Nat'l Student Leadership Conf - How to tell if legit and good?
Our daughter seems to be getting college stuff in the mail which seems par for the course at this point as a Junior in high school. She's pretty much an all A's student and we're really trying to learn the ropes of college planning and opportunities. We also got something in the mail that sounds interesting. It's called the National Student Leadership Conference. It apparently offers one week experiences on campuses around the U.S. to learn about career genres and learn leadership skills while learning a little about living on a college campus. I guess my question is, how does one find out if it's a well run program? I'm mostly concerned about safety, but also who the people running the program are and how much they pay attention to the kids, how much kids seem to get out of it, cost vs. other programs like this, etc. Any recommendations on how to find out about programs like these? Like is there some kind of website that rates these kinds of week long programs for kids maybe with people's experiences? Thanks.
Parent Replies
The Nat’l Student Leadership Conference is a crock. They market themselves to high-achieving kids, having guessed that their parents will likely have lofty college aspirations for their kids. I’m guessing your daughter scored decently high on the PSAT. My best college advice is to encourage your kid to work hard at school (which it sounds like she is doing), balance herself with some social/down time, and engage herself deeply in one or more extracurricular activities that she is very interested in, which will help her learn about herself and make her college essays more compelling.
My son did a 10 day program several years ago and he loved it! He had never been to sleep away camp so it was his first time away. He loved the activities, met like-minded kids and made great friends. It also helped him get a sense of the type of colleges he wanted to apply to. The marketing is definitely off-putting but the program was great!