January 19, 2015

U.S. News & World Reports provides important considerations before spending thousands of dollars on a pre-college or summer program:

Pre-college summer programs often give teens a taste of the most attractive aspects of college life: dorm housing, challenging classes and a parent-free environment. While advisers and program directors help students navigate their new surroundings, there are ways parents can help high schoolstudents prepare for the experience before they ever set foot on campus.

Mollie Garberg believes sending one of her daughters to a pre-college program to study neuroscience at Emory University helped when it was time to apply for schools.

[Find the Best High Schools that prepare students for college.]

“She got a glowing evaluation and we attached it to her [college] application[s],” says Garberg. Her daughter, she says, is now in the honors program at Tulane University. Garberg, a mom of three who lives outside of Boston, says the program also helped boost her child’s confidence.

“She understood what college was going to be like,” she says. “She was excited about it.” This summer Garberg plans to send another one of her girls to Brown University for a two-week summer program.

Academic enrichment programs for teens typically run anywhere from one to 10 weeks. Garberg paid about $3,000 to send her oldest daughter to the two-week Emory program. Some programs cost as much as $10,000.

“They’re not cheap, but they’re worth it,” Garberg says.

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