<p>Apologies if this is old news, but the NYT has a long article about this rent-an-award organization, which is a frequent topic on this forum. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/education/edlife/leadership-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=education%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/education/edlife/leadership-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=education</a> </p>
<p>It mentions CC, by the way:</p>
<p>
[quote]
These ticker-tape parades in an envelope the Congressional Youth Leadership Council tells potential participants they are the nations most highly acclaimed students and most promising young leaders of tomorrow bewilder many parents and students. On the chat forum College Confidential, the thread begins in 2007: I got this thing in the mail which I am not sure about. . . . Is it worth it? How does it look for college? Others wonder: Is it overpriced? Is it legit? The thread continues into 2009.
[/quote]
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<p>We received one of those letters too. I know that anything you have to pay for is not an honor or award, and I am sure the college admissions people know that too. We sent our daughter last year anyway, just for the experience of going to DC and meeting other people. It was a good experience for her, if not a pricey one for us. For this year’s break, we sent her to Spain for a 10-day class trip, and the price was about the same.</p>
<p>If anything, a student’s attendance at this program points out to prospective colleges that the parents have money and are prepared to spend it on their kids… Indicates that this might be a family prepared to pay full freight…Not a bad thing in this economy.</p>
<p>My son is a visual arts student but loves politics. I was surprised to receive this offer. He was thrilled and said he’d like to go to Washington and participate. Now I’m not so sure after reading these posts. It still sounds like a great experience that you could not have just going to DC on your own. Thoughts?</p>
<p>There are old threads on this same subject - our son went to the Leadership Tech Forum in San Jose (they only held it for a couple of years, I think). He really appreciated it and learned a lot about opportunities in the field he was considering studying. He also got to meet a whole new level of students - they were very intensive techies. And we got to take a really nice California vacation while he was at the forum!</p>
<p>IMO, it depends what a kid is using one of these forums for. Are they using it to just look good on the application, are they using it as a summer camp or are they actually trying to find out information in a concentrated forum?? In D’s case, she went to the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine (10 days) and found it extremely helpful. She was considering medicine but wanted to find out more information about med school, etc. She found out tons and will use the manual she received along with the information to guide her through undergrad and beyond. She also found out about the competetiveness of undergrad and med schools and that only 2-4% of the students who start out at pre-med end up being doctors. She is fully aware now of what she is up against and what she needs to do to succeed. It doesn’t matter to us whether she is a Dr. or science teacher but at least she is going in with her eyes open. She understands what she needs to do. It has been our experience that kids like to say they are pre-med but most don’t have a clue of what they are up against. My D also used the experience and info she got for her year long senior project at HS. The panel (teachers, parents and community members) was very impressed and told her that they had learned alot. So for D, it was worth every penny and we are not rich. By the way, D met many kids who were there on scholarship from NYLF.</p>