<p>Two of my kids attended the Middlebury Monterrey Language Academy at green mountain college in VT. They hated it. Every phone call was sobbing, begging to come home. The staff was disorganized and arrogant. They had a hurricane while kids were in the school and moved the kids to a shelter in an unsafe manner. My kids were offered e-cigarettes, alcohol and said several kids lost their virginity while at the program. They are 13 years old. This was the worst summer program they have ever had. And their French is no better.</p>
<p>My DD attended the MMLA Spanish academy at Swathmore and it was also bad. The administration was awful - disorganized and inappropriate. How can they possibly have a man walking around the halls when the girls are coming back and forth from the shower? They offered silly classes and she did not learn much. </p>
<p>In contrast, my daughter attended the Green Mountain program a few years ago and had a great time AND her skills improved dramatically. Placed into French 4 as a frosh at a rigorous boarding school.</p>
<p>Yikes. Would love to hear others chime in on this. Thinking of same for DD and hope MMLA has not declined in recent years from the good experience 7dad’s daughter had.</p>
<p>My kids have had a great experience at Concordia language village (competing program).</p>
<p>"They had a hurricane while kids were in the school " Really? A shelter-worthy hurricane hit Vermont in the middle of the summer? I haven’t looked into recent weather reports but I find it a little hard to believe that a large out of season hurricane traveled so very far north and so very far inland that residents had to move to a shelter. </p>
<p>OK, I had to look into this. Tropical storm (by then not hurricane) Irene hit Vermont on Aug 30, 2012. MMLA runs June 21-July 16. I guess they were evacuating 7 weeks early?</p>
<p>Good god. </p>
this is an old thread, but i thought i’d offer some balance to the opinions expressed previously. how old was your daughter when she cried home sobbing? you don’t mention the reason, just homesick? that was my daughter’s case. but she was only 14, a rising eighth grader, the youngest age allowed into the program (summer '15). in all fairness, her crying was not a reflection of the school, but of her lack of maturity. i can’t speak for other locations and languages, but the german language staff and her fellow classmates (even the 18-year olds) were all very nice, no complaints there whatsoever. yes, students must relinquish their phones when at camp. (i love this idea; today’s kids are way too tethered to technology – good for mmla!) and are allowed it only at specific day/time, around once a week, to make a call home. it really reinforces the mission of immersion they have. it was a big cost sending her (tuition and airfare nearly $6500), but overall i am very pleased with the program. she went in not knowing a word of german and came out speaking sentences and had acquired a huge volume of vocabulary. the cool thing is how comfortable she is sprinkling her english with these words nearly one year later. presently she is a third year latin student and will start high school this fall in german 1. she came away loving german so much, she is interested in studying this summer with goethe institut in their overnight camps throughout germany (even with airfare, much cheaper, too!).
she was 13, i meant to say.