To put it simply- I loved MMLA. However, my experience was, um, complex, but most of this had to do with the campus that I chose to attend.
I attended the Chinese camp last year at the Green Mountain College campus (I believe that’s the only campus German is still offered at, too). Here were the pros and cons of the camp and the campus in general:
Pros of the campus?
Honestly, not many. Aside from the large dorm rooms (fairly large, lots of space, though the beds were essentially rubber palettes), there were few things that really wowed me about the location. Part of this was my fault, I guess, because prior to arriving I had never actually googled what GMC looked like. The college itself only has 700 undergrads, and the campus and facilities were no different from that of a public highschool. We didn’t have air conditioning in most buildings, but that’s expected because it was Vermont. I had my classes in the second story of a VERY rickety building, which I’m guessing was some sort of ecology/science facility because there were random fishtanks and odd scientific projects lying around. The library was a 1970’s time capsule. No joke. Save the computer room, the thing doesn’t look like it’s been touched since the late 70’s: the carpets, the chairs, the bookshelves, everything. Not to mention it smelled really strongly of cigarette smoke.
Know that I say these things with a loving tone towards the campus. The facilities (or lack thereof) were a common joke between the campers and the shared experience with it all drew us all so much closer. Just imagine GMC like an old car that doesn’t work well, has a weird smell, but has a lot of personal and comedic value to it that makes it lovable.
Location:
Holy crap. Poultney, Vermont. Yes, it’s pretty and very green, but that’s it. That. is. all. There is the campus then one “main street” that leads directly out of the campus and down one road. I was an older student so we could have free time around town unsupervised (younger kids can go too, but they have to stay in small groups). There was actually a good little coffee shop, a taco shop, and a grocery called Shaw’s. I guess a Pro of the town was that it was impossible to get lost. A con would be that the town of Poultney basically ends at a Dunkin Donut’s at the end of mainstreet. Then the rest is a couple of old houses and a lot of trees. Also, the townies were a bit freaky. My roommate and I had a view of a house directly across the street from our window which came complete with barking dogs and an old man who was always sitting on his porch. And trucks. Lots of old trucks.
Pro: Field trips
We went to Burlington, Vermont, which is one or two hours away from GMC. It was a cool little town and a good break from the campus. Also we went on a “cruise” of Lake Champlain and it was nice to sit in the sun and enjoy the water. However, a con is that the bus rides that you take out of campus will make you say your final prayers. I have never felt so close to dying. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Vermont, but there are tons of mountains and hills, which don’t really accommodate a school bus. We must have been pushing 100 mph down some of those twisting mountain roads, I swear to God. But, like everything at GMC, the experience was just something that brought everyone closer and made camp very memorable. We loved to tell stories about the bus and how we survived it.
I know the German kids got to have a few separate field trips as well, which we were always jealous of.
Pros of the camp:
I don’t know about you, but I’m quite obsessed with language. Many kids get shipped off to MMLA to improve their grades or further their language classes in school, but I went simply because I loved Mandarin and I couldn’t wait to speak it 24/7. I loved my teacher (you’re placed in a class that you stick with for the duration of camp based on your abilities in the language). My classmates and my RA were great, as well as my floor (there were three stories in my dorm- each dorm building hosts 1 language but the floors are split up by age). I made some of the best friends I have ever made. My roommate and I became amazing friends and we talk/snapchat every day. In fact, we are such good friends that we are rooming together at the Beijing MMLA academy this coming summer! Seriously, she’s the best. Some parts of the camp were very “campy” and we got to hang out in each others rooms and draw and play card games. Lots of laughs and tons of fun. I still talk to a lot of the people on my floor regularly.
Pros: learning
I learned sooooo much. We had a daily class on the weekdays that took up most of the morning where you learned vocab, had discussions, and did projects. Then you had the fun activities that you did after lunch that are cultural, like dancing, slang classes, cooking classes, sports, etc. I did Taichi one week and it was awesome- and a lot of students from the other academies (Spanish, French, German) would join in. My fluency increased exponentially, and looking back on my notebooks and daily journals I can’t believe the stuff we were doing; it was so advanced! You’ll be nervous at first with the pledge. There’s no getting around it. But after a week you’ll be speaking comfortably with teachers and RA’s. I would say the most important part wasn’t the perfection of grammar or the correctness of certain terms, but just the fact that you were speaking as much as you could and getting used to the language. The rest comes later.
The German portion of our camp was small- which was good because they all formed a tight bond and had tons of inside jokes. They even won in the camp Olympics- we were all rooting for them against the French. The French kids were relentlessly annoying, or at least we liked to envision them in that way:-)
This was a massive post, but I hope that the amount of things I had to say about MMLA shows how impactful it was and how much I loved it. Don’t go to GMC expecting anything fancy or lux. Don’t go into MMLA expecting change to happen overnight. What you get from the experience comes down to how much you put into it, and how much you are willing to improve. If you break the Pledge (it gets hard during the last week), then what’s the point of going? Some kids would speak in English constantly, which seemed to me like a big waste of money and time. I will admit that the GMC campus was not the most organized of places, but in the end none of it mattered. I made great friends and increased my Mandarin abilities tenfold. I can’t begin to describe how cool it was to not even realize I wasn’t speaking in English, but in fact Mandarin. It all became like second nature. My advice is to go for it. Like anything in life there’s risk and luck involved, but it will all turn out well. I don’t regret going and can’t imagine not attending.
To make a longer post even longer, here are my thoughts on the camp:
-You’ll get homesick. You’ll want to go home. You’ll feel like you won’t get adjusted and will be stuck in Poultney for 4 weeks. THIS DOESN’T LAST. I missed my phone and TV and the internet and really the outside world in general, but you’ll get over all of that within the first week. That’s not to say that some days will get a little long, but overall you’ll have a fantastic time
-tons of inside jokes
-some kids won’t want to be there, and some kids are downright weird or super obsequious to teachers and RA’s. This is annoying at first but by the end it’s all part of the experience and you’ll always remember every single camper. It was bittersweet on the last day, definitely.
-GMC is scary, in a good way. If you learn to love it the experience will be like no other
-Ultimately, I loved loved loved the camp. Just go. Do it. And if it’s a fluke, at least it’ll be a memorable one 
