<p>I am thinking about joining the pre-college summer programs at Brown University and they are about economics & business, but it costs almost $10,000! I don't know if the program is worth 10 grand? Has anyone joined the pre-college programs at Brown University? How does it look like? How about the dorms, classes? I appreciate any advice! :)</p>
<p>I’ve never been to it, but from what I know, the more a program costs, the less the prestige. If it costs 10k, it is probably a program Brown only has for the profit. I personally decided not to go the Oxford Uni Summer program because it probably doesn’t do anything for a college application, because all it does is show the application people that you have a lot of money.</p>
<p>We are familiar with a number of those programs, including Brown Summer. angelacao’s comment that all it shows admissions people is that your parents have money is almost a direct quote of a statement I heard the Director of Admissions at Princeton make. Only do those programs if it is something that you have a genuine interest in, and it offers something in particular. I will say that, based on a random sample of 3, the Stanford courses are quite good, and the JSA programs (held at various places) get very high marks (but are also genuinely intensive). Some students we know have done them as a way of testing out the college ahead of applying, but really they don’t even give you a good feel for what it is like to be an enrolled student. All that said, my D2 loved the physics course she did at Brown, and a group of 5 or 6 of them have stayed in touch - and it made it clear to her that she did not want to apply there. But- we must have done a shorter program, as we did <em>not</em> spend $10K!</p>
<p>No pre-college program is really prestigious, and I’d recommend finding another economics/business program - it’s definitely not worth the 10K imo.</p>
<p>My daughter just came back from having a wonderful time at the Brown pre-college summer program. However, as a parent, I gotta say, it was WAY too expensive, especially for something that probably won’t enhance her chances of getting in anywhere. The dorm was pretty run-down, and ALL OF HER CLASSES WERE TAUGHT BY GRADUATE STUDENTS!!! For the amount of money we spent, I had expected more. We will chalk it up to experience, but I hope it is one you can learn from!!! You would be better off really getting into something that interests you and becoming an expert/leader in that field. The best thing about her stay was that she understands what the routine will be like when she gets to real college. The worst thing was that it was a total rip-off.</p>
<p>Realize that this feedback is probably too late for the OP, but each of my sons looked at summer programs, and considered Brown’s but went with Penn instead. Rationale was duration primarily (they could only spare 3-4 weeks). Both just recently returned from - and LOVED - their respective classes and thought it was absolutely worth the money. One because he liked the bio work, and concurrently got a sense that Penn was not of interest to him and now is taking it off of his target list. The other because he learned that he wants a tech+business track in college, and Penn is of great interest.</p>
<p>This experience followed both U MD and Georgetown summer classes that they took in their rising junior and sophomore years (we decided to not spend money on private high school, and instead, invest in alternative educational/experiential opportunities like these, to help them with their future decision-making).</p>
<p>They did not think they got enough value for the time and money invested in those two earlier programs, although they enjoyed their experience a lot while getting a sense for the school. That said, I don’t think my one twin son would have gotten into his particular Penn program without the UMD work. I know most of these summer things are not terribly selective (most take 80% of applicants, and the Penn Engineering takes slightly more than 50%), but the other Penn program only enrolled 1 out of every 9 applicants. </p>
<p>Would agree with earlier comments that these programs might generally not be worth the money if it’s just to satisfy academic interests/curiosity (e.g, why not just volunteer in a lab, pursue self-study, go to a cheaper on-line or Comm College, etc?). However, have to say that the Penn experience was great: Focused (3 weeks), challenging (kids slept 13h the day they got home - real sense of what it takes to succeed in a rigorous academic environment), great instruction (plus a college credit) and $6,000 instead of $10K. </p>
<p>Scholarships for Brown precollege is limited, but available. I got to go to summer@brown for relatively cheap for getting right on the application deadlines and securing a spot early.</p>
<p>@AndyLowell ripoff is a little harsh. a) scholarships were available b) we didn’t get good dorms b/c y’know we were only there for a few weeks and honestly not all dorms are going to be wonderful c) there was a certain advantage to having grad students teaching. You could form a relationship a lot easier, and if their field is something of interest (mine was doing exactly what I want to do) then you could get a full idea of what you could possibly be doing in your future as well as hear of their young and fresh experiences. To each their own, but I found it was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had as a high school student.
Then again it depends on what you want to do. As someone looking for opportunities in obscure history areas, it was absolutely perfect. But for more common areas or areas you could find jobs/volunteer opportunities in, precollege is def a great supplement but experience is key.</p>
<p>Also excuse my crappy grammatical error in the last comment, *are not is, lol </p>