This is a real thing!!

The setting of the novel I'm currently taking out for what is hopefully the final full rewrite is a "pre-college program" for exceptional high school students to get a feel for the college environment, get some classes out of the way, blah blah blah...

I made it up.

It's real.

Okay, it's not exactly how I had described it--but it's real! The exact college I based the campus off of does offer high school girls (it's a women's college) access to a variety of summer classes. Which means, instead of handwaving everything, I can take what's actually real about this actually real program, combine it with my actual experience as a high school sophomore at Earlham Explore-A-College, and make something real.

I'm super excited. Research is way more fun than I thought it was.

To clarify, I absolutely knew high school students could take college classes. I did it twice, once at Earlham's Explore-A-College (I can't find any evidence anymore that this is still around and that makes me sad), and once studying Japanese at the community college when I was a sophomore in high school.

...Those were presented in reverse chronological order. Just to confuse you.

Anyway, I DIDN'T know the actual college I based this book's setting on did such a thing. And they do. I need to adjust some things--the real version has high schoolers and college students sharing classes, which I might keep and just adjust the cast since we're going in for a full rewrite. It doesn't provide housing for the students, though, and that I just have to outright change because the book requires the students be isolated and far from home. (Horror is fun... Also, the main characters are pen pals who get to room together for the duration of the program.)

What's REALLY different about this is that the real thing is a four-week program, not all summer. Which actually adds a nice deadline for the villain that I can use to create tension.

So... hypothetically... What's a tactful way to email the leaders of this program and say "I need to know how many students you usually have in this program so I know how many victims I have for this novel"?

Also I lied, students do live on-campus. Holy moly, that is expensive.

cornflake said:

I'd think they'd have the enrollment someplace in their info on their site.

There's also stuff like Duke's TIP, which is also hella expensive for what it is, but which you can do as young as 7th grade. Of course, you can also just have your 7th grader take the SAT for the like $75 fee and then enroll the kid in a public uni's summer class for whatever that'd cost, without the froufrou, and save a bundle, but ...

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I couldn't find it anywhere on the summer program pages. Sent off a brief email asking that and a couple other things that were mentioned without specifics. Won't hear back until Monday at the earliest, because I decided to do this research on a Friday night. ^^'

Also when I say expensive, I mean a four-week course costs more than my family paid (with financial aid) for a full YEAR. And they don't offer financial aid to high schoolers.

Damn, that reminds me of another question I was gonna ask... Might be for the best. It's a lot harder to ask that one tactfully, and I'm not sure I care about the answer.

cornflake said:

The TIP is $4k-$5k for three weeks last I heard.

Depends on the school. I mean for Duke that's not expensive for a summer class, but for an in-state public school, you could get a full summer course for much less.

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$8k+ for four weeks, and they encourage you to bring extra. Granted, it is two full courses.

This school cost, when I went there, some $50k per year--but very generous financial aid policies meant I paid somewhere around 10% of that.