<p>I'm a sophomore in high school right now, and I'm thinking about applying for a pre-college summer program for this upcoming summer (summer before junior year). I was really excited about various programs provided at UPENN or Carnegie Mellon, but I realized that you have to be 16 or older to apply. Usually, a sophomore at the end of the year (as in June) is around that age, but I'm a 15 year old sophomore (still fifteen well into junior year as well), meaning I won't be able to apply to a lot of awesome pre-college/summer programs. Certain programs even wrote explicitly (in bold, sadly) that "there are no exceptions" to their age requirement.
It seems a little unfair to those who are younger--I really wanted to take a summer program this year and next year, as well (or even intern next summer). If I can't do anything this year, that means I only have the summer before senior year to do any "overnight" programs.
The only program that allows 15 year olds that I have found so far is UMD. Does anybody know if these programs /do/ take exceptions? Or perhaps are there any other engineering/programing/writing/art/design/media (hah, it's a lot) related programs that allow 15 year olds (as rising juniors)? I'm thinking about an overnight summer program, between a week or a month--I just would love to get the experience of an away-program to do projects and learn from professors and whatnot. </p>
<p>Neither of these are residential, unfortunately, but Berkeley has a link to the organization you can apply through in order to get housing if you click the link I sent you. </p>
<p>Thanks, lia1998! Unfortunately, I live on the east coast, so I’m not sure if it’ll be realistically (or financially) convenient for me to get plane tickets and all. I really appreciate the reply, though!</p>
<p>Drexel University has a program. There are definitely others on the East coast. Just google the type of summer program you are looking for and some should come up. Most don’t specify an age, just “rising junior”. </p>
<p>I looked into some pre-college options for last summer since I was in a similar situation to you, having a mid-July birthday (Just a few days too late! Agh!) but I decided that it was more worthwhile just to wait until next summer. Why spend thousands of dollars on a program that you’re not in love with? This year I’ve applied to Carnegie Mellon AP/EA and I think I made the right call- A lot can happen over the span of a year. That said, I encourage you to apply if you find the program you like!</p>