betsy strassner
1/5
My grandson attended the UCLA program as a day camper. About 1/3 of the evening activities were cancelled or changed. I was told this was because the program was flexible but it looked more like a lack of organization. The outside speakers were cancelled twice as was the Quiz Bowl. The Quiz Bowl was replaced by a debate on chocolate.
Although the supervised activities for the day campers were to last until 6 pm, two days they ended early. Once at 5 and once at 3:15. Instead of assigning a counselor to stay with the day campers and provide some sort of activity, the students were left alone to wait in front of the dorm or in the lobby with nothing to do. Had I not been available in the area when my grandson phoned, he would have had to wait 3 hours unsupervised with no activity. There was no advanced warning that there would be an early end to activities.
I can't comment on the curriculum because the parents are given no information on that. However my grandson did comment that when he finished a problem, the class had to wait until the last person completed the assignment until they moved on. There seemed to be alot of downtime and wait periods. Classes were not taught by university professors but by counselors who were all new this year. Also there was very limited access to computers for students to research their projects and no access to printers. If there was a need to print out anything, he had to purchase printing from the UCLA print center. We had to stop by Staples to purchase graph paper for his project. How lubricious that o even graph paper was provided in a math camp.
My granddaughter attended one of the John Hopkins programs. Classes were limited to 8 students, the curriculum was structured and parents were informed of their child's progress. All needed equipment and supplies were provided by the program. None of which were true in the Areteem program. Both my grandchildren will be attending the John Hopkins program next year. Iy is little wonder that Areteem has a significant amount of openings still available for their Chicago and Boston.
