awards for his volunteer work doing that, but that wasn’t the reason he signed up for the training.</p>

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<p>I think it depends on teh kid and what you/they want to work on-kind of experience they are ready for</p>

<p>I think some of the overseas things are great
Experiment in International living or LeapNow for example, I think are well designed, offer real experiences in another culture meeting people that they wouldn’t ordinarily meet- which can inspire real growth.</p>

<p>But for my own kid- who would LOVE to do something like that- I worry that it requires a little too much independence not to mention money right now & we have found otehr alternatives closer to home.</p>

<p>SOme I have heard about- have the kids on their own way too much- not all kids communicate these lapses to parents- but I have heard enough about other programs ( the one for athletes from all over the world for example) to make me very wary.</p>

<p>A lot depends on age of kid</p>

<p>My 16 year old- has always stuck pretty close to home- with one overnight camp for two weeks and lessons of various sorts around town.</p>

<p>I think summer should be a chance to travel as well as try out new things or things you didn’t get enoug time to pursue during school year.
D has taken a great deal of photography for several years- as well as practicing her soccer.
THis year wont be much different- she is going to take one month of summer school- to catch up on math, so that she can take chemistry in the fall- summer school is difficult because it is one month- which I admit is going to be pretty intense for someone who has a math disability to get an entire course out of 5 mornings a week. But it has to be done & I hope the soccer camp will be an outlet.</p>

<p>She is also going to a horse counselor in training at a residential camp that she has been going to since she was 8- and while I know that will be a lot of work- for her the continutiy of going to the same place allows her to start from a solid foundation and take risks.</p>

<p>I really never knew enough about " adding something for resume" so I just encouraged my kids to do what they were interested in.
My older daughter worked with ponies at zoo all summer for several years as well as being a riding counselor in training- intern and finally riding staff at the same camp, and I really saw her blossom, even though I never really expected her to pursue an equine related career.
But I see the skills as transferrable.( plus I think kids should be outside in the summer)
While the zoo program closed this spring, so my younger daughter couldn’t continue, I also anticipate that working at the camp will help her grow as much as it did her sister.
So I guess I would advocate a follow your passion sort of summer program, rather than doing something because it sounds good.
If you havent really found something that you click with, its ok to try different things until you do- but I always tried to balance summer experiences when they were younger= drama & art camps for example as well as science/outdoor camps.
I think there are probably lots of great music camps that have plenty of time for outside “camp” type activities & if you are wanting to do it- and your parents are willing to spring for it, instead of making you mow grass to save for college- I think most kids would take them up on it :)</p>

<p>I think for myself- I would have gotten the most out of being in one place- for at least a month- with new people so I could try out different parts of myself that I didnt’ get to during the year- because those that know us- excpet to see the same person.</p>

<p>That seems to be one of the positive things for my girls- although I really missed my older daughter when she was gone all summer and just came home for a few days here and there- & I expect my youngest would love to be gone for three months- but it would be so quiet!</p>

<p>That actually was what college seemed like for my oldest- camp- they even played capture the flag!</p>

<p>I think they should have camps for parents- spas just aren’t the same and can be very expensive-of course I could just be overly romantizing it- since I only went to camp for one week & it was a local Christian camp ( and we weren’t really religious- we were unitarian!), but it was a lot of fun anyway.</p>

<p>Summer should be fun- it(life) is too short for it to be grueling or a check mark on the EC box</p>

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<p>DS did summer research for 3 summers 9-12 (they paid him and covered his residential expenses), 3 different programs. In between went to football camp (hs team pays), wrestling camp (hs team pays), ran the summer tutoring program, admin stuff from his residential programs and babysat his cousins when he was home on the weekends.</p>

<p>So no, we did not pay thousands for him to have an “interesting” summer.</p>

<p>His older sis swam club and dove club all 4 summers and coached, regionals, zones are also in the summer. And her older brother also spent 4 summers at engineering camps, developed instrumentation for a rocket pack. Scholarship covered his costs and he earned 20 semesters of transferable college credit. Travel was involved but again not at our expense.</p>

<p>Big $$$ for summer trips was just not in our budget. Heck I was excited I got such a good hotel price yesterday for dropping son off at Princeton in the fall!! And in Princeton too, thought we would have to stay farther out!!!</p>

<p>Kat</p>

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<p>I personally don’t see anything wrong with advertising that a family has money. If going on expensive trips is how they want to spend their money, why not?
My kids wanted to go to music camp and academic camps. The academic camp was impressive on S2’s resume, I presume; the music camp probably was not. So what? They enjoyed themselves and we did not begrudge the expenses.
Now, if this travel abroad is intended for resume-building, there are probably more effective strategies. As for cost, shrug. We do not all live in the same income brackets.</p>

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<p>For those still wondering about the price of those packaged international tours for students: We took a family of 4 to Europe and visited most of the same places that were on a People to People tour that my S got an invitation for. We were in Europe for about the same length of time, and the trip cost us less than we would have paid to send S on People to People. Our accommodations also were more modest, but that was OK with us!</p>

<p>S also got to be more independent because he wasn’t traveling with a large group of Americans, and he got to help select the sights that we saw. We also got some great memories of having a wonderful time as a family. As our kids get older, our time runs out for doing major family activities, so it’s good to create and treasure such things.</p>

<p>Marite,
There’s nothing wrong with having $, but unless one is a multimillionaire, having money isn’t going to open doors at the top colleges. Indeed, not having money is more likely to impress their admissions officers.</p>

<p>If parents have the bucks and want to send their kids on (IMO overpriced tours in which the teens get to see other countries while bonding with other American teens), fine. It’s their money, and their goal.</p>

<p>However, no parent or teen should do something like that thinking it will impress colleges unless they want to impress the colleges that are seeking more people who can pay full freight. The top elite colleges, however, are seeking more qualified low income students. They have plenty of applicants who are qualified high income students.</p>

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<p>As I said, there are better ways to impress adcoms than foreign travel. But why does summer have to be about impressing adcoms? Yes, the top colleges have plenty of qualified high income students. So what?
If traveling abroad is what kids want to do in the summer, why not? Why does everything have to come back to impressing college adcoms? And why travel cheap if you have the money? Are we into the cult of poverty now?</p>

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<p>I just spoke to a friend who is sending his daugther on a European bike tour this summer. I didn’t ask the cost. We went to a meeting a few years ago that was marketing these summer bike tours for teens and I wanted to sign myself up!! (my kids weren’t interested).</p>

<p>Another neighbor sends a daughter to an Ivy league summer program. Very expensive, but the girl loves it, and they probably think it will help her admissions chances next year, although I am skeptical. If you got the cash, spend it as you see fit. </p>

<p>My boys landed what I consider to be the ideal (for THEM) summer job last year, and they are doing the same thing this summer. Counselors at local daycamps. Keeps them busy, active and outdoors, it is a true leadership activity, and they get a paycheck.</p>

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<p>NJres,
You are right in that going to an expensive summer program sponsored by an Ivy League college won’t help with admissions there. Getting into very competitive, free programs like Cornell’s nanotechnology program or MIT’s RSI program probably do help with admissions at those and many other colleges.</p>

<p>Agree, too, that if people have the bucks, they are free to spend however they like, but it’s sad to see people putting money into pricey programs with the assumption that these will open doors to elite admissions when that’s not the case at all.</p>

<p>If you like to biking, you probably could find a way to do that in Europe yourself for far less cost than your friend paid for his kid to go on a biking tour.</p>

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<p>Ha, how timely…a neighbor boy (rising senior) just left today on a People to People tour to Ireland. His mother thinks it will look really great on his college apps. They have also been hosting a high sch. foreign exchange student this whole school year because this too is supposed to look good on his app. These are not rich people but Mom is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure S. gets in his first choice school. Unfortunately the S andthe exchange student never bonded and it has been a very long year for all concerned.</p>

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<p>Packmom,
I guess the kids’ parents also don’t realize that hosting an exchange student reflects very nicely on their own characters, but doesn’t say anything about their kid’s. Oh well, maybe the parents can qualify for some volunteer award.</p>

<p>Now if their kid were abroad on a Rotary program (which is hard to get chosen for), that would reflect on him.</p>

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<p>This thread initially caught my eye as one of my teenagers has been on such tours. </p>

<p>Both my daughters, who are now in college, never chose summer activities for the resume. That concept was not one that ever entered into their thinking. They chose summer activities based on what they really wanted to do at the time, and for no other reason. Further, I don’t understand the talk of whether an activity “impresses” the adcoms or not. Surely, my kids could care less if their activities impressed the adcoms. They wanted to do those summer activities for themselves. I doubt the activities impressed the adcoms. By the same token, I wouldn’t want it taken against them that they did summer activities that cost money. I agree with Marite that it should not be frowned upon if someone opts to attend as summer program of some sort that is costly. Please do not assume that everyone who opts to go to such programs does so with college admissions in mind. I never thought of my kids’ summer experiences as helping them with admissions. They did spend their summers doing fruitful experiences that they were very interested in. In that respect, I think it was more beneficial that just hanging out all summer. But college admissions was not on their minds when picking summer plans. I surely would not stop them from going on a teen tour because “it would not impress adcoms”. We didn’t care if it did or did not. It was not the reason for opting to attend the activity.</p>

<p>Here is what D1 (who just finished soph year at Brown) did in her summers:
Four summers at a six week performing arts camp where she focused on her interests: musical theater, dance, tennis and waterskiing. As much as she loved this camp, she had a “master plan” of what she wanted to do with her remaining high school summers and that included travel through the US and Europe (she does love travel). So, summer prior to 11th grade, she went on a six week teen tour of the Western US, Western Canada and Hawaii and got back in time for soccer preseason for HS. The summer prior to 12th grade, she went on a specialized tour of Europe that was a competitive tennis tour to five countries. She chose this because it combined her love of travel to other cultures with competitive tennis (was a varsity tennis player) and it would allow her to improve her sport while seeing other countries. This was for a month. When she returned she did an internship at a local architect’s office because she was contemplating going into architecture and wanted to explore this field further as she was looking into colleges and majors and this would help her with her direction. She got that by writing letters to architects in our town. She did end up going into architecture. The summer after HS graduation, we expected our children to work as we could no longer fund summer programs and also wanted them home since they’d be leaving home pretty much for good. They had never spent a summer at home since they were very young. This D worked two jobs…one as a wait person in a restaurant and one teaching in a summer program for children at a local tennis resort. She earned money to take to college and to fund any future summer things she may want to do. Subsequently these job experiences have helped her in securing future jobs. Summer after freshman year in college, she attended a six week architecture intensive at Harvard Graduate School of Design at her own expense which helped her with her decision to pursue this field and will eventually go to grad school for it. She also gained much experience. She then came home for one month and worked again teaching in the summer program at the tennis resort. This summer, she first is at a ten day intensive ski training camp at Mt. Hood, Oregon that she is funding herself (though several of her teammates are at the camp with her) as she wanted intensive training to help her as she is on the varsity ski team at her college. As soon as she returns, she is spending her summer working in France. She loves France and French (speaks fluently) and wanted to live there so found a job to make that a reality. She had experience as a waitress and a camp counselor and teacher and applied for jobs in those fields. She was offered a job at a chateau that she had originally planned to take but due to some timing with a visa application for next semester abroad in Italy, she had to decline the job and is instead taking another job in a summer program for French children who will be immersed in learning English as they engage in the activities at the program (in southwest France) and then she will travel on her own in France when the job ends. This daughter tends to create “long term plans” and maps out her summers for a few years at a time. She has some goals of what she wants to do and plugs them into the summers she has available during her educational years. She talks of next summer either doing an internship with an architectural firm some place and/or building houses in Costa Rica…both to gain more experience in her field. </p>

<p>Second daughter…spent 8 summers going six weeks to a theater camp out of state. Theater is her passion. The camp was the love of her life and she lived for it all year. The camp had a signficant impact on her life. She has ultimately chosen to pursue musical theater as a college major (BFA program) and career. She has just finished freshman year at NYU/Tisch in musical theater and so no longer is going back to camp for the first time. Last summer, upon graduating HS, she did return to camp for three weeks (she was an early graduate so was just 16 and wanted one more stint there) and then came home for the rest of summer and created/directed a musical theater camp for youth in our community for two weeks and earned a lot of money doing that (more than many kids her age earn in 10 weeks of a summer job) so that she had that money to take to college with her. She also was in a professional local theater’s production and was paid for that. This summer, she just began a summer job at a professional theater out of state that goes all the way up to her first day of college in the fall. I believe she will be striving to do professional summer theater in her remaining college summers. This D would have loved the travel teen tours that my other D chose to do but opted to not do them as she would never have given up a summer at theater camp to do them. She went on one school trip to Italy/Greece but never a long term trip overseas. </p>

<p>As I said, each child chose to do what interested her and nothing more or less. I recall when my older D was inquiring about the tennis tour to Europe, that the owner/director made a comment that it would look good on her college applications and we found that funny because that never entered our minds but given where the company was based, I can see that being the mentality or rationale of their typical clientele. She just wanted to go to foreign countries and also improve her competitive tennis skills. She didn’t write any essays on “my summer in Europe”!</p>

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<p>My son went to the Olomouc Summer Institute for Young Leaders between his junior and senior years in high school. He was one of six Americans participating. It cost about a $1,000 less than the figure cited in the second website below. At that time it was subsidized by the George Soros Foundation.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.osi-ols.org/[/url]”>http://www.osi-ols.org/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“Web Page Under Construction”>Web Page Under Construction;

<p>Most of the students were from the Czech Republic with the rest of the non-Americans from other former communist dominated countires in eastern or central Europe. Soros was interested in helping the children in these countries get a grasp on democratic institutions in part by interacting with young Americans.</p>

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<p>This past year there was a question on Princeton’s application (Princeton’s own application, not the common app) that asked how you spent the past two summers. This was the only application I filled out that specifically asked for this information. I was shaking in my shoes over this one. I’ve never been to an academic, arts, or sports program. I’ve never had an interesting internship or undertaken meaningful community service work. So I wrote what I had done the past two summers and what I am doing this summer as well – working at my family’s farm stand selling produce, baked goods, flowers and herbs. I was afraid of what I was up against – RSI, Interlochen, internships at NIH, etc – all of the wonderful programs that I read about here on cc. Well I’ll be at Princeton next year so I tortured myself with worry for nothing. I would love to have the opportunity to travel and take part in some of the amazing programs that exist and I am sure that I would benefit from these experiences, but while I think that they can be important as far as your own personal education goes, I don’t think they are the end all for college admissions.</p>

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<p>Note to everyone, according to another thread, Coldcomfort, who just posted that their college essays were like this “So I wrote what I had done the past two summers and what I am doing this summer as well – working at my family’s farm stand selling produce, baked goods, flowers and herbs,” according to another thread, says they got admitted to: " Colgate, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Hamilton, Harvard, and Princeton and I have decided to attend Princeton, with an incredibly generous aid offer."</p>

<p>This is a perfect example of the kind of ECs and activities that impress colleges. Clearly, Coldcomfort wasn’t pursuing activities to polish a resume or application, but Coldcomfort was pursuing things out of their own family’s economic need or out of their own interest.</p>

<p>I’m sure that Coldcomfort’s essay stood out in a sea of application essays that described packaged experiences that students did in efforts to impress colleges. Coldcomfort probably learned a heckuva lot more on about character, responsibility, creativity and hard work on the family farm than students do when they are shipped off on expensive packaged tours that the students didn’t have to do anything to get and that may be more reflective of their parents’ interests and aspirations than the students’.</p>

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<p>We know another kid going on a “leadership” program to Australia. I can only imagine the cost of that. Sadly, her parents think this was some terribly special offer, that their daughter was handpicked out of millions of other deserving students, but special kid that she is…was one of the twenty <em>most</em> special and deserving! :)</p>

<p>I didn’t have the heart to tell the woman how many of those glossy brochures and invitations DS has gotten (we loved the one signed by President Bush, inviting him to the “Young Leaders in Washington”!) and pitched. It’s like the invitation to “Who’s Who Among American High School students”. Sounds like some kind of honor, but really, it is a marketing tool for the plaque and other costly paraphanalia.</p>

<p>But even the leadership experiences, ill-marketed as they are, are more palatable to me than a $7000 “Teen Tour”. I didn’t even know it was possible to expend that much money on a single child in a month, and I simply cannot imagine that there is real value, at least not more than any camp experience where a kid might make some nice friends.</p>

<p>I like what Northstarmom said about Coldcomfort. It certainly resonates with me that a “real” experience, as opposed to something prepacked, is more reflective of who a person is.</p>

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<p>well my daughter is going to get to go to Australia anyway- I hope :wink:
Her biology teacher promised that if she and a friend help him ( or rather he will help them) plan it- they will go next summer ( winter?)
They at least will be going to the Great Barrier Reef- so I expect they will also have to set up some diving classes before hand-
Sounds like a lot of work to plan it- but that can be half the fun!</p>

19

<p>Northstarmom, what you wrote is so nice, but I am unworthy of what you have written. I really don’t like working the farm stand and if it weren’t that it is an important part of my family’s income, I would be doing something, anything, else. I am not sure what it really teaches me. It is mainly sitting around waiting for people to drive by. The only benefit is that I do get to read a ton during the summer and I have a pretty awesome tan! I actually love days like today when we have thunderstorms and I get to be home and watch tv, use the computer, etc.</p>

<p>It’s funny what you say about my application essay, because although I did, naturally, talk about my life, I was actually hesitant to put too much emphasis on my rural background because I was afraid that elite universities might not want to offer a spot to a “hick” who wouldn’t be sophisticated enough for their school!</p>

20

<p>I’m with Marite that these social summer European tours sound like kids on family vacation without the family.</p>

<p>As for the immigrant children doing community service in their country of origin – as described by Northstarmom, this sounds to me like an extremely valuable experience. The kids have a chance to integrate their original family culture with the experience of being an American.</p>

<p>I would only perhaps fault the kids for trying to “spin” the experience as community service, and it’s too bad these students feel they have to describe their summers in a way that will fit predefined EC boxes.</p>

<p>Apparently, work experience trumps all (especially at minimum wage), so now Ivy league hopefuls can add that to their To Do list.</p>

<p>My older daughter spends a good chunk of her summer at a ballet program. These are generally pricey. However, she does work very hard and it gives her a chance to pursue her interests at a time of year where she does not have the added pressure of schoolwork. She does have to audition for these programs and they are selective, so it is not the case that anyone can attend who has parents willing to write the check.</p>

<p>My younger daughter will try a filmmaking program as well as a trip program with camping, mountain biking and the like. I see these programs as an opportunity to explore some interests as well as a time to learn to live independently. It is a challenge to be thrown in with a bunch of strangers and make your own way.</p>