For those schools that have summer programs, academic or otherwise, how much like the regular school is it?
DD is an incoming 7th grader and wants to get a taste of boarding and a particular campus or two to better determine if she wants to pursue non-local schools for high school. I see that a couple of campuses rent out their spaces to unaffiliated groups, some don’t use regular faculty for summer and are camp-like, but others are school-run academic intensives (regular and non regular faculty). If DD likes the environment/culture/people, how likely is it that summer would be representative of a long term experience? Does anyone have insights on specific schools? I would think a more academic summer program would be more like year-long school, but DD isn’t too keen on being inside a classroom or having homework for a big chunk of summer. And we don’t think it will affect any potential future admissions chances, nor care that it might.
It will not, at least not directly, so it’s good that this is your take.
More broadly, these are profit-centers for the most part. Which is not to say that they are useless however! Getting to know a physical environment, staying in a dorm, eating in the dining hall, exploring the local town…even if literally none of the students around you or teachers in front of you are or will be at the school full time in the future, there’s value in that experience IMO.
And in turn, if a kid loves the experience, I would say that on balance it then brings the potential for an application essay to be more cogent.
You could also look at CTY. Though held on a variety of college campuses rather than boarding schools, it’s definitely not pay to play, and in fact has multiple levels of selectivity. Our kids loved it…it was the first time/place they found their people, and more or less lead to them attending BS.
Mercersburg offers reasonably priced summer programs to help introduce middle school students to the campus. During that program, the school shows the kids around the campus and explains the programs offered.
My daughter really liked her time at Mercersburg summer camp. She later decided on an all-girls boarding school, but Mercersburg was a strong second for her.
I imagine it depends on the program. Each of my kids did a high school academic summer session at a highly selective boarding school (they went to different ones) for academic enrichment. Each school’s summer session was taught by actual faculty at the school, though there were also visiting faculty teaching summer classes. Currently enrolled students at each school were also in the program but probably did not predominate. There were also summer “returners,” often international students, who had been doing those summer programs for several years already.
I would say that it gave my kids a sense of what a more intense, small classroom academic setting was like. I can’t say that either of them got a really strong sense of that specific school’s culture and community because there were lots of summer-only students. They both said the experience of living in a dorm, attending class in different buildings, managing laundry, meals etc. all helped prepare them for the independence and autonomy of 1st year of college.
FWIW my kids went to Franklin & Marshall, twice, and had an absolute blast. They’d intended to go back again (and again and again) but then covid happened. By the time CTY was back in-person, my kids had moved on. But it definitely holds a special place in their hearts.