<p>Most of the kids are going into 8th or 9th grade. After that, you just realize how old you're getting.</p>
<p>That said, Lancaster was still the best. =)</p>
<p>well, i don't know if that's true
i kept going until the year before 11th grade, and i never felt old
i think it just depends on what class you take
a lot of classes are mostly younger kids, and if an older student takes one of those they might feel out of place</p>
<p>Thanks, all. This has been very helpful.</p>
<p>We've sent our two kids to the CTY camps for the past two summers, and have just applied again for summer 2008. We homeschool our kids, and the summer camps have been very positive-- new challenges in living away from home for three weeks (my son did the Intro Biomedical Science one at JHU), and adjusting to the 7 hour class/lab per day, but he loved it! Learned a lot and really grew up quite a bit. </p>
<p>We're looking at the Fast Paced Biology one for him for next summer, because the lab experience will be very nice to have, and it sets him to take a college Bio course the following year (similar to an AP course) at a local university near us.</p>
<p>Ask any specific questions you have-- I remember he said the food was terrible, the required dances silly (but I think he enjoyed them after all, group dances to the song, American Pie), and all in all, good kids. Overall, a fun experience!</p>
<p>Your son is 11? It sounds like you are looking at the younger students program (Baby CTY to CTYers) as opposed to normal CTY (exiting grades 7+). He should sign up by age rather than "grade level" - there are many exceptional students at CTY and social life is very different there than at a normal program - people will understand him.
I did Baby CTY at Mt. Holyoke the summer after 6th grade (age 12, turned 13 in October of 7th grade). The residential programs for younger kids are only exiting grades 5 and 6, so he wouldn't be in classes with third graders. I took Examining the Evidence, a forensic science course, and I loved it. I agree with the other posters who do not recommend the individually paced math. Take something interesting that fosters discussion and interaction. He is homeschooled and reads math books during the year - but can he take an interactive intensive forensic science, etc class at home? Not likely.
The next two years I went to JHU and took humanities classes (both of which were AMAZING). That program, for older students, is what most other posters are reffering to and has big differences. The younger students program is more structured, has less classroom time, and is just generally geared towards younger people. I think your son would be very out of place in the older students version if he was even permitted to attend. This summer and possibly next summer he should be at the grades 5-6 program (Baby CTY).
It is amazing and he should do it is all I can say. Feel free to private message me and SEND HIM TO CTY.</p>
<p>CTY is fabulous, both academically and socially (although some teachers/courses are inevitably better/worse than others). I would highly recommend it for your son. I'm just sad I didn't go when I was younger so that I'd have had more years of it. CTYers are generally very excited about learning (for one activity, my friends and I inscribed a poem in clay in some ancient alphabet from an RA who knew ten dead languages... just to give you an idea). I'm actually not a math/science person but took a great science course last year. Feel free to PM me if you'd like any more information - one of my few complaints about CTY is that their website is rather inadequate at explaining what CTY is like, so I'd be happy to tell you more about it/answer any questions you have.</p>
<p>I love Lancaster. I've heard Saratoga is excellent as well. Sienna's not supposed to be very good.</p>
<p>I don't know how good CTY looks on a transcript, but CTY has given me some great material for college applications, since my experiences there were very important to me. For example, I'm doing an independent study right now that's sort of an extension of one of my CTY classes, and I've been emailing back and forth with my teacher about it. It's definitely an experience that can change your outlook on things, spark new interests, etc.</p>
<p>yeah, cty is SUCH a great experience
i would especially recommend it for someone who's home-schooled
it helped me become the person i am today
it's so great
the environment is so accepting, almost everyone is nice
cty taught me that i'm an amazing person</p>
<p>I strongly recommend it. I've gone for 2 years (this summer will be my last) at Saratoga and it's been 6 of the best weeks of my life. Everyone is there because they WANT to be there, and you can always find people who will agree with you politically, religiously, whatever. There's a wonderful mix of people so you can find what you're looking for, but at the same time you feel a connection to everyone simply because you're there.</p>
<p>Thanks again to all who took time to reply. My son only took the SCAT, so will not be eligible for grade 7/8 courses. He'll be with age peers if he attends this summer. I didn't realize there was a distinction between CTY for "babies" and for older kids. Interesting! </p>
<p>I'm actually glad to hear that rules are strictly enforced. That helps me to feel more comfortable with the idea of a long term camp. </p>
<p>take care-</p>
<p>Rellie</p>
<p>Does anyone have experience with the academic quality and what not of the international (particularly game theory in china) cty camps?</p>
<p>Another plug for CTY here...</p>
<p>My son's a fan. Two sessions of baby CTY and four of regular CTY so far, and he's looking forward to going back again this summer. As I put it somewhere else, I'd go into debt to fund his CTY experiences if I have to (and at this rate, the chances are good that I'll have to!), so I'm definitely a fan, too. CTY has been excellent for him in many ways.</p>
<p>One of my greatest regrets is not getting him involved in CTY earlier in his life.</p>
<p>John's Hopkins Center for Talented Youth</p>
<p>you take the SATs in like 7th grade and if you get like over 1000 (two sections) you get to go to this summer program.</p>
<p>i went the summer after 7th and 8th grade.</p>
<p>does anyone know anythign about whether its good to put on your college app...like apparently its a pretty well known program but like i did it in middle school....ya dig?</p>
<p>No, it is not worth it at all to put it on your app. First of all, unless it's a major, major accomplishment that completely complements your high school years( of which, there are VERY FEW things), it's not worth it to put something that trivial on your college apps given that it took place before high school. Many of the kids who apply to those same top tier schools were in the program so your achievement won't be looked favorably but rather, pathetically because college adcoms would be thinking," doesn't he have anything better to put?" I think of it along the same lines as listing a Who's Who award or something of that sort. Sorry!</p>
<p>CTY is a highly prestigious program that is just ******** to flake off like that. I have friends who have attended CTY at JHopkins and literally the entire highschool faculty and staff members respected him and knew of him because he was just so damn smart. He completed Calculus before entering 9th grade. HE was one of those child geniuses. It was amazing.</p>
<p>Adcoms, while they don't care about anything before highschool years, this is definitely one among the many other major accomplishments that you have accumulated over the years that should be included in your college application. Once adcoms know what type of training and ability you have gone through in the past, especially somethign as prestigious and difficult and extremely challenging as CTY, thats definitely worth putting in on a college app that occupies less than 1 sentence on your resume.</p>
<p>To even compare CTY to Who's Who award is just blatantly stupid. You should just shuttup because you have absoltuely no idea what your talking about.</p>
<p>Um.
As someone who attended CTY for 5 years and am in love with the program, I believe that CTY is NOT WORTH IT to put on the application. Sure it is a selective program, but it's not to hard to get into and many many of the applicants will have attended in the past. I'm a SET member and 5 year CTY-er, and I'm not going to mention anything except the course I took between freshman and sophomore year, because it was what inspired me to start seriously writing. While there are many "geniuses" at CTY, most of the students are above-average people who have the money to pay for the program. Enjoy it for the experience, and understand that it's not the most amazing thing in the world.</p>
<p>My son is going to a Johns Hopkins Centery for Talented Youth (CTY) summer program for compacted high school chemistry so he can go into AP Chem in his sophomore year. Has anyone gone to a CTY summer program ; is it worth it, in your opinion? Does it look good on the college resume?
Thanks!</p>
<p>It is an AMAZING summer experience. I participated for five summers before moving on with my life ;) It is definately worth it in that the material is definately covered well and the social experience is awesome. Personally, I preferred to take the humanities "electives" that weren't offered at my school through CTY like Ethics and Principles of Reasoning. This particularly was an experience because it improved my critical reading (terse philosophical texts?) and critical thinking (long drawn out arguments). However, any course at CTY is definately rewarding. I would however advise against the math sequence, because the students tend to not colaborate as much in that course and CTY is all about cooperation and collaboration. The best part of CTY isn't neccessarily in the academics, and on the most part isn't. It's all the people your son will meet that are just like him (not everyone, but he's bound to find some).</p>
<p>In terms of college admissions, CTY won't really matter much- first of all, because he's probably still somewhat young to be mentioning a summer on his college application, and because it isn't considered all that prestigious or selective. Anyone with a high enough SAT score (which I guess is an achievement, but there are still many students in this category) and good enough financial standing (their fin aid is very limited) can attend. </p>
<p>I would definately say that the program was worth it though.</p>
<p>hehe it certainly is fun, but in my experience the classes weren't that great...it could just be my session tho=]</p>
<p>CTY was AMAZING. i went there for three summers, but unfortunately i'm a "nevermore" now and i can't go back because i'm too old :(
i learned a lot in all of my classes. students learn the same subject for three weeks, so we get to go in-depth.</p>
<p>Agree with classof09, it's not going to be considered selective or prestigious on college applications, but it is a solid summer activity that many have found worthwhile.</p>