<p>Last year I pretty much stumbled over (ok, was "encouraged" to apply to by my parents) an amazing 4-week summer program in DC focused on government, politics, public policy, and public service, called the St. Albans School of Public Service. It is pretty small -- only 40 students total -- so there is not a lot of information out there about it, I think. I heard about by word of mouth from friends of my parents. It was unbelievable -- St. Albans is a pretty connected school for DC so we had access to some amazing stuff, from talking to a current Supreme Court Justice and U.S. Senator to a speech writer for VP Joe Biden. It was a great group of kids from around the U.S. and abroad and because it was four weeks it felt like I really got into things in depth (but also had so much fun). I ended up writing some of my college essays about speakers/experiences I had at St. Albans. (My parents did a lot of "I told you so-ing" to me.)</p>
<p>They had rolling admission (I applied in late February) and seemed to have a decent financial aid program too.</p>
<p>I'm sort of a debate, Model UN, Model Congress type and I've gotten a lot of questions about it from kids at my school/in my area so I thought I'd also start a thread and answer any questions people might have.</p>
<p>Great to hear that you liked this program so much. Do you think it is “prestigious” (hate that word) or is it just looked at as one more $$$ program that rich kids do to pad their resumes?</p>
<p>Hey flora, I think that’s a legit question. I probably wouldn’t try to label it as ‘prestigious’ in the sense of really famous – it was kind of a well-kept secret in some ways – but I got a good response when I talked about it in my college essays/interviews because I was pretty passionate about some of the substantive stuff we did. For example, in the classroom we used the case study method, which is what they use in law school and business school I guess, and my interviewers thought that was interesting and wanted to know what that was like in a high school setting. A number of them had also heard of St. Albans as a school, which I think maybe gave the program more credibility than a commercial program or the type of program where the “application” boils down to “parents’ signatures on the big fat check.” </p>
<p>It was fairly competitive to get into – and my St. Albans School of Public Service “classmates” were really smart (I definitely felt pushed but in a good way, plus no tests haha) but there was a good mix of people and a lot of kids were not your typical rich kids but had gotten scholarships, etc. </p>
<p>Lastly, a few of my classmates have gotten the program director to write them supplemental college recommendations – one of my friends did this, he goes to what I think is a pretty top private school, and he said that his college counselor suggested that he get the rec letter & said that the School of Public Service was a strong enough program that it was worth getting a supplemental rec to highlight his interest in public service etc.</p>
<p>The last thing is that the people we met with in DC thought this was a really great program and talked it up a lot, so I suppose when a Senator or Supreme Court Justice says you made a great choice it makes you feel pretty good about it!</p>
<p>Prob should have posted the website before. CHeck out the blog (there’s a link to it on the main program page), it’s got a lot of photos and basically you see what we did everyday and if you’d like or dislike it (it helped me in making my decision last year).</p>
<p>I’ve been looking into this program some, but I live right outside of DC. Do you think it would still be worth it for someone who has been to DC many times before, and lives 10 minutes away?</p>
<p>Hey yhbultimate11, I’m not a DC local but at least 6-7 out of my SPS classmates were local kids from DC or close in Maryland/Virginia. One guy lived in the dorm as a residential student and I think the rest of them did the program as day students. From conversations with them they felt like it was really worth it and they were doing stuff that they either didn’t have time for during the year or they just wouldn’t have access to (we had one speaker from the CIA who was amazing, for instance, and we went to watch Meet the Press in person and talked to the host, etc etc I forget it all I should re-read the blog if I’m going to play the expert!). They also hung out with us on the fun weekend stuff – the day students could pick and choose what they did so if they didn’t want to do something like go to a baseball game they just would join us later or in free time. </p>
<p>I know a couple of my classmates from this past summer asked the program if they could talk to former students and said it helped in their decision making so I bet you could ask for contact info of a local DC student and they’d connect you.</p>
<p>I did this program a couple of years ago – it was outstanding. I had done JSA in the past and this was far better: more interesting, better speakers, more fun, better teaching and a stronger group of students. I think from my class at the St. Albans School of Public Service, 6 (out of less than 40) are at Harvard alone. Part of that is because a lot of SPSers come from Boston but it also shows that it was a pretty elite group.</p>
<p>Hey for current juniors who are still looking for a summer program option (this one is DC-based government, politics, public policy, leadership etc) a girl from my school checked and the School of Public Service (SPS) is still accepting applications (they have a rolling deadline). Good luck all!</p>