Many parents are curious to know which academic summer programs are the most successful. Success, however, will depend on the student: Academic programs can be effective — or not — depending on whether they are the right fit for a specific student.
Should Your Child Attend an Academic Summer Program?
Summer is everything that the school year is not. It is blissfully free of they typical schizophrenic school schedule, there are no assignments hanging over your head, You have large blocks of unstructured time, and, most of all, students have a greater say in how they spend that time. High School summers are a series of irreplaceable coins that can be spent only once, but the number of ways you have to spend them is nearly limitless. Think about ways to leverage the things that make summer special by doing things that you could never do during the school year. Often this includes a deep immersion into things you love or exposure to new experiences and adventures.
Done right, academic summer programs can achieve both of these goals. Done wrong, they can contribute to burnout and academic disillusionment that can have far reaching consequences.
It’s thrilling to have your child deemed gifted and enrolled in a summer program designed for intellectually advanced students, but you should only consider these programs if your child wants to participate in them.
Delving deeply into an academic subject, surrounded by experts and other like-minded students can be thrilling. If this will make your kid want to leap out of bed each morning, you are on the right track. If it will lead to fights every morning as you try to drag your kid out of bed to go to a program that does not excite him or her, you are probably better off going down a different path.
A student’s success in any academic summer program depends almost entirely on what she wants to learn and not on what her parents think is best. Even very young children enrolled in specialized programs are able to tell their parents what they would like to spend time learning. And if they can’t, they are probably still too young to be enrolled in a specialized academic program.
Are All Academic Summer Programs for “Gifted” Students?
Not all academic programs are alike. One difference parents should be aware of is that not all of these summer camps cater to gifted students. Some are for students who may be on par academically with their peers but are seeking to learn something that isn’t taught at their school. This desire — if it truly originates with the student — demonstrates intellectual curiosity and is a wonderful thing. That said, it does not, in and of itself, indicate that a child is gifted.
If you are looking into academic summer programs, you will likely come across two types of camps: summer programs for gifted students and those run by specific colleges.
What Are Summer Programs for Gifted Students?
These programs offer advanced courses or learning opportunities (sometimes college-level courses) and foster interactions with other gifted peers.
To be eligible to attend one of these camps, students must, in general, attain a particular score on a standardized test such as the SAT, ACT, or PSAT.
Summer programs for gifted students are often run by a specific university. That said, while a college may serve as the organizer of the camp, the programs themselves are typically offered at a variety of locations (for example, on college campuses across the country and around the globe). Moreover, the courses may be offered by different providers and not exclusively by the organizing institution.
A Gifted Program Case Study: Center for Talented Youth
The best known of all gifted programs is the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) at Johns Hopkins University. It offers online classes for students from second to twelfth grade, and weekend and school holiday experiences for students and their families. CTY also provides a variety of summer programs on U.S. university campuses, as well as at overseas locations for older students.
Admissions Criteria:
Depending on their grade level, students are admitted based on the scores they achieve on the SAT, ACT, PSAT or Scholastic College Ability Test, an exam originally created by the Educational Testing Service but later purchased by CTY. Students who do not meet the cutoff scores for the gifted summer camps are offered other educational options associated with CTY and can decide to retake the test to seek admission into another program the following year.
Program Structure:
Once admitted into the summer program, students can select a course that they will take over the span of three weeks while they live on campus (for young elementary-level students, a day camp option is offered). The courses that students can choose from span multiple disciplines, including traditional subjects like chemistry and calculus as well as more specialized courses like “History of Disease” or “The Critical Essay: Popular Culture.”
(Other notable programs for gifted students include Summer Institute for the Gifted (SIG) and Duke’s Talent Identification Program (TIP).)
What Are Summer Programs for Accelerated Students?
Beyond the programs offered by a university at multiple sites, there are summer programs that are unique to a single campus. Some examples include the summer programs at Boston University, University of Virginia, and UC Berkley. High school students can enroll in one or several courses and get a sense of what living on a college campus is like. It’s a great chance for kids to get some exposure to the college experience early on.
Admissions Criteria:
While these programs require students to apply and may request a student transcript or an essay, campus-specific summer programs generally do not require specific scores on standardized testing.
Where Do These Programs Lead?
Will any of these programs actually be instrumental in helping a student gain admission to the college of her dreams? In short, not necessarily. Colleges rent out their campuses and facilities to a whole host of different users. Just because the program is on a particular campus, doesn’t mean that the college knows anything about it or cares. They don’t. The grades don’t matter and student output may never make it into an application.
On their own, these programs are not intended to ensure future admission to a particular college or university. A student may end up being accepted to a college on whose campus she spent a summer, but only if the student was fully qualified to attend the school to begin with.
A Satisfying Ending to a Difficult Experience
It is, moreover, possible for a student to fall in love with the college where she attended a high school program, apply Early Decision/Action, and still be rejected from the university. It happened to me!
I went to Cornell for a summer program just before my senior year of high school and loved everything about it. In the fall, I applied early decision to the university. In spite of the fact that my father was a Cornell alum and had died suddenly during the fall of my senior year, the school rejected me. I was heartbroken.
Little did I know that the school I would end up at, the University of Pennsylvania, would give me the best academic experience I could ever have hoped for. I would have saved myself considerable heartache in the college admissions process if I had understood that the summer program was valuable on its own but that it would have no effect on my prospects for admission to Cornell.
What Research Should I Do Before I Enroll?
There is only one way to tell if the program you or your child is interested in is the right fit: Speak to parents and students who have taken part in the program. Some of these programs cost thousands of dollars and, for older students, may take place halfway around the world; it’s smart to really understand the offerings before signing up.
In this case, the questions to ask are quite specific:
- Did the program live up to its claims?
- Did you receive an enriched educational experience?
- In what ways did it fulfill these claims?
- Does it offer something unique and not available to the student during the school year?
College and university summer programs for the gifted and other high-achieving high school students can be wonderful experiences. That said, the key to their success is good research to be sure you’ve found one that is a good fit and lives up to the promises made.
Related Reading:
How To Find Great Summer Activities For Your Gifted Child
How To Help Your College Applications The Summer Before Your Senior Year
