<p>My S is a Freshman at a mediocre public high school. He is extremely motivated and appears to be starting off high school on the right foot. I am at the end of the process with my D (she applied ED to Dartmouth a couple of weeks ago) and time will tell,but I do think that a student can do well coming out of our high school. I have seen many go on to do great things! My S is a Math guy- loves it and it comes easily to him. I would like to maximize his opportunities by doing some kind of a Math program this summer. I know he would enjoy it. I really don't know where to begin. We live quite close to a couple of colleges. To those of you who may have been in a similar situation what do you recommend? I don't want an extremely time consuming program. He does like to do a lot of sports etc in the summer. Would he be better off with some kind of math enrichment camp type of program or taking Algebra 2 somewhere to speed up his sequence. That way he could take PreCalc and Physics next year. Am I crazy even thinking this way?</p>
<p>burlmom:</p>
<p>Heading out of the door this minute. Will reply when I get back later today.</p>
<p>Ooh, thank you Marite. You were one I was hoping would respond.</p>
<p>The program at BU is challenging but may be too time consuming. Check it out at:
<a href="http://math.bu.edu/people/promys/%5B/url%5D">http://math.bu.edu/people/promys/</a>
My d. never participated in summer math programs but instead set up a program to teach math in several summer camps for low income kids, gaining experience in making math curiculum fun and relevant to younger kids.</p>
<p>Burlmom, thank you for posting, my girls are interested in this too for summer after next. Our high school has a summer "bridge" program with the local community college to allow the kids to accelerate into a higher lane or to skip a year, and I'm not sure they give credit for any other program. It takes up most of the summer however so the kids have to be really, really motivated.</p>
<p>Sorry if this is off-topic, but Casualresponder, will your daughter do the same thing this summer? My son seems interested and since your daughter and my son go to the same college, I asked him to ask your daughter. I'm pretty sure he hasn't. Also, is this for only Mathematics?</p>
<p>Greetings from another math parent! These are great kids to raise as long as you are as logical as Spock! </p>
<p>The first thing he should do is look into the AMC tests. This is a sequence of tests leading to an international competition of the very best mathematics students. His school should be signed up as of this month; you may have to get involved in raising the school's interest or allowing him to test at another school. <a href="http://www.unl.edu/amc/%5B/url%5D">http://www.unl.edu/amc/</a></p>
<p>Does the school have a math team? Can you get one started? There are also regional teams with open tryouts. See <a href="http://www.arml.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.arml.com/</a></p>
<p>Highly-regarded summer math programs include PROMYS (Boston U), Mathcamp (floats), SUMAC (Stanford), Ross (Ohio State), Hampshire (Amherst). See
<a href="http://www.ams.org/employment/mathcamps.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ams.org/employment/mathcamps.html</a>
although this list is not completely up to date. </p>
<p>My son has gone to two summer math programs. They were invaluable in raising his self-confidence and math abilities. He really enjoyed being around other kids who understood his love of math. </p>
<p>You will probably want to start with something shorter and closer to home, just as you would with any camper. You may also want to look at CTY (Johns Hopkins) and CTD (Northwestern) which have math classes along with a wide variety of options for gifted kids. </p>
<p>In regards to the HS math sequence, you'll have to talk to the department head at school. What do kids who study ahead do during their senior years? Our school offers AP Calc BC and a 5th year, post-calc course, but, because they have few students, they don't allow kids to go off campus for a comparable college class. Check out your options and make a master plan. Taking a year-long class in one summer takes a great deal of dedication, and doesn't tend to fit well with sports programs (some coaches love to monopolize kids' summers), but it can be done. CTY and CTD courses can be taken for credit if the school allows; some of their offbeat courses are good for adding enrichment but not messing with the HS sequence.</p>
<p>I don't know where you live, and what the local colleges offer. S took math/ sci classes at CC. Taking one class left him with plenty of free time. Last summer, he went to a state univ. with 35 other kids; classes alternated with days in physics lab (various choices offered). (best of all, free). I do know that MIT & Caltech have summer programs</p>
<p>Burlmom:
It seems others have posted information I would have posted myself :). A few comments to expand on some of the information.</p>
<p>PROMYS was modelled on the ROSS program and both therefore emphasize number theory. PROMYS was a six-week program, so it did not leave a lot of time for doing other things (such as going on vacation). It was also very intense. My S loved it; someone said that she saw at least 5 people crying when she went to pick up her own child. Mathcamp is a 5 week-program that seems to have more of a balance between math and summer fun, and also offers a wider range of math topics for students to explore. It brings in really distinguished lecturers, too. </p>
<p>CTY has both distance-learning programs (using EPGY in combination with its tutors) and summer math programs. My S did not want to take the Individually Paced Math, which would have meant he would not have as much interaction with age mates as he wanted. CTD has a variety of math programs, some similar to CTY and EPGY, some rather different. I understand that Berkeley also has some math and science programs that are more reasonably priced than any of the above. One good source of information is hoagiesgifted.org.</p>
<p>As someone else also posted, it would be fun for your child to get involved in math clubs and math competitions. My S, who is not competitive by nature, is finding that he rather enjoys it; he has met up with several of his PROMYS friends at some of the competitions, so it's one way of keeping up druing school year. </p>
<p>If your son enjoys math and he finds classes are going slow, he definitely should take Algebra II to speed up. If he can find a local mentor, great. As well, a good online resource is the Math Forum, especially Ask Dr. Math. </p>
<p>Bookworm's suggestion might also work out very well if you live near a CC. But each high school has different policies. Ours is that you have to be in school all day and if you take evening classes in college, you still have to take 7 classes in school. My S ended up taking 9 classes. No freed up time for him! Still, he enjoyed his college classes and would not do it differently. </p>
<p>Good luck to you and your son!</p>