<p>I was wondering if anyone had recommendations for prestigious summer programs that have courses pertaining to politics, the government, law, or any subject in those areas. I was looking at Georgetown University's Summer Honors Program and Stanford's Summer Humanities Institute, but they don't seem like they'll look that great on college applications. I wasted my summer last year at Columbia University and didn't get much out of it, so I'm hoping to do something much more productive.
Information about me:
16 years old, Junior
3.5 GPA (Weighted is 4.8, I believe)
The only political activities I'm in are MUN and Student Government, but I have other clubs and extracurricular activities as well.</p>
<p>Hi, xurbanx,</p>
<p>I posted about the St. Albans School of Public Service, which I went to a couple of years ago. I really liked it, and part of how I learned about it was College Confidential, so occasionally I will post about it to “pay it forward.” Just Google “St. Albans School of Public Service blog” and you’ll find a good blog from the last couple of years (my picture is all over it haha but of course you wouldn’t be able to identify it). There are less than 40 kids in it and admission is competitive, but it is rolling and when I applied they told me that the chances if you apply by mid-Feb. are pretty good – it gets really hard after that because there just aren’t that many spots. I don’t know about “prestigious,” but my group from SPS went to very good schools (I think 6 out of 40 went to Harvard) and when I compared notes it sounded like a lot of us wrote about speakers we heard or think tank panels we went to or case studies that we argued. I also got asked about it a lot in Alumni Interviews for Ivies, etc., and they seemed intrigued that we did things like have a mock argument of a real Supreme Court case and then talk to an actual Supreme Court justice; or have a Q&A session with Joe Biden’s speech writer, or an NIH person in charge of fighting AIDS; or that we used case studies from Harvard’s graduate school the Kennedy school; or that we took an Econ and Public Policy seminar and learned about the big housing crash. </p>
<p>This is NOT sitting in a big lecture hall or trudging around capitol hill wearing a ridiculous matching outfit! Very productive but also a lot of fun downtime to hang out, go to the outdoor pool on campus, explore Georgetown (St. Albans is up the street from GTown, really pretty campus).</p>
<p>Lots of kids in the St. Albans program did MUN and Student Government so it sounds like your interests would fit well. It is for only current juniors so you’ve got that going for you.
Good luck this summer!</p>