Why your child should spend their summer in Iowa

No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. The leaves are just changing color, and we’re already talking about next summer.

You probably already know competitions and summer intensives are an excellent way for students to deepen their knowledge and show commitment and drive. In our experiences, awards and acceptances complement teacher recommendations, further the trajectory of a student’s coursework and extracurriculars, and lend clarity to college activity lists.

But which programs are worth spending part or all of a precious high school summer on?

You may have heard of summer precollege programs at elite universities like Columbia, Brown, and Stanford. But two of our favorites—and most competitive—summer programs are actually based at the University of Iowa.

One for writers: The Iowa Young Writers’ Studio (IYWS) is a two-week residential creative writing program for students in grades 9-12. If you’ve heard of the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop, this is their program for teens!

And one with a STEM focus: The Secondary Student Training Program (SSTP) is an intensive 5.5-week summer research residency for students in grades 10-11 who want a deeper exploration of engineering, biology, and business analytics, among other fields.

These are only a few of the programs we recommend students and families start researching now. Applications for programs usually open in winter and early spring. Putting together a short list now ensures you won’t miss deadlines or start applications too late to solicit recommendations.

As for competitions, many of our favorites are open now! For any writers and/or visual artists, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards opened their annual call for submissions on October 1.

Is your student thinking about applying to a competition or summer program this year?

Send us a note with your plans, or call anytime, and we will reply with ideas of our own.