s/o Duke TIP Summer Programs? New one just listed

[Halcyon]

It's the first time they are offering it. For 5th and 6th graders:http://www.tip.duke.edu/node/1323

 

It is very pricey but I wonder if it is worth it. We would really have to save our pennies, maybe get the grandparents to chip in a couple hundred.

 

Thoughts?

 

I ask because it's the first time we've had one within striking distance of where we live.

[zenjenn]

I just looked at that, too. It conflicts with my daughter's summer camp (which incidentally costs less than that for a whole MONTH!)

 

I like the theme and I think that something like that has a lot of potential, but I feel like they offer WAY too little information for a $1200 residential week out of state. Nothing about staff, security, accommodations, daily programming, etc. I guess they will add more information later? Frankly the video does not look like the activities are much different than what my kids do if I enroll them in a week of day camp at the local children's science museum - or something like Camp Invention (day camps at local schools around the country). For $1200 it doesn't impress me to see kids working with pipe cleaners, styrofoam cups, and drinking straws as portrayed in the video. (There's nothing wrong with those materials for activities for kids at this age, but it is not necessary to drop $1200 and ship them off to a university for a week for that.) I know there's an argument to be made for profoundly gifted kids to have a week of fellowship with other gifted kids, but the Duke Tip 4th-6th grade requisites are not that category - nor is my older daughter. The kind of child that would typically choose to register for a week of local science/tech day camp is probably also fits the Duke Tip requisites as a general rule.

Edited November 14, 2012 by zenjenn