How important is the residential aspect of the talent search summer camps?

DD11 qualified for our talent search summer camp. It is a residential program at a local university (i.e. a 10 minute drive from our house). DD did not want to attend because she thought that a "sleep away" camp should be more exotic -- not down the street. I dropped the issue. One of my other friend's kid also qualified but the family couldn't afford it. My friend proposed asking the camp if they had space and would let our kids go as "day students" -- less cost and no sleep away issues.

I have no idea if the talent search camp would go for this but I would be concerned about the kids being the oddballs. This seems contrary to one of the potential benefits of the camp -- bonding with a similar group of kids. Thoughts?

My oldest attended one the summer after 4th grade. It was a program for kids entering 4th-6th. She liked it but it was very expensive and we can't swing the cost at this point to do the ones she'd really love like Duke's Marine Lab, although she, too, has qualifying scores from this year and last.

My take on it was that I'd be surprised if they'd let you do it as a day camp, but it can't hurt to ask. Dd didn't find a huge amount of bonding with the other kids although she liked them well enough. I do think that the evening activities and meetings w/ other kids in the residence halls are probably an important part of the bonding aspect if that is what you're going for, though. I don't know if just going for the academic stuff during the day would be enough to really get to know the other kids especially if the rest of them are playing cards in the dorms at night and having time to just hang out.

If the alternative is not going at all, though, I might check into the day camp alternative if my dc was really interested in the program. The one caveat to that was that my dd is seriously interested in marine mammology and found that taking a class in marine biology was a poor choice b/c she didn't feel like she learned much since it was probably geared toward kids without as much background knowledge.