Academic summer camps were our first calling at Education Unlimited®; when we founded the organization with our College Admission Prep Camp® in 1993, we created a whole new genre of summer camp experience. Over the years, we expanded our offerings, developing about a dozen different kinds of academic summer camps and academic summer programs. Our ultimate goal is to meet each student at their level of mastery when they come into the camp, and add as much to their knowledge and skill base as we can are able while keeping the learning experience vibrant, interactive, and fun.
An important distinction between our programs and those of many other organizations is our focus on single subjects. Through this immersive single-subject approach, the curriculum is of greater breadth and depth than any survey course or multi-subject program. When you try to do only one thing but do it well, greater progress is made overall Andrew Carnegie, the famous 19th-century businessman, and philanthropist espoused a similar philosophy: "Concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket." Our programs embrace Carnegie's advice; each of our academic summer camps focuses on a single subject, allowing teachers and students to target their efforts into developing core competence, accomplishment, or mastery of that subject. Given that providing outstanding academic summer camps is our original mission, most of our offerings can be considered academic summer camps. Our many academic summer camps and academic summer programs include:
6th - 8th Graders
Research and studies confirm the significance of summer learning loss.
Past client families often tell us that after their children attend an Education Unlimited®academic summer camp or academic summer program, they return to school in the fall ready to "hit the ground running". This supports our belief that by attending a strong academic summer program, students successfully avoid 'summer learning loss,' a phenomenon that has been researched for more than 30 years. The following research shows why it is so important for families to combat summer learning loss with high-quality academic camps and programs such as those offered by Education Unlimited®
"A synthesis of 39 separate studies, researchers found that the average student, returning to school in September has lost the equivalent of 1.0 to 2.6 months of previous learning in effect, erasing this amount of learning from their mind. According to the report, the biggest losses occur in the areas of spelling and computational math (multiplication, addition, etc.). The good news for both parents and students is [by having a summer learning plan and acting on it] that this "academic atrophy" can be reduced and even eliminated." — Rob Stringer, Educational and Parenting Consultant
"...the following statistics [have been] provided to me by Ron Fairchild, Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Summer Learning. All students experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer. On average, students lose approximately 2.6 months of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation skills during the summer months. Only about 10 percent of students nationwide participate in summer school or attend schools with non-traditional calendars. A majority of students (56 percent) want to be involved in a summer program that helps kids keep up with schoolwork or prepare for the next grade." — Dr. Ruth A. Peters, Clinical Psychologist and regular contributor to the 'Today' show
Education Unlimited summer camps and programs are top-of-the-class with quantified and documented results.
Education Unlimited®'s academic programs help students achieve proven, quantified results. Students who have completed our SAT prep curriculum at our original College Admission Prep Camp scored average gains of about 150 points, and some students see gains of as much as several hundred points. Recent research establishes that for a large percentage of colleges and universities, as little as 30 points of improvement can be decisive in particular college admission decisions, particularly for the most selective colleges and universities! While we believe that research may actually overstate the case a bit, the truth is that gains in SAT scores do matter in college admissions, and the best and most recent research provides powerful support for such a claim.
For most of our programs well more than 90% of students and parents have stated on their 'post-camp' evaluations they would recommend the program they attended to others. The vast majority of students who have attended an Education Unlimited® program rate their overall instructor quality, knowledge, and effort on their behalf 9/10 or 10/10. Recently more and more of our programs have seen 100% of students rate the program as a perfect 10/10 in overall quality and/or said they would recommend the program to other students. Having summer programs receive 90% overall satisfaction is market leading, but having 100% of students rate a program as a perfect 10 and/or worthy of recommending to friends is truly unusual. Even with these powerful satisfaction ratings, every year Education Unlimited® continues to innovate, improving existing programs, developing and improving curriculum, and designing whole new summer camp offerings.
Academic summer camps can make a difference in any students' academic progress, promoting intellectual curiosity and heightening self-confidence. As you make your summer plans, we hope that you will consider our leading academic summer camps and programs, many of which have no parallel offered by any other organization. If you need additional guidance on selecting the most appropriate academic summer camps for your family, please contact us directly!