<p>My 8th-grade son has applied for his second summer at CTY. His choices are Number Theory, Fast-Paced HS Physics, Mathematical Logic, and Fundamentals of Computer Science, all second session at Lancaster.</p>
<p>Anyone else?</p>
<p>EPGY Online High School summer session for us, for sure. Maybe a math summer program, and maybe a specialized debate program, too, but that's not for sure.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, my son aged out of "regular" CTY last year. :( He's hoping to get into the Princeton CTY for older kids, and if so, will be taking a philosophy course there. But, to be honest, he's still mourning the loss of regular CTY, and probably will be forever. It truly was a life-changing experience for him, and not just intellectually.</p>
<p>My daughter could still go this year, but chose not to go back; she had a great summer last year with two sessions and really didn't think she wanted to go back. I think she'd rather have a perfect memory than try to top it this year. She's been nominated for Governor's school so hopefully that will work out. If not, we live in a university town so perhaps some coursework there. Carolyn, I understand completely how your son feels about CTY; I feel sad when others refer to it as a "money making venture" or "marketing" for JHU. I don't think they realize what a positive impact it can have on these students. Still, my wallet is thanking her!</p>
<p>This is the first year we signed up -- for my daughter, who's currently in 9th grade. She signed up for Chemistry, second session and we're keeping our fingers crossed since I hear a lot of classes fill up.</p>
<p>My S had a ball in Fast-Paced High School Chemistry several years ago. He went to the second session at Saratoga.
The teacher taught AP-Chemistry during regular school-year. My S was extremely well prepared for AP-Chem after that class. The class did a number of fun experiments. S'd also enjoyed Fast-Paced High School Physics the previous year but found himself among older students. The chemistry class was more nearly his own age group.</p>
<p>Hi, Carolyn,</p>
<p>I thought of your son when I started the thread, and wondered how he was doing. </p>
<p>sabaray, I, too, am offended when others refer to CTY in a cynical way. My son had a wonderful experience last year, and I don't know where else he could have had it. The program is incredibly well-run. I had some experience with the medical team because my son has food allergies. Besides his Epi-pen, I had brought vitamins and generic Allegra because the pollen had been bothering him during the spring and early summer. They have two ways of treating medication, and the parent is able to choose. The first mode is to make very sure that the child takes it, including pulling him out of class. The second mode, which I chose, is to treat it as optional. The child is given the medication if he shows up but no effort is made to track him down if he doesn't. I was also impressed that when my son was sick and vomited in class the first day, they had another student walk with him to the medical office, to make sure that he didn't pass out on the way.</p>
<p>My daughter did Advanced Topics in Chemistry last summer- very good preparation for AP Chem. It really helped having a bit of a leg up on the subject this year. She did the Fast Paced Bio after 7th grade so she could take the Genetics/Genomics sequence. The Genomics class was fantastic. Burn This, most of the classes which fill first are things like Number Theory, History of Disease, etc. (at least in my experience). I hope your daughter will enjoy it.</p>
<p>BurnThis, Some of the courses have two (or more) sections (in the same session) with about 15 kids/section. My son got his first choice course and campus last year as a first-time CTYer. </p>
<p>This year they are letting us know within a week, unlike last year.</p>
<p>
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My S had a ball in Fast-Paced High School Chemistry several years ago. He went to the second session at Saratoga.
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</p>
<p>Our sons might have overlapped, my oldest did fast paced high school chem at Loudenville three years ago. Saratoga was our first choice as my best friend from high school lives there.</p>
<p>My son will be at Duke TIP, hopefully taking the cryptology course. His final year!</p>
<p>I took Fast-Paced High School Chemistry second session at Siena the summer after eighth grade. Before that, I had no clue what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Taking that course provided me with great direction and inspiration, and it prepared me exceptionally well for AP Chemistry. Sure enough, I'm now going to major in chemistry at Harvard.</p>
<p>DD aged out last year--she will JUST have turned 17 this summer. She's not interested in the programs they have for older kids. I wish they had science, math, or computer courses for the oldsters. She loved CTY (two years) and would love to go back.</p>
<p>My son was placed in Fast-paced HS Physics - he'll be thrilled.<br>
Lancaster, Session 2.</p>
<p>My daughter took Crafting the Essay at Carlisle last year and is hoping to take "Critical Essay: Literature and the Arts" this coming summer. Last summer was her first CTY program and she had an incredible time, although she did think it was overly supervised. She's looking forward to this summer.</p>
<p>Carlisle is less supervised than the Johns Hopkins campus, so she should be happy she wasn't in Baltimore! My D did CTY for four summers, the first at JHU, the second at Lancaster, and the last two at Carlisle. She loved all of them, but Carlisle was definitely her favorite. It was a life-altering experience for her, more for social reasons than academic ones. She still has get-togethers with her CTY friends when they're on break from their various colleges.</p>
<p>Well they do make it very clear in their literature how supervised it's going to be. It's aimed at the level of supervision most parents want for their middle school students. My son loved it, but he was ready to do something else after ninth grade.</p>
<p>I do understand the need for strict supervision, particularly for the younger students. However, my daughter and the kids that she was with (ninth & tenth graders)apparently found the rules and supervision a bit heavyhanded. (Apparently the "veteran" Carlisle kids were claiming that it hadn't been quite so strict at that site in previous summers.) That having been said, she really did love it: She made a number of new friends and mentioned to me several times that the CTY essay class that she took really helped prepare for her advanced level English class this year. This summer, though, she'll be at a Saratoga Springs, as many of her Carlisle friends are either aging out or going to different CTY sites. I think that it will be a good opportunity for her to check out Skidmore for a possible future college choice.</p>
<p>I have two daughters planning to attend this summer. Did any of you get caught in their email glitch yesterday? Apparently 11,000 emails were accidentally sent out. I called them because they had one of my daughters requesting courses she didn't request, including a course she's already taken. It took forever to get through on the phone and I was told my daughter had been given her first choice, but they could only tell me a code for the course. I'm hoping this was based on the 2007 application and not something previous. I received another email saying all course notifications would be sent out my postal mail because of all the confusion, so it's wait and see at this point for us. She's hoping to get into Number Theory.</p>
<p>^^
Yes, I opened my inbox to find it glutted with confirmations of every course choice that she listed for this year and last year! It's a good thing that I happened to phone CTY yesterday morning, before this email onslaught, to confirm that she was assigned to the class that she wanted. Actually they did give me the name of the class and the location, I don't know why they couldn't give you more info. FWIW, one of those bogus emails included the course that she actually took last year, but she was assigned to her 2007 first choice, so hopefully, it should work out for your girls, as well.</p>