Child did BC this summer for 2 weeks. Can confirm it is run by BC. Been around only about 2 years I think.
Helps in the ways expressed above but it also show that you really are interested in that particular school. Gives kid an appreciation of the school’s culture and environment in a bunch of ways. Program was in an area of interest for my kid.
Does it help with the school admissions consideration directly? It shows more than stated interest which can help the admission people gauge this one thing that is truly difficult for them as they are considering apps. ‘Yield’ matters to admissions people.
@Chocolate-Taco The year my kid applied MIT’s essay topic was something about how your environment had made you who you were, while the Common Application had the option of write your own question. My kid started his essay with the results of a computer program he wrote that was a mishmosh of example essays found on line. He talked about how he’d rather write a program than write an essay. He talked about the various people who had encouraged him to teach himself programming from his parents, to a third grade teacher who let him write programs that would test kids math facts, and let him write an Adventure type game, to having a job shadowing opportunity in high school turn into a real job. He never did anything that he didn’t want to do, but he was very lucky that he was surrounded by people who were willing to help him do more of the stuff he liked.
My future nursing student did a summer program at Drexel. It was aimed mostly at aspiring medical students. It was very hands on and was great for her to see if she really did like that patient contact and could hack the gross parts (and there were gross parts). So that was good – we are yet to see if it helps her in admissions. We hope so. It was very expensive though.
My S&D are seniors in college now so it’s been a few years since we were looking at summer programs. At the time, we did find several really good programs that were free. S went to PAN (Physics of Atomic Nuclei) at Michigan State. Think the program also runs at Notre Dame now. He also went to a Quantum Cryptography program at University of Waterloo. Both one week. Both free, but very competitive. He also did a 1-week free Computer / AI program at McGill. Only catch, no free housing so we had to vacation in Montreal for a week! D did the Robert Greene Summer Journalism Institute at Stony Brook. One week. Free. Long Island kids only though. She also did a Foundations for Teaching Economics one-week program (cost ~ $1,000 - less than most programs). These are held at various universities (no affiliation). We weren’t counting on any of these to play into admissions - instead, looked at them as a way for them to explore their interests and get the experience of living away on a college campus. There are programs out there that are free or affordable - you just have to look for them.
University of Mississippi Summer College for High School Students–wonderful program and extremely affordable. For my D because of her test scores, she received free tuition and room and board for a month. We paid a $100 registration fee, the cost of books and the cost of travel to Mississippi. She received two college credits, including one in a subject she had no prior exposure to and fell in love with, but more importantly she learned she could travel cross country and thrive on a college campus-- living with a roommate, dorm and social life, meal plans, and excel in college courses.
My daughters did Duke TiP center and Governor’s Honors Program (GA). We didn’t enroll them in either camp for any perceived college app benefits, we did it because it gave them a chance to explore different classes and be around other kids that were interested in the same stuff they were interested in.
There was a lot of overlap between the kids who were at TIP and the ones at GHP, but the girls both said that GHP (substantially more difficult to get into) was an entire level above and beyond in terms of kids who were serious about whatever program they’d been admitted to. They both said TiP was fun but it was “smart rich kids goofing off, mostly”.
They also said that the kids who were doing the TIP program under the assumption it would make their apps look better were usually difficult to be around once they discovered (from the other kids) that it really didn’t matter-they were not really into it for the enjoyment of the classes (which the girls both said were well done and a lot of fun, especially the criminal justice class run by Don Donaldson, who apparently walks on water ).
Supposedly GHP helps on applications, especially in-state, but my anecdotal evidence for older D was that it did not. Luckily, she didn’t care one bit, and loved the experience purely for the experience.
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