<p>My DD is taking a week long intro to Engineering program at RPI this summer. It was a competitive entry as only 50 slots were available and it is sponsored by RPI Outreach department. DD will be a junior this fall and she has expressed interest in engineering and I want her to get a taste of engineering. I am sure RPI is making money off of this, but I figured this would be worth the investment in helping DD decide on the major, and whether or not a straight tech school would worth her consideration.</p>
<p>S1 qualified for JHU’s summer programs through their talent search, but the cost was roughly equal to a year of his Catholic school tuition, and we only had so much money available. So yes, cost does enter into ti. </p>
<p>I think Hopkins uses CTY as an opportunity to market itself to potential college students, as opposed to giving them an edge.</p>
<p>I think there is a difference between ones that colleges are self-running (eng’g camps, music camps, science camps), and ones that 3rd parties are collecting large amounts that are used to pay for guest speakers and payments to the univs to provide room and board.</p>
<p>I have never heard of any child applying to JHU because of CTY maybe because the kids are so young? I rarely even hear JHU in connection with CTY - maybe 20-30 years ago but not now.</p>
<p>I didn’t think that CTY was the type of program this thread was about.</p>
<p>My D did a couple of these programs, SCAD and Brown. I never thought it was giving her a boost for admissions
just a taste of college life and a chance to spread her wings a bit. I don’t think either one was 3rd party and they were expensive </p>
<p>My son took a class at Columbia one summer as part of their high school program. Most of the teachers teach at Columbia. It was in computer graphics. It was the summer before his sophomore year. He ended up job shadowing the second half of the summer and working the following summer. The main things he learned was that commuting to Columbia from the burbs takes forever and that he didn’t want to pursue computer graphics.</p>
<p>The three programs I know are run by the schools themselves, are selective and rigorous. In two cases, not a real boost. (The 3rd is an arts school and the program hones them.) And they each offer finaid. Overall, yes, they make money for the colleges. And they’re using space and faculty that are available. But so what, if the experience is good? </p>
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<p>It was <a href=“mailto:Summer@Brown”>Summer@Brown</a>. Two years ago she had two profs, one full prof and one grad student. This year it’s the same, one of each, team teaching.</p>
<p>Brown has an excellent need-based scholarship (with merit also considered for the pre-Bacc program) called the Dean’s Scholarship which provides up to 98% of the cost of attendance, including room and board. I do not know how many kids get that full amount, or any amount, but it seems to be quite a few. </p>
<p>I’m a big fan of Cornell’s Summer program – classes taught by full Cornell Profs, with full Cornell transcript. But they make it clear that there is no plus factor in admissions. Yes, it’s a big money maker. Some kids party and screw around – they are high schoolers, after all; others work/study hard for the A.</p>
<p>But, no scam.</p>
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<p>CTY does have a program for older high schoolers now, with some classes building on those that are popular among the younger kids. For instance, D took a course on the history of disease in junior high and then a “Global Issues” class on epidemiology in high school. Her teacher that summer was an Ivy-league professor and a consultant for WHO. He was almost called away early because of an ebola outbreak in Africa. Pretty exciting stuff for a 16-year-old interested in public health or medical science research. </p>
<p>I do think that CTY’s rules and supervision would make the kind of partying mentioned in the original post of this thread very difficult to pull off. </p>
<p>I went to summer@brown last year and it was a pretty good experience. The course I took was difficult since I didn’t really understand the material and I had to do a power point presentation every night to present the next day… a lot of work but an amazing college experience. </p>
<p>My neighbor did a 3 week program at Cornell last summer. His parents definitely thought that it would give him an admissions boost. They told me this directly. He fell in love with the school but wasn’t admitted. Strangely - he did business class that had nothing to do with his intended major. They were advised by a paid college counselor. Weird . . .</p>
<p>I can see the value of using these programs to see if the student likes the college/environment, but are they used for screening at all? I always thought they were only something the college put on and not considered in admission at all.</p>
<p>Not, as much as i can tell, considered in admission except possibly as interest.</p>
<p>Why can’t college experiences start in, well, college? Whatever happened to summer vacation for kids? I do see the value of educational and enriching experiences during this time but I hate to think that this is one more way kids might feel pressured to compete. </p>