Yes, maybe MIT summer school which is totally free. Don’t waste your money for 2 week summer program, it is a lot… 6 thousand dollars??
@canuckgirl, I agree with what @Dandemom said. YYGS kids work really hard for two weeks. We felt it was worth the fees; I believe some FA is available. It ultimately changed my S’s choice of where to apply for college. He had been having a great summer working in a plasma physics lab, and was wondering if taking time off from that would be worth it (at the time, YYGS had no STEM project). He was very glad that he did.
I am sure that there are pre-college programs that are more affordable and that might be a better fit, but I don’t want to take anything away from YYGS – in S’s case, it was well worth it.
@IxnayBob - you failed to mention that your S was also accepted to Yale afterwards and is currently a freshman. Not meaning that all participants will have the same outcome.
@Tperry1982, and, he’ll be on YYGS staff for a couple of weeks this summer. I was afraid that it’d look like I was trying to drum up business :).
The whole year (HS junior through the summer) was transformative for him. I don’t know how to allocate which experiences did what for x%, but YYGS had a significant effect.
@IxnayBob - just more evidence that there is not any ONE THING that makes the difference. My D went to Brown for their summer program for 2 weeks. She did not even end up applying.
My D will be there for 4 weeks in June taking German.
My youngest will be at RISD for 6 weeks this summer. It’s a fit for her in the same way Yale was a fit for S. If the programs were reversed, we’d have two unhappy kids who would probably be thrown out.