<p>Junior Statesman of America (a.k.a JSA) has a summer school program that features taking AP/College courses at Yale/Princeton/Georgetown/Standford.....I just wanted to find out how helpful it is to your college admissions. Is it also worth the money you pay, the program quality-wise?</p>
<p>My older son went to the Princeton one. Took American Politics/Government. Quality was excellent with good teachers and lively discussions. It was also impeccably organized. Son made many friends he still keeps in touch with four years later. Expensive but worth it.</p>
<p>It does NOT help with admissions as far as I know. There are droves of kids applying to elite schools who have gone to summer prep programs, so it does not help the student stand out which is the essence of succeeding at the admissions game. In fact there is a school of thought that it hurts, since (rightly or wrongly) it marks the kid as being from an affluent family following a traditional route to college, whereas elites now want diversity and interesting backgrounds.</p>
<p>Send the student for the experience if you can afford it, but don't count on it helping the student one bit in getting into his dream school.</p>
<p>I did the one at Stanford, it was SO much fun and I learned SO much. Definitely a must if you're interested in politics.</p>
<p>email me if you have any questions: <a href="mailto:pixiedanzer@yahoo.com">pixiedanzer@yahoo.com</a></p>
<p>thanks pixiedanzerand Roscoe =) anyone else have inputs that would be awesome :)</p>
<p>I hope it doesn't cost too much</p>
<p>I did the Princeton one in 2003.</p>
<p>We did get to visit with an adcom from Princeton, and he specifically said that doing this program at Princeton would not help you get into Princeton anymore than basically having a productive summer. Aka, better than sitting on the couch, but not better than working etc.</p>
<p>The professors at the progam, seemed very good. The schedule is intense. The workload is pretty heavy. I wrote 1 10-12 page paper, and read probably 80+ pages a night, as well as gave ~10 oral presentations over the course of the month. The different host schools have different advanced government related classes (ex: political philosophy, foreign policy, etc). I think it's pretty expensive, but they do have some kind of financial aid program, I believe.</p>
<p>Monday through Saturday, the schedule was basically:</p>
<p>before 8:30 - breakfast
8:30-11:30 - government related class
11:30-1:30 - lunch
1:30-4:30 - speech class
4:30-6:30 - dinner
7:00-9:00 - debates on current events
10:00 - meeting with your RA and group
11:00 - in your room</p>
<p>... one day at the 10pm meeting they said people were falling asleep in class, so they moved our curfew up (no time to shower etc), and a bunch of us stood in the hallway and wouldn't go into our rooms (hey... we're passionate government kids right?), so they decided to call all of our parents (like 30 of us) from like 11 until 2am. Many of the parents yelled at them.</p>
<p>feel free to post any questions about details here, or you can also email me at my name over there (<------) at mac.com.</p>
<p>D did the one of the JSAs, worked hard there, and then came home and took an AP based on what she had learned, with some extra studying, and did very well. So in that sense it could be helpful. </p>
<p>Also she won awards there for speaking and debating, which may or may not be helpful. </p>
<p>However, there are students on these boards who, like my d, found the JSA summer to be an amazing experience, one that helped her learn a lot about herself and about what she would like to study in college and do in the future. </p>
<p>And many students, like my d, come home and get very involved in the JSA organization either in their hs, in their region, or nationally. That can certainly be helpful. That is one of the goals of the JSA summer program. She liked that the debating is about policy issues rather than on trivial topics, as some debating is elsewhere. </p>
<p>But just paying for the course and taking it is not going to be a feather in anyone's cap.</p>
<p>Thousand thank you to every one who replied on this thread :)</p>