<p>To give some hope, I got my first choice class all four years. It helps to get your paperwork in asap.</p>
<p>About going with a friend--I can't say I reccomend it. My second year at Ireland, I pre-arranged to be in the same class/hall with two other friends from the previous session, and yes I had fun, but I wasn't as social as I was the other three years, because I could just cling to my already formed friends. So it might be okay to do the same session but I would highly reccomend against the same class.</p>
<p>Is CYT FUN or is just like more school? Is there a lot of socializing and sports? My son qualifies but he isn't sure that he wants to just do "more school" in the summer.</p>
<p>My son did not have air-conditioning when he was at Lancaster in 2004. Worse, they were renovating the kitchens and the dining hall, so their meal arrangements were rather inconvenient (which shouldn't be a problem this year, but is something about which CTY gave NO notice whatever in registration materials, even though that renovation must have been planned well in advance). My son used his fan to keep cool at Lancaster, barely. </p>
<p>Lancaster seemed especially hot to my son because he had just been in Dublin at CTYI during the immediately preceding session. He also thinks CTYI is a good experience for an American student. </p>
<p>To my son's taste, specialty programs (e.g., MathPath) are even cooler than CTY, but they have a different admission process. He did like CTY, found it fairly academically intense, and thought it was well managed. CTY is not "just fun"--it is for kids who think that intense academics is fun. The term "mandatory fun" for the organized out-of-class activities reflects the CTYer's view that class IS fun. </p>
<p>I let my son choose the courses he wanted to take (he got his second choice as a first-time applicant), and suggested Lancaster campus mostly because it is the largest CTY campus and the one most steeped in CTY tradition.</p>
<p>it is deffinetly FUN</p>