Seeing a college campus for the first time is, for most students at ASU, something that happens long before Freshmen Orientation or the first day of classes. For many, exposure to college campuses starts even earlier in life, with summer camp.
The wonder of Palm Walk fades away, Hayden Library becomes less intimidating, and the Secret Garden gets outed early on as the pitter patter of little feet on campus heralds the unmasking of University mysteries. Not only does this bring kids closer to where they will be after high school, but makes it even more likely that they will seek out that environment for themselves.
Advanced Placement classes in high school give students the same college experience in terms of education, preparing them for nightly reading assignments and the rigors of tests with more than one right answer. But where they fall short is in giving prospective students a full picture of university life.
The classes, the fields and even the teachers, in terms of clout, are all bigger on a college campus. AP Government and History 110, in terms of discussion and expectations, test vastly different skills and levels of understanding from one to the other.
The first time a student asks a university professor a question outside of high school, the pressure and worry of not being up to snuff can effectively put a halt to any meaningful class discussion. Silent classes of freshmen are testaments to this, as formerly gregarious AP students suddenly lose their nerve when faced with the winner of a Pulitzer Prize.
ASU has housed a variety of summer camps for teens and kids on anything from robotics to business. Programs targeting underrepresented student groups expose future degree-seekers to a campus that money, family or circumstance might otherwise prevent.
Offering these summer camps, and sometimes paying for living space and food, also gives the University a chance to get ASU into the minds of students early. About 70 percent of students who are now college-age and have participated in ASU's robotics camp are now Sun Devils, according to graduate student research.
Even if a school doesn't have the best program in the country for science, English or literature, students who are invited and welcomed while they're young to a campus that is genuinely committed to achieving higher education will be that much more likely to think well of that school later when applying to college.
Most 14-year-olds do not want to go to college for summer camp and spend their summer listening to a crotchety professor drone on with pointless advice. But while most summer camp friends fade away, the friendships made at a camp where peers are driven by the same quirky fascination with inverted pyramid style can last even beyond college years.
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