Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Any experience w/CTY Summer Programs in CA?

I've been reading through the CTY programs available in California and am hoping that someone here can share any experiences.

I've found quite a bit of info about sessions back east, but need something much, much closer to home for our 5th grader.

Many thanks!

Are you looking for information about Baby CTY since your child is only 5th grade? Regular CTY is usually for middle school students.

Here is a link to a page which contains some baby CTY info.

http://www.realcty.org/mw/index.php?title=Baby_CTY

My younger daughter went to CTY summer program at Loyola Marymount (LMU)in LA several years ago. But she was a 7th grader. It was her first residential program experience. She wrote an essay about the experience and got published in Young Scholar Times. If you are interested, I can dig it up and PM you.

Yes, I am also curious to know. We have also been thinking about the CTY summer program as a possibility for our 5th grade daughter next summer - we would be interested in the Stanford campus (closest). Probably one of the science courses. Interested to know about the overall experience as well as the quality. thanks!

here it is. Keep in mind, this is not a baby CTY summer program.

==========================================

Nerd Camp: Not!

By Yani, 12

The stereotypical nerd: a person with big glasses, a nose buried in a book, and no social life whatsoever. This was the kind of kids I expected to meet when I went to John Hopkins� CTY camp at Loyola Marymount University in LA. Because of the 7 hours a day class, being almost completely cut off from technology, as well as a very structured schedule, I had been dreading this camp for the entire summer. Little did I know that three weeks later, at the end of the camp, I would not want to leave. Plus, I did not meet a single stereotypical nerd the entire 3 weeks. The people there were intelligent, but not anti-social. In fact, definitely not anti-social.

I took International Politics, a subject that covers economics, international relation and (you got it) politics. The first week, the class focused on colonization, writing an essay about King Leopold II of Belgium�s brutal grip on the Congo a few decades back.

The second week, we had a World Trade Organization simulation, where we individually pretended to be different countries in the WTO, and argued over one of many issues that the real WTO has to face: agriculture. Among the countries represented in our simulation were China, India, Canada, the USA, and the EU. Among the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) represented at our mini-WTO conference were South Korean farmers, Green Peace, which I represented, Monsanto Inc., and an anarchist. We conferred over the issues of export subsidies, tariffs, and taxes.

Among many other things, we also learned about power: definition of power, soft power vs. hard power, etc. Learning about International politics was intriguing and fun: information about the WTO, the Bretton Woods Trio (The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and GATT which later became the WTO), and other such things are sure to come in handy (especially in sophomore-year World history)

CTY had a stringent schedule, but we still had some free time. Along with social time each weekday night, there was no class on weekends, and we had the option of going off-campus to a grocery store and having a non-cafeteria lunch with our Residential Assistants (RA). Other times, we could order Pizza or Thai food, and once we even had a Barbeque.

On Sunday was an event called �Non-Mandatory Fun�, which was mandatory. Having fun, however, was not. Other weekend Activities ranged from a Quiz Bowl, Casino Night to Water Day. Also, every Friday, we had a dance on the lawn, which always culminated with the CTY tradition �American Pie.�

To many kids, this was the first taste of real college life. Dorm conditions and food, while bad, were tolerable. Plus, we were too busy making new friends from all over the world to complain. Three weeks of living with each other makes as strong a bond as three years of seeing someone once in a while. We had the biggest hall in the entire camp, made up of 16 people. This made for having 2 breakfast tables, 15 people to go around the campus with, and a whole lot of chaos! In order to insure that we were all here, we came up with an arbitrary sentence in which each person said a word: �A large porcupine climbed the apple tree to finish eating paper and salty orange fish (period).�

Now, a few weeks after coming back from CTY summer camp, it still feels weird to go to breakfast without the company of 15 girls, to not wear a lanyard (we had to wear our bright yellow ones at all times, so some people even got tan lines from them!), and to have my own shower. CTY camp was a great experience. From making friends to learning new things, it far surpassed my expectations.

Dandy, I had called them earlier today , was trying to find out if they had summer programs in my area (also California). The person there told me they would be posting the locations in December...hope that helps

Thanks, Chenchuan! That was an excellent read.

This is the info they have up at their official site:
http://cty.jhu.edu/summer/summer-programs.html

Looks very interesting, and I'm definitely interested in learning more!

Deadline for CTY Talent Search Application is today, 11/20/09, if interested in the 2010 Summer Programs!
http://cty.jhu.edu/ts/grades26.html#Calendar

thank you for sharing, Chenchuan!

Also, if you have taken the test prior with qualifying scores and re-take it again this year, they will consider the higher of the scores for classes. (You have to retake for 6th or 7th, I believe)

Thanks, Dandy! Because of you, we made the deadline!!

Funny, when I first started looking at the programs in September, there seemed like soooo much time to ponder. Where'd all that time go?!

My DS went to CTY Palo Alto (Stanford) for a 5th/6th grade program last summer. He loved it.

Hi Cym, What course did your DS take at Stanford?

Sorry, mominsac, I didn't see your question till today. He took "Inductive & Deductive Reasoning".

Hi Cym,

My daughter is in 5th grade and I am thinking of enrolling her in
the summer program at Stanford this year.
For a fifth grader is this a good program since this facility
doesn't offer commuter option?
And also any comments on the higher cost of this program.

Thanks,
-Sreddy

My son did CTY on the East Coast (overnight) and loved it. I would think that program is very similar at all it's sites.

Thanks, Cym.
I'm also debating whether to send a 5th grader or wait another year, given the cost, although if the classes are indeed academically challenging, it sounds like it would be an overall great experience. (we were happy with the CTYOnline courses last summer, so that's another option)

For those who sent their kids to CTY Summer, what was the best about it - the classes and learning experience? the residential experience? social?

Any other comments by anyone, would be highly appreciated - especially regarding the actual course learning experience.

thanks so much

Hi again mominsac,

My son went to cty stanford as a 6th grader (but only age 10). I really liked how all the kids were basically the same age group. He had a great experience, both with the class and socially. It's actually surprising to me that he got along well with his roommate because he can be grumpy. But his roommate was from Shanghai and was really nice (and I'm sure tolerant). It depends on the child--I would definitely consider sending my next ds as a 5th grader (age 9) if he's interested because he's is more organized that his older brother and more sociable.

I had sent my 11 yr old previously to a one wk program at univ of denver (through the formerly known as Rocky Mountain Talent Search, now known as Western Academic Talent Search) and to other one-week adventure-type camps. These were "warms-ups" for a longer (3-wk) stay. I don't know if I would send my son to a 3-wk program as his 1st sleep-away experience, and would recommend some kind of "warm-up" if you haven't already.

Thank you, Cym. Very insightful advice. My DD has been away on couple overnight school science field trips for 4-5 days each, so hopefully that will account for some experience! WATS classes seem very interesting for the 4-6 graders - I may look into that some more - thanks for the tip!

My other dilemma now, is that DD is only really interested in one of the two science courses offered at Palo Alto, we want her to be truly interested in the courses that she applies for, and prefer her to stay in NorCal if only, for travel reasons. She has High HOnors math scores, hope it is high enough to get her her first (and basically, only) choice.... It will be a little gamble... wondering if that is a risky proposition and sure way to lose the registration fee We may have to be open-minded about having her apply for other sites and travel by air to get there. Seems that others have successfully had their kids in this age group (4th-6th) travel out-of-state for these experiences?

I think it depends on the kid--whether they're ready for 3 wk overnight camp in another state. I have found that the most important thing is having your child pick the course that is right for her. She has to be excited about it. We just went through that process and it took about 2 weeks. I had each kid look at the possibilities, read the descriptions, narrow down their list, then do it again, and again. Even after they chose, I kept re-evaluating some, so that in the end they can say they chose it knowingly and with due deliberation. I do this because 1) it's expensive, 2) we are far away no matter where they go, so I'm not going to let them out of it, 3) I want them to feel like it's completely their choice and then they'll invest themselves into it.

If your daughter prefers a course at a different campus, do you have friends or relatives nearby? That is a comfort for me with younger kids.

Hi Cym,
I like your process - I do need to have her revisit for more choices and internalize the whole experience a little more.



In fact, I just found the CTY syllabi site, so I was going to review and have my daughter review for more choices.

I do agree that it being expensive, I want to be sure the course is of absolute interest to her. I'm actually positive that she will really enjoy the social aspect, in fact, I'm almost certain that she will love it...but, also since she is stepping out in the height of her sports season to attend this, I want to be sure that it is academically very well worth it for her.

We are pretty fortunate to have a local Talent Search summer programs at nearby university 10 miles away, they have some week-long day classes for rising 5/6th, and longer 3-week day classes for MS students. So that is certainly an option for us -- but I like the idea of having her experience away from home, and be in a learning environment with kids from other parts of the country, or world.

Yes, my sister lives in LA, so SoCal site is definitely a possibility. I explained the possible LA option to my daughter today. I just would prefer to be there personally for drop off/pick up, however, to make sure everything is set, so that's more airfare to think about.... the $$ adds up fast! Hopefully, it doesn't go that route...

Hi Everyone,
Anyone's DC going to CTY Summer Program this summer? We just heard back from JH CTY and DD got her first choice class in Palo Alto, 2nd session for 5/6th graders.

Our son, 8, will be going to Thousand Oaks/1st Session for Intro to Robotics--5th/6th. He's very excited about the whole experience. He selected several different courses, including science, humanities and writing... but was really hoping for Robotics.

He's been in a bit of a dither lately about math... so this assignment came in handy. I explained to him that had he not done so well on the math portion of the SCAT, he may not have made it into the class. He grudgingly agreed that maybe math can be useful after all. (We are trying very patiently to get him in touch with his inner mathy...)

DW, however, just keyed into the fact that the session runs for THREE WHOLE WEEKS!!! And here I thought DS would be the apprehensive one.

Hi Dandy,
My DD almost signed up for the 5th/6th Robotics at Thousand Oaks/2nd session as one of her choices - she thought the Robotics class also sounded great and Thousand Oaks would have been the next closest site. We decided to stay with Palo Alto (which didn't offer Robtics), however, since it was our first year and preferred that she stayed within couple hours drive. We just prayed she got assigned her overall first choice, Science and Engineering, and very excited that she did. She is looking forward to the whole learning experience.

If inclined, please share with us the Robotics / Thousand Oaks experience later - we may be interested next year! We will do the same about Palo Alto/Science and Engineering.

BTW: My daughter has a real passion for anything science - biology, physics, chemistry etc - and I have impressed upon her how important it is for her to master math well, if only to get into the classes, colleges of her choice for science, since math scores are often the first determining factor! So she has become a more enthusiastic math student of late...

Also, BTW: I do wonder if there are a lot of other precocious, "younger" 5th/ 6th graders at these programs, like your son? (I think Cym mentioned above that her DCs were younger too) My daughter, 11, has a fall birthday and is in 5th grade this year (though she is in a self-contained GT program that covers curriculum 1-2 years ahead). She started her schooling in a private school which comformed to the national average of Sept 1st cut off, hence her grading now, but, I do hope she does not feel so "old" at these programs..lol !