<p>If you search the <a href="http://www.mit.edu%5B/url%5D">www.mit.edu</a> site, you'll find at least two blogs by Matt about summer programs. My son attended SSTP at the University of Florida after junior year, and was at Duke TIP for the three prior summers. We know three kids, all at or soon to be attending MIT, who attended the Young Scholars program at FSU. These programs require applications and are competitive. In general, IMO, I think MIT looks more favorably on the competitive programs (which are typically low-cost), as compared to programs like at UPenn, which can cost several thousand dollars and are open to all.</p>
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Is it really okay to let kids do whatever they are interested in . . . ?
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<p>What exactly is your alternative? Forcing them to do something they hate? We're not nearly as untrustworthy as you'd like to believe we are.</p>
<p>@CountingDown- that is my debate team in a nutshell.</p>
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As long as they're not interested in breaking into your neighbors' houses, selling drugs, or bullying small children.
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or burning things. arson!!!</p>
<p>Ducktape, I need to teach DS1 how to bake cookies (another of the things he needs to learn before college). Better yet, I'll have his younger brother do it (he's a fabulous cook). Then there'll be fire, bullying and things breaking.</p>
<p>Problem solved! :D</p>
<p>I am planning on making my own hybrid plants this summer and learn some programming and complete my piano exams. Maybe i'll get help somewhere with my plamts. All the above mentioned summer progs sound interesting and resourceful but sad part is given the place where i live...we hardly find any unis that offer summer progs. Any one know a creative writing course online??? That s one talent I surey want to perfect.</p>
<p>^well many summer programs (RSI, SSP, MITES, TASP) as for anyone in the country. some of them even give you $ to travel to and from their campus.</p>
<p>Let's see....the summer after freshman year...I don't think I did anything. The summer after sophomore year I spent two weeks helping my freshman bio teacher run a summer camp that was held at my high school. After junior year, I went to a summer program in public policy. I missed the first 3 days because I was initially rejected and got a surprise phone call saying that someone dropped out early on and if I wanted to show up that same day they could give me a spot. Two weeks later, I went to field hockey camp. The summer after senior year I worked as a lifeguard at a water park.</p>
<p>I am now an MIT junior. Your questions of "Is it really okay to 'let' kids do what they're interested in?" is frankly terrifying.</p>
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Your questions of "Is it really okay to 'let' kids do what they're interested in?" is frankly terrifying.
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yes it is a bit terrifying and it makes you seem like a severe helicopter parent. It might be slightly okay for the kids to think that, but this isn't your life. I'm sure they know what's right for them. however the poster above sure has some "prestigious/good-for-resume" summer activities so she really doesn't prove a point with her post</p>
<p>Okay, beat this: during my summers in high school, I did band camp and hung out with my friends. One summer, I took gym class so I didn't have to take it during the school year. I went on vacations with my family. I stayed up late and slept in.</p>
<p>That's it. It was pretty nice. It was the last time in my life that I was able to do absolutely nothing for an extended period of time.</p>
<p>To put it plainly, you aren't going to be able to helicopter them through MIT and future careers. So if your kid (and I'm not saying he/she is!) is being helicoptered throughout high school and molded to perfection constantly, do you really think he/she is going to walk into MIT and stand tall? </p>
<p>If your kid is going to thrive at a place like MIT or other demanding schools, they are going to do it out of their own spirit, so you're probably better off letting them do whatever they want to do. </p>
<p>A nudge here and there when they seem to be doing absolutely nothing for extended periods of time ;) might be a good idea once in a while, but not constantly.</p>
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Is it really okay to let kids do whatever they are interested in . . . ?
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<p>At the end of the day, it is the kid who is applying to university. Soooo many parents miss this basic fact. I am an EC, and I am surprised at how many students I have interviewed who do not seem to be applying to MIT; rather their parents are applying to MIT through them. This is actually a lot easier to discover in the interview than you might imagine (though it may be easier to disguise in the rest of the application). I cannot recall any of these getting accepted. It really is a deal-breaker usually, as it speaks directly to the question of match. Does the candidate match well with MIT, and would the answer to that question change if the candidate was living away from their parents?</p>
<p>Obviously, we all want to give our kids the best start in life, but if the kid would really feel at home at MIT, then that will show up in the application, and if the kid would not feel at home at MIT, then you are doing them a disservice in trying to get them in there, even if you are ultimately successful.</p>
<p>@advancer07</p>
<p>CTY offers online classes through the summer
<a href="http://cty.jhu.edu/cde/coursecalendar.html%5B/url%5D">http://cty.jhu.edu/cde/coursecalendar.html</a></p>
<p>My daughter took their Crafting the Essay class, and we felt the class was very well done. It helped get her started writing, and I think it even showed her writing can be enjoyable. It sounds like you are probably past this stage, so maybe one of their more advanced classes would suit you better - such as Crafting Poetry or Crafting Fiction.</p>
<p>Duke TIP also has an online writing class</p>
<p>I know it's offered during the school year. I'm not sure about summer.</p>
<p>advancer07:</p>
<p>EPGY has a creative writing course that you could check out, don't know if it's offered in the summer though.
<a href="http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/english/W041/%5B/url%5D">http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/english/W041/</a></p>
<p>worriemom:</p>
<p>My D, now at MIT, was an intern in the workshop at a local science museum the summer after her jr. year. She helped build and fix the exhibits. It was sort of like taking an intensive shop class except that the equipment was way better and it was free. Plus she learned good working skills like showing up on time etc. Other than that, she didn't do anything very impressive during her summers - sports camps, wilderness camp, family vacations.</p>
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what usually discerns unmotivated kids w/ helicopter parents and the actual ones who want to be there.</p>
<p>Please, 2 weeks of summer camp plus one month of random poli sci stuff while applying to a highly technical school? Familiarize yourself with this discussion board, most people here are under the impression that they quite literally need to have cured cancer over the summer to stand a chance.</p>
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what usually discerns unmotivated kids w/ helicopter parents and the actual ones who want to be there.
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I'm not actually sure that I want to answer this question, lest I provide too much help for someone trying to game the system, but, in short, the answer is depth. When I am interviewing, I can ask follow-up questions indefinitely to try to figure out what makes the candidate tick.</p>
<p>So, for example, when a student professes a love of physics, I can ask what parts of physics attract them and why? Which parts are actually less fun? And I can keep probing, until I sense, rightly or wrongly, that I have some element of truth. </p>
<p>I had one kid who spoke glowingly about doing a wide variety of stuff with and for his dad, and he was laying it on a bit thick, so I asked something along the lines of "So, tell me something that you enjoy doing, that your dad doesn't really approve of." I'm not sure why I asked that question. Possibly I was just being perverse. I'd never asked anything like it before or since. But the look of shocked horror on the kid's face as he stammered out that he could never conceive of doing anything that did not have his dad's endorsement if not his active participation was really interesting to me. Now I set off on a series of questions to try to work out how ready this kid was to live thousands of miles away from parents who had up to that point, sheltered him a lot. This was NOT being perverse. MIT acts IN LOCO PARENTIS a lot less than many other comparable schools. I was genuinely curious and concerned. This sort of stuff never shows up in the written application.</p>
<p>That's basically it at its core. I can ask a lot of general questions looking for where I need to ask much more specific ones, and I can drill down as deep as I choose. That being said, I work very hard to keep my interviews light, relaxing, and enjoyable for the candidates. I find that I get much better answers that way.</p>
<p>Of course, there are a lot of EC's out there, of uneven quality. Your mileage may vary. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance, etc., etc</p>
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...most people here are under the impression that they quite literally need to have cured cancer over the summer to stand a chance.
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LauraN, the only thing they did last summer was cure cancer? Feh. OK, I suppose that is borderline interesting, but what have they done THIS semester to advance humanity? (grin)</p>
<p>Mikalye: "So, tell me something that you enjoy doing, that your dad doesn't really approve of."</p>
<p>This is a terrible interview question. I'm not sure how I would have answered this question myself. So if they say "nothing," does that mean you penalize the kids that have their parents support? </p>
<p>I think the interview is by-and-large a pretty poor indicator of anything. You should be able to tell whether they have genuine passion from the recs and the level of performance alone. </p>
<p>You didn't want to say how to game the system, but it's pretty clear how to do it if you read this forum. For example, if you got a "B", then think of something you did for your own enjoyment that semester and say how you valued that more than getting the perfect straight "A"'s. And that is exactly the problem...You shouldn't be able to game the system using anything beyond talent and hard work.</p>
<p>Collegealum, you may well be right and it really might have been a terrible question. I certainly haven't asked anything like it before or since. That being said, if he had shrugged and said "nothing really", then that would have been a perfectly fine answer. </p>
<p>What bothered me in this case was his discomfort at doing anything without his parents participation, or at the very least, clear instruction to do that thing. I could not identify a book that he had read without his parents having told him to read it first. I did think that relevant to his application.</p>
<p>Until I became an interviewer, I thought it would be relatively easy to game the interview. I now think differently. The key is that the interview is designed to focus on those things that are unlikely to show up elsewhere on the application. I do not ask a candidate to explain his grades, or his test scores. I don't know a candidate's grades or test scores, and frankly I do not care. That stuff is elsewhere on an application, or better explained by teacher recs. Not my job at all.</p>
<p>Well, I agree the guy gave a really bizarre and disturbing answer to your question.</p>