Some kids are using the summer to get away and really exercise their brains:
Liz Rodrick, 16, is a self-professed nerd. It takes some cajoling for her to get a stranger to use that term, but she insists it isn't derogatory.
She said she, and the 369 other middle school-age students visiting Dickinson College [PA] for the Center for Talented Youth, are bona fide geeks, 100 percent dorks.
And they're proud of it.
"I think of it as a sanctuary for nerds," she said of the three-week academic program. "You don't feel guilty about being smart." Ditto, said Max Bernstein, 15, of San Francisco, Calif.: "If you define nerdiness as an interest in accumulating knowledge, then yes, there are lots of nerds here."
The students in CTY forgo days lounging by the swimming pool for seven-hour days of advanced courses generally not offered in their public schools. Many of the courses pack a year's worth of material into three fast-paced, brain-pumping weeks.
Some of the students are so motivated that organizers take precautions to ensure the students aren't doing too much work.
An entire year into three weeks? Good lord. Either these kids are geniuses, or what counts as a year-long lesson plan for "normal" kids is really, really slow. My guess is it's a little of both.
A Johns Hopkins University program, the Carlisle site is one of 20 nationwide. The second of two three-week cycles began last week.
Parents pay $2,625 tuition for three weeks, though most parents receive financial assistance. But to even be considered, students must first score in the 97th percentile on a nationally normed standardized test.
Then they have to take the SAT, and score a minimum 550 for seventh-graders or 600 for eighth-graders on either verbal or math.
Wow. I would have qualified with my eighth-grade verbal scores - except for that little matter of the $2625 cash. My parents would have probably offered me $100 and all the library books I could read instead.
Posted by kswygert at July 30, 2004 03:32 PM