<p>How do you get into those??</p>
<p>Like do I need to meet special criteria or something?</p>
<p>Just because you don't receive a special invitation doesn't mean that you can't apply to a summer program. Stanford doesn't even know the students they mail an invitation to. They just purchase a mailing list from the College Board based on some criteria, i.e. PSAT >= 200.</p>
<p>I personally think that $9,600 for 8 weeks ($1,200 per week) is crazy. It's almost as high as a Stanford undergraduate education ($44,267 / 33 weeks of instruction = $1,340 per week). </p>
<p>They are taking financial advantage of people who will pay anything for the prestige of attending Stanford, though every summer program there is not that expensive.</p>
<p>Someone else commented that SSC is "almost as high as regular tuition". </p>
<p>It's <em>the same</em> as regular tuition, because you're paying regular tuition for regular Stanford classes. They're not special high school classes. If you're in SSC, you take classes with regular Stanford undergrads and grad students. The room/board is also pretty much the same. The difference is a $250 or so charge for SSC activities/etc. </p>
<p>Basically, you pay regular tuition, you take regular classes. They can't offer much financial aid because you're a high school student. Is it a good value? Well, that's like asking if Stanford is a good value.</p>
<p>It's hard to measure that because a) these summer programs don't really offer much to your application unless your academic performance is amazing and b) you don't get a degree.</p>
<p>On the topic of criteria for the mailing list....</p>
<p>I got a 187 on the PSATs and received a letter.</p>