College Summer Experiences: Are They Right for Your Child?

This time last year, my husband and I were mulling over vacation plans. Not for ourselves: for our youngest daughter, who would be entering her senior year in high school come the following September. These weren't exactly what we would consider 'vacation plans', to be honest. Beginning at the start of her junior year, quite a few trees had sacrificed their time on this earth to become fodder for brochures and pamphlets touting colleges' summer programs.

All sorts of colleges and universities, at every level, would like you to send your child to spend some time with them this summer. It may be for a two-week 'introduction to college life' program; it may be for a four to six week credit program. These weren't your 'run of the mill' schools either, if there are even any such thing anymore. Schools from whom we received brochures included Swarthmore, Boston College, Boston University, New York University, Fordham, Bucknell, and more. For the most part, the only prerequisite to be able to sending your child to a top-notch school - even for a short period of time - was your ability to pay for it. No SAT scores need be submitted! Personal checks, American Express and Master Card would do very nicely, thank you.

Are you paying (or investing) in your child's future so that they can get a true feel for what it's like to live on a college campus and take classes there? Or are you doing it to 'pad' their current resume for the actual applications process? Perhaps you're doing it so that you can tell Grandmom and Pop Pop (plus the neighbors, and those ladies in the soccer car pool) that little Susie or Brad will be attending NYU or Swarthmore - if only for two weeks? Only you can answer those questions truthfully - just as only you can answer if indeed, sending your child to a college 'enrichment' summer program is right for your own child.

There are two factors that weigh into your decision: motivation and cost. Perhaps your child is on the shy side, and it would be a genuinely good opportunity for him or her to spend a few weeks away from home, away from their comfort zone of a circle of friends and family, to get a taste of what college will be like. While many high school students today are pretty seasoned travelers in general, there are relatively large chunks of that demographic who haven't traveled very much or at all, children who would really benefit from being away from home in a structure setting. Your child's personality should play a large role in your decision. This may be the perfect opportunity for them to be on their own, so to speak, for a few weeks, and learn how to make new friends, how to fit in, what dorm living is really like, how to take responsibility for being ready for classes and group activities on time.

You may also want to consider a summer college program if you're looking to give your child a leg up with early college credits. Bear in mind, though, that many community colleges also offer the same opportunity to gain credits while a student is still in high school A local example would be the partnership between Burlington County Community College (and THEIR partnering with Drexel University) with students at Delran, New Jersey's Holy Cross High School.

Holy Cross High School students in good academic standing are able to apply to take one or two - no more than that - college level, credit courses at nearby Burlington County Community College campuses (there are five of them) during the school day. Students were responsible for transportation to and from the college; most of the classes offered were entry level mathematics, history, sociology, psychology classes, each of which were actual 3 credit, transferable college courses. It's a win-win situation in that the community college attracts more students, and the high school students are able to take college courses (which are, of course, accepted by their own high school) which will either transfer when they graduate to a four-year school or to BCCC. The cost savings for this program are huge for the students: literally 50% less than what those same courses would cost at a four year institution in nearly every case. Plus, BCCC gets to attract a potentially new group of incoming first-year students as well.

Swarthmore was one of the colleges which I distinctly remember offers high school students summer programs that, upon successful completion, earn the students a minimum of three to six college credits. Their program was not inexpensive - over $6,000 for a seven and a half week program. But that amount did include housing, food, and two 'legitimate' classes taught by Swarthmore professors. A student had the option of taking one or both credit courses offered; you were able to select one course from the math and sciences 'menu', one from the liberal arts 'menu'.

If you haven't been receiving brochures addressed to either your student or to you as parents, ask your child's high school guidance counselor or Director about these programs. Also, check out the www.collegeboard.com website (like you haven't been living on that already! :) - they have identifiers for schools that offer these programs, either for credit or for the experience. Prices vary from a minimum of $1,500 to over $6,000, depending, of course, upon the length of time your student will be living on campus (minimum one week), what's included (food, housing, text books, field trips), and, of course, whether the student will actually be studying and gaining college credits. Before you sign on for a college credit program, check with the program director to make sure that the credits will transfer and are consider 'authentic' by not just the school at which they were achieved, but at any other two or four year college or university as well.

Keep in mind that you'll be responsible for providing transportation for your student to and from the college, as well as pocket/spending money that will definitely be needed. That factor alone can add several hundred or thousand dollars to the total package cost.

My daughter chose to attend the Boston University Summer Challenge, which was a two-week college 'experience'. She enjoyed it very much. She loved living on their campus, she made two very, very close friends with whom she has stayed in contact, one of whom she has visited in her home town of Tampa and who has stayed with us in southern New Jersey. My daughter had not planned on attending this B.U. program with a friend; part of the appeal was that she would meet new people and friends there. However, a 'casual' friend had decided to attend the same program for the same dates. (Their program is offered in two two-week sessions.) While we weren't initially thrilled with this situation, it turned out rather well for both the girls. They ended up rooming together and strengthened their already-existing friendship while there.

Whether or not you want to send your child to a summer college program alone or with a friend again is a personal choice. Would your child be more comfortable going with a friend? Will your child cling to this friend for the duration of the program, and not go outsize of their comfort zone by meeting other 'students' from across the country and around the world? There are benefits both ways, frankly. If your intent is to have your student meet and make new friends on their own, it may not be as easily done with an established friend already there. If your child will only attend IF another friend goes with them, you have an issue right off the bat that must be considered. When my daughter and Rachel were there, they did spend a lot of time together, but also made quite a few separate and distinct sets of friends, which was great! While the majority of kids there were 'singles', there were also about 25% of the group who had come with at least one friend from their own high school.

Another question that begs an answer is at what age should your student attend these college summer programs. My daughter was in the summer of her junior year when she attended; 65% of the other students there were also high school juniors going into their senior year. The balance ranged from freshman on up. From what I'd heard personally, the freshman students had a bit of a hard time adjusting and keeping up with their peers during the summer. It was a matter of emotional maturity and learning skills already developed. I wouldn't rule this out for a freshman; having to work just a bit harder to keep up with older kids isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially since the classes they were attending weren't credit courses. Again, it depends upon the individual child: your child may grow and thrive from the experience, or she may have a miserable, lonely time.

The program which my daughter attended at BU was two weeks long and cost just under $2,000, not including transportation to and from Boston plus 'spending money'. She took two non-credit classes - Biology and Marketing, they had a selection of two classes from groups of four offered in math and science, and the humanities/business -, both of which she enjoyed. There was nominal 'homework' in each. There were approximately forty-five other students in her session. Students came from the Boston suburbs, mostly from the East Coast as far as Florida, and a handful from the West Coast, as well as four international students. She enjoyed it so much that she decided that she wanted to apply to BU as her first choice in schools.

This was a pitfall that we frankly hadn't taken into consideration. We were, in all honestly, incredibly naive about the marketing of these programs. These schools want your students to not just attend their summer programs, but apply there as well. You can look at it in one of two ways: attending a program at a particular school gives your child a real feel for what that school is actually like because he/she has a very real interest in attending it for four years. Or, your child is attending because that particular school offers a program that will give your child an OVERALL feel for what it's like to be on pretty much ANY college campus. My daughter had actually really, really wanted to attend the Swarthmore summer program; my husband ruled it out because of the cost and the fact that he didn't want her to become 'enamored' of attending Swarthmore, should she really like her experience on their campus.

To be blunt, the end result of the experience is a crap shoot. While my daughter loved B.U. and wanted to apply their as her first choice, quite a few of her fellow students were totally turned off by the school. One of the girls with whom she became close friends THOUGHT she would like the school and the campus, but was in for a rude - and much-needed - awakening: she didn't like B.U. at all. (This friend ended up being accepted at Michigan, Rice, SMU and several other schools; she'll be attending the University of Florida in their Honors program on a full scholarship.) Out of the over forty kids in my daughter's session, several of them did apply to B.U. as well.

My daughter was not accepted at B.U. Of the handful of other kids who did apply, only one was accepted.

If you're thinking that sending your child to a college's summer enrichment/credit program will give you an automatic 'in' for application, think again. I remember how really, really furious one of my daughter's friends - a young man from California - was after he was denied admission. "Livid" doesn't even come close. (He will be attending Duke University in the fall.) Somehow, some way, these kids got the impression that Boston University was actually INTERESTED in them. They were shocked, saddened and really angry when, at the end of the day, B.U. was only interested in collecting their money for a two-week 'college camp'.

I felt terribly sad for my daughter; she was truly crushed by first being deferred, and then being rejected. As with many things in life, things happen for a reason. She will be attending a wonderful, large Virginia state university as a college freshman next fall, and all of us - my husband, myself and our daughter - are thrilled with her choice - it was the right one for her.

Enticing parents to send their children to college summer "experiences" at universities is a smart marketing tool on the part of the schools, no doubt. If the experiences that all of us as a family went through help you in any way to make up your mind about the pro's and con's of such a program for your child, I would be thrilled - thrilled that perhaps I showed both sides of the issue, sides that came up that we hadn't anticipated or expected ourselves. Each student is uniquely and wonderfully different; at the end of the day, it's a very personal decision, one that can affect or influence your child for the rest of her life. I know that it did affect my own daughter in a very powerful way.