<p>Columbia offers some great classes, but here’s the price:
Tuition $3175
Activity Fee $60
Health Service Fee $69
Online Application Fee $75 (The paper application fee would be $150)
Housing $2050
Meal Plan $400 (Note: Meals are not served on the weekends)
Lab Fee $125
Minimum recommendation for Spending Money $700</p>
<p>By my calculation, total is $6654. </p>
<p>This is 14 days of instruction at $475/day (if instruction starts on day 1 and there is instruction on the last day), or if you count weekends, 18 days at Columbia in NYC at $370/day.</p>
<p>And you need to pay for transportation to NYC.</p>
<p>Is this the most expensive summer program in the U.S., or can you beat this? (Brown isnt this expensive, is it?) </p>
<p>I think the expense of the Columbia program is even more impressive given that it doesnt lead to college credit, so if you find a program with a similar price that does lead to college credit, this one wins. (-:</p>
<p>University of Pennsylvania Summer Programs for HS Students–Check their webpage. The cost for some of their offerings is right up there with Columbia and may even be a little more!</p>
<p>Residential student taking a 8 credits (the minimum required for residential students) – total cost = $10,547</p>
<p>Tuition and Fee Summary</p>
<p>8 units tuition (see tuition by units table) 6,476
Room 1,422
Meal Plan-19 meals per week 1,283
Health Insurance 684
Document Fee 80
Program Fee 250
Books and Supplies 300
Telecom Fee 52
TOTAL $ 10,547 </p>
<p>What I find particulary amusing is that they do offer “partial scholarships” to those that demonstrate extreme need. What I was told twice (two years in a row) over the phone is that the scholarship is for 50% of the cost at best and in order to qualify for that high of an award, the AGI would have to be under $30,000. Ridiculous – how could a family with an AGI of $30,000 pay half the cost of more than $5000 plus travel and spending money. The FA is a joke!!!</p>
<p>As far as most expensive – how about we figure it out per day, but leave off “spending money”</p>
<p>Columbia = $330/day
Stanford = $209/day</p>
<p>so for the per day cost – Stanford is a bargain;)</p>
<p>In my search for a summer camp in the arts for my D, I made a spreadsheet. The prices across dozens were $150-200/day (inclusive) regardless of where or what.</p>
<p>That Columbia program with 12 to 14 days of instruction leading to no college credit? I think some people just have so much money that the cost of the program isn’t even a consideration, and their children just pick the programs that sound the most interesting to them. The Columbia classes do sound great. Maybe they offer good financial aid.</p>
<p>Stanford is a little less expensive and I like it better because you leave with 8 college credits. That’s nice.</p>
<p>My understanding is that the Columbia program offers no FA whatsoever – which makes it even worse.</p>
<p>On the otherhand, both Brown and Harvard offer excellent summer programs with excellent FA to those showing need. Not all of Brown’s programs offer credit, though – some are very short term.</p>
<p>DD did <a href=“mailto:summer@Brown”>summer@Brown</a>. We did get FA. She chose shorter (3 week) program for no credit. But she studied Classics, a sort of Core bedrock she has referred to over and over again in college. Instructor wrote her a rocking recommendation. (Note FA for those who complain only wealthy get these leg ups. I think it was almost full tuition.) </p>
<p>Caveat: Only for a very mature teenager. No supervision. Her boyfriend visited and stayed with her; no peep from RA. They really could do what they wanted in Providence and beyond. This was okay with me; DD did this right after junior year. I wouldn’t have been happy if she’d been a sophomore.</p>
<p>On the opposite end, not considering free camps, New York State Summer Music Festival is a real bargain and offered a wonderful program and DS walked about with a CD of some of the faculty at Curtis playing a string quartet he’d written. Also useful in college admissions.</p>
<p>Note: Although both these programs yielded application materials, both kids did them out of true interest and thoroughly enjoyed their experiences.</p>
<p>yes – summer at brown has very good FA, both for the truly poor and those with lower level middle class income.</p>
<p>mythmom’s warning about the lack of supervision at Brown matches what I have heard – and it is true about multiple programs. Many of these programs have set rules, but unless the incident is very public (involving some public incident or the police are involved) most infractions are overlooked. Drugs tend to get the kids kicked out and in big trouble – but sleeping around, breaking curfew and drinking don’t seem to be such a big deal. My son was very mature and it wasn’t an issue – but that might not be the case for other students.</p>
<p>I did a columbia program over the past summer and it was the best time of my life, however if you go there for education its trash, you have a lot of fun but you don’t learn anything well at least not in their intro to business finance and econ.</p>
<p>my friend went to stanford the 10K one and he said the same thing</p>
<p>went to Umiami’s program, 3 week (around $5000) VERY intensive college-credit program, but there was 8 hours of classroom PER DAY 5 days a week, 4 snorkeling trips included with no extra cost, fishing trips, and many activities… I got 5 college credits, and most of the other programs had around 6 credits…Best time of my life-learned a lot, met friends I’m still in contact with, and would recommend it to everyone. </p>
<p>another thing to consider is that the cost of a summer program is nothing compared to a semester spent in college or being in the wrong college. For example, I thought marine biology was what I wanted to do with my life, and UM’s program means you have to go through organic chemistry, etc, all pre-med courses before you even GET to marine biology. Since I don’t want to be either, it could have been two years ($80,000) without even knowing that I hated marine biology…in the fact, the same thing happened with my brother who decided he didn’t want to be an engineer. That’s priceless-finding out what is most interesting to you</p>