Reply to Are summer boarding programs at Brown, Harvard, Penn, Exeter, Andover worth it?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Are summer boarding programs at Brown, Harvard, Penn, Exeter, Andover worth it?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have multiple students who do summer at Harvard each year.  Almost all of them are rejected from Harvard when they apply to be admitted as freshmen.

I have a low opinion of this program because students who do this ALL come back believing they will be admitted to Harvard, assuring me that professors had told them they "had a good chance."  These students sometimes go back to the summer program several times, and often these are weak students.  I understand Harvard is making (a lot) of money from these students in the program, and it must be difficult for the profs teaching in the summer program (to make extra money) to be confronted with weak students who must be placated to ensure they keep coming back and paying, but the whole things leaves a bad taste in my mouth and leads to heartbreak each year when rejection letters come out.

[/quote]

I know quite a few kids that have done the Harvard and Brown summer things. This year alone they're going to Brown, Duke, Cornell, Harvard, Yale. I'm not saying they got in because of the programs, I am saying these programs attract highly motivated kids. [b]There's a lot of value in kids being exposed to smart diverse peers from around the world. Further, being away at summer school is far more productive than what the average lazy ass American teen -- which is sit on their ass all summer, maybe scoop ice cream while texting.[/quote][/b]

That's lovely, but most of my students who did Harvard for summer actually believed they were going to be admitted to "real" Harvard because of the programs, and because of what the profs told them.  Also, I can only conclude that grade inflation is rampant at the Harvard summer program because mediocre students I taught were given outrageously inflated evaluative feedback.  It was NOT fair to do this to kids and their parents.  For what it's worth, I live and teach in Europe, so many of these families were not American and they (and their kids) truly believed the students were going to be admitted as Harvard freshmen.  The admin/PR for the Harvard summer school does nothing to discourage this delusion.  I currently have four academically mediocre students who are convinced they will be receiving acceptance letters to Harvard in the near future, and they will all be crushed when they receive the rejections.  I see this every year.  [/quote]

Well they must be stupid to make this assumption. The teachers of their summer programs are not admissions people, and you should be able to point that out to your students and their parents.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics