Summer Programs for Physics? Or Science-y Things in General?

Hi there! My son will be a rising Junior interested in physics. He’s also in a tech center high school program, but I don’t think he’s going to want to do more programming over the summer.

I’m seeing quite a few programs here. It seems like many of the ones people discuss are on the west coast, and we are on the east coast. He’s in CTY and had intended to do a summer program there two summers ago when COVID hit, but then that didn’t happen.

So, that’s always an option, although reading through the forums, it seems like there’s sort of a hierarchy of programs that are seen as prestigious and those that aren’t. How much does that really matter?

I’m seeing the Yale program, and I’m wondering if it’s really worth the money? Two weeks is not a very long time. I was looking for maybe at least a 4 week program that would give him some exposure to being on a college campus, taking an interesting course, meeting some friends, and just broadening his horizons in general.

A few years ago I’d looked at The New York Times summer program because the classes seemed pretty cool and I thought it would be an interesting experience being in NYC for the summer.

How do you narrow down the programs you might be interested in? It seems like so many colleges offer them. I’m curious how you made the decisions you did.