Education Unlimited

My daughter repeated the Sally Ride Science Camp this year as a 13 year old. The first time she went she was 11 and loved it so much she wanted to go back. When she arrived, one of the counselors recognized her! She loved living in the Berkeley dorms for 5 nights with her friend and getting a feel for college life. Great experience for girls and young teens who are interested in science. I would highly recommend.

Don’t waste your money! Middle School camp was extremely overpriced, subpar instruction (they college students to save money) and curriculum that wasn’t the least bit interesting or challenging. My daughter was looking forward to this camp and was extremely disappointed as were we. Don’t get taken like we did!

My son just took West Cost college tour and he loved it! Thank you for making learning about colleges fun, interesting. He came back home very inspired!
Iryna.

My daughter just finished Prep Camp Excel at UC Berkeley. She absolutely loved it. Everyone involved was so organized. She said the classes were fun and challenging. She lived in the dorms for a week and did not want to leave. Definitely signing up for another camp next year. What a great way to keep kids excited and focused on college.

I always find it interesting when reviews swing from predominantly 5 stars to a few unhappy one stars. I think the one stars are truly unhappy otherwise they would not have taken the time to write the review. But what makes them unhappy? Was it the camp or was it their lack of understanding or appreciating what the camp could offer. In reading their reviews and concerns and having sent my children to Education Unlimited on 2 occasions, I can offer the following:
As a parent, you know your children best. In choosing a program you have to have clarity on what you want your child to get out of it. Education Unlimited provides well-​defined descriptions of the camps and it is up to the parent to decide which camp suits their goals best.
My children, for example, are both academically book smart. They are 4.0 students, AP course students, members of the National Honor Society and varsity athletes. They are both strong in science and mathematics so if I choose a camp that concentrated on science or math, I would be doing so to keep them sharp, but not necessarily to challenge them.
If on the other hand, if my goal would be to challenge them, then I would choose a camp out of their comfort zone. For my kids, it would be the public speaking and/​or the A+ Leadership camps. So since our goal was to challenge them, these were the camps we choose… and indeed they were challenged and stimulated. They learned new skills and emerged feeling accomplished and much more confidant speaking in front of people and organizing their thoughts on the spot. In short they both had successful experiences. I will note that each had different experiences, because they are different kids, but each experience was positive.
For the parent who said they only use Stanford, UCLA and the other highly esteemed universities as room and board… well, yes they do! and Education Unlimited does not make any claim beyond that. But look at it from another perspective: How amazing is it for a 14 year old to be on the Stanford campus and live the college life for a week. It is POWERFUL. No amount of parental guidance on the importance of attending college can duplicate the actual knowledge of being there and living it and coming away with a positive «college» experience.
As a parent and more over as a consumer you need to be smart in your purchases and realize what benefits these programs are actually offering. You must realize that these programs or any other programs, while having some grade guidelines for some of the camps, draw from a broad region. They do not have an admission requirement or know what classes their campers have previously taken so they must fashion their courses accordingly. It is the job of the parent to read the course description, establish the family goals and determine what they want their child to get from it.
For our family, the administration has been very helpful as well. They had an old email address for me and I was not getting any information. Needless to say, our family had missed many of the deadlines. The administration was very helpful getting us up to date and current before the camps began.
On many levels, from the administration, to the staff and on the course content, I highly recommend Education Unlimited.

My 10 year old daughter attended Sally Ride Science Camp, Berkeley, in June of 2014. I cannot say enough how amazing this camp was! My daughter absolutely wants to do it again next summer. We chose the marine biology section and along with the day to day activities, there was a field trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science which my daughter thoroughly enjoyed with Dr. Rhonda as her guide.
My daughter has Type 1 diabetes and from the minute we checked in, the staff was aware of her condition and ready to help with her care.
The staff was ready and available for checkin, always made sure we new how the girls were doing, responded to any emails and phone calls that were made and were extremely accommodating with the commuter option.
It was so great for my daughter to meet kids from all around the world. Children from as far as Hong Kong and Syndey attended this camp. My daughter was signed up for the commuter option, but after making new friends, quickly wanted to stay into the evening and be there early enough to have breakfast with her new friends.
The love of science has overflowed into her middle school experience. She and her fellow camp friend are 2 of only a handful of girls that have joined the STEM Club at our school. I feel that the Sally Ride Science Camp helped in getting her excited about science!
One more nice bit was the food in the cafeteria was great! She came home every day telling me about the wonderful menu and how much she had eaten!!!

My daughter attended the Emerging Writers program on the Brown campus this past summer. It was an amazing experience for her. It was her first time away from home, and the onsite counselors were caring, thorough and thoughtful. I had constant contact with the program’s director, who always returned my emails and phone calls in a very timely matter. Everyone was professional and easy to work with. My daughter loves literature and writing. She felt like the program helped her grow as a writer, and opened her eyes to different genres. She wants to try the same program on a different campus next summer.

I have sent my daughter to summer programs since she was 9. She is 13 now.
Last two summers we tried Education Unlimited programs and they were both amazing.
The customer service before hand was friendly and personalized. Call and ask for Nermin or Chris. Both are super knowledgeable and helpful. I was always impressed that when I called they immediately knew who I was, who my daughter was and what camp she was doing. All of my little requests were handled in a prompt and professional manner. I have not had that experience with other camps.
The staff at camp was equally attentive. When we went to check in the staff and directors were there to meet and warmly greet us. They all introduced themselves and shook my and Jessica’s hands. They has really read the materials we sent in and already knew where we were from and a few of Jessica’s likes and dislikes which helped her feel at home right away.
The staff at camp both summers were highly qualified and the curriculum was well thought out. She did Sally Ride Science at UC Berkeley the first summer and really liked her lead teacher Vicki. Starting her off in an all girl camp was comforting for both of us. We had done ID tech the summer before and that hadn’t gone so well!
This last summer we decided to try A+ Summer Middle School and she really loved that. Her camp director was Liz who was amazing and super organized. My daughter loved doing the mystery summer major and is already talking about going back this summer to do the future studies major.
Can’t recommend this program enough. It is laughable that some people on here compare it to the YMCA camp. I used to volunteer at the Y. They aren’t even remotely the same experience in quality, curriculum, staff, safety or attention.

I sent my 12 year daughter (rising 7^th grader) to Computer Camp at Stanford this summer and was completely underwhelmed. This camp is overpriced and mediocre — don’t waste your time or money. I wish I had read these reviews on Unilocal before I had committed to this camp.
Be sure to double check which computer camp you are signing up for. There is one that claims to teach computer science but I inadvertently signed up for the computers & business camp. They teach basic HTML and CSS but not to any depth where the kids can actually make anything meaningful. The kids were asked to copy code given to them by their instructors and when the code didn’t work, the instructors didn’t know why.
Their lead instructor Navid spends a generous amount of time pontificating about how Google can’t be trusted with your data, how they might share data with the NSA, and how they sell users’ data to advertisers. My husband runs Google+; my daughter’s father works at Google; and I used to run the design team at Google. My daughter doesn’t need to hear from this guy what Google does where he is totally uninformed. If he wants to have a discussion at this level, he should do it in a more thoughtful way, perhaps by getting the kids to research policy and have a debate where multiple perspectives and possible realities can be explored. Of all the things I find disappointing about this camp, I am most livid about this.
Navid covered principles of economics which my daughter found interesting. According to my daughter, she was one of a few who paid attention to this lecture, while the rest of the kids played video games on the computer.
They took a field trip to the Computer History Museum which I could have done for 1% of the cost of this camp.
The camp materials firmly say that you have to pick up your kid between 5:00 — 5:15 or you will be charged $ 60/​hr. So I was not pleased when I had to sit around and wait until 5:30 for my child to be delivered at the pick up point. The camp director described the instructor as being «very passionate» and wants to keep the kids for as long as possible because he has so much material to cover. I am disappointed they are not respectful of other people’s time when they expect the parents to respect THEIR time.
I was also disappointed that the kids spent all of their time indoors, even during breaks when they could have gone outside to get fresh air and move around.
Overall, even though it was not what we expected, my daughter did take something away from this camp. But, compared to other camps, we did not find this to be high enough quality for the price.

This is in regards to computer camp web development course at Stanford at Palo Alto, CA
Head instructor Navid. Web development instructor: Michael.
My son enjoyed it, and I felt it worth the money for the following reasons.
–8 hours/​day of teaching on web development covering coding that my son didn’t know as well as reviewing areas my son did know
— Field trip to computer museum to see history of computer science
— Students had to come up with a presentation by end of week and had to to a crash project to demonstrate that they learned something. Presentations were done in a classroom. All had impressive projects
–Students also get one field trip to Santa Cruz Boardwalk to relax and get to hang with each other.
–international and national student exposure. My son’s roommate was from Arkansas. Some of his classmates were from Florida and London, England and New York City.
–I extensively spoke to Michael and Navid. Navid really put thought into this program. Michael has real world practical experience in web development and CS programming, so he had great advice to help me guide my son.
I looked at ID tech and Digital Media, but after searching reviews on internet, they seemed to be more into providing fun games and times for kids and less on class time of real programming. My son had to do intense work on his web presentation.
Finally it was good for my son to get out and experience the college life. I think parents who enroll kids in this course are looking for more serious courses.
I saw poor reviews of the Sally Ride camp. That section has nothing to do with the web development section, so one has to look at each course separately rather than at Education Unlimited as a whole for reviews.

The staff are really impressive. At most camps we know of the ‘teachers’ are typically college students, or general education teachers. In our experience the staff at these camps are subject matter experts. Public speaking instructors at the sessions we’ve sent kids to have been drama or theater experts, high level speech or debate coaches, or high level professional speaking consultants. Some of these instructors are of a quality you would expect to find at expensive adult conferences.
The other staff I can speak to are from the Creative Writing camp, where the staff all seemed to be either published authors, or have MFAs in creative writing, or other such qualifications. The staff were very kid friendly, just wonderful teachers who care about kids, and it shows. Kudos!

I agree with all the comments that the other unsatisfied parents have made. Don’t be fooled by the name of the company and the name of the colleges. My daughter attended the Sally Ride 2013 camp at Stanford and it was a huge disappointment. Save your money and send your kid to a YMCA camp. It costs about half of what this camp does, they feed the kids better food, there are more activities, and your child will return with a lot of great memories.
UPDATE
Matthew Fraser offered a substantial discount on another camp as a result of a letter I sent him after the experience I wrote about (above). I used it to send my daughter to the 2014 Prep Camp Excel at UCLA. My daughter was much more impressed with this camp, and claimed to have «learned a lot». As for me, from the camp orientation on the first day it seemed much more structured and academically rigorous. Still, when I look at the cost… let’s just say that my wife and I make a combined income of $ 200K/​year, and we think the camps offered by Education Unlimited are very pricy for what they deliver. Parents are seduced by these programs being held on university campuses (which has to account for a large part of the cost). Truth is that the kids see very little of the campus, and could be held at Holiday Inn as far as the kids are concerned. Parents are not provided a grade or much any other measure of what the kids got out of it. From what I can tell, the substance of the program does not measure up to the grandeur of the settings. Education Unlimited provides a service for ‘Tiger Moms’ and alike to ‘feel’ like they are giving a leg-​up to their kids. If you have the money to burn, and you don’t mind stealing a part of your kids vacation time so you ‘feel’ like a better parent, then go for it. I still say that the YMCA offers a better and richer life experience for your kid for a lot less money, and they will feel like they really went to camp.

Education Unlimited’s academic programs are excellent. The staff are great, and the programs are a good balance of fun and learning. College Admission Prep Camp and Public Speaking Camp are both very, very good. In short, a double thumbs up from me.

Education Unlimited has hired me as their Videographer for two summers now and I’m hoping that they will reconnect with me for a third year. I’ve had an absolutely amazing time working with them and love the experience they create for their campers AND staff.
As a hired staff member one might think «what qualifies you to give an accurate review of this company?» Well… In order to gather the footage I needed I would spend an entire week working with the 2 or 3 camps that were being run during those dates. that means capturing the class sessions, working with the kids and staff, and living on the beautiful Stanford campus. What I found amazing was that I, a 2 year college student now, was actually learning quite a lot just dropping in on classes throughout the day. This was due to 1) the amazing attitudes and personality the teachers brought to class. and 2) they actually knew what they were talking about! the Staff hired for EU’s camps are actually QUALIFIED in their subject and LOVE to teach it. This makes for happy eager to learn campers, which there were plenty of, and a overall positive experience. Every week there were kids crying who didn’t want to leave, Not just because they would miss their friends who came from all over the world, but because they would miss their counselors and teachers! (yep, they’re that awesome) Here is a link to EU’s youtube and the videos I took there.

My daughter Grace loved her camp experience with EU. She made new friends, had fun and most importantly learned valuable writing and communication skills! She can’t wait to sign up this summer. I found the staff to be incredibly smart, reliable, kind and patient!

Much time sitting around. Too much FREE TIME. They never dissected a fish, a frog or a pig. They did not experience anything new or participate in any amazing Scientific experinces. My 8 grader attended this camp 2013 and learned stuff shich she already new. No effort in the filed trip. Same ol, same olé. No creativity. OVERPRICED waste of money.
Don’t let the name «Stanford» or ‘UCLA” fool you, they only use or rent the space. These school have absoultey nothing ot do with the camps.

I spent two summers at Stanford University with Education Unlimited. I was at their debate camps, and I always left prepared and energized for the upcoming school year.
The instruction was intensive and in depth, and the instructors were all well connected at Universities I was interested in attending. There is no doubt that my college prospects were increased by my attendance at camp.

It’s hard to have much to add vs. the other reviews that proclaim this camp overpriced and mediocre. Sally Ride science camp at Standford this past summer was an utter disappointment. Our bright and academically enthusiastic rising 8^th grade daughter was excited to spend a week of her summer learning about science, but walked away from her Sally Ride experience feeling upset and discouraged.
Our complaints were around 1) the content of the program and 2) the staff management.
The curriculum was light on content, geared for younger kids, not interesting and more or less a waste of time. The field trip to the Academy of Sciences did not bring anything new to the table. There was a research project that included the girls’ using their smart phones to do research (which our daughter couldn’t do, since she doesn’t have a smart phone). The staff was at times disorganized and not prepared, spending time online looking up content. Much of the literature handed out at the onset was not covered. Net net, our daughter did not feel she really learned much new.
The staff management issues seemed to reflect a staff not trained to oversee/​manage teenagers, and included a counselor who gave our daugther a fairly mean-​spirited nickname, sarcasm of some of the girls ideas, and policies like requiring 13-​year olds to keep their bedroom doors open, including when they were changing and while they were trying to go to sleep, until bed check at 10:30 pm.
Need we say more? It did not meet expectations on any front. Cannot recommend, at least not at the 8^th/​9^th grade age level.

About to write a review about the Sally Ride Camp and found someone had my exact words «mediocre and overpriced camp hanging its hat on the name of prestigious universities»! Sums it up perfectly. Spot on.
My 10year old daughter’s complaints included too much sitting around, teachers not stopping to answer questions, and the classes were too basic. My main complaint was that the «academic» day finished at 4:15 and not at the advertised 5:00 with day campers sitting around for the last 45mins, plus they took a day trip to the Academy of Science (which we had already done) and the next day an hour long excursion to the campus bookshop. Seriously for close to $ 1,500 for five days, that was one expensive field trip.

I loved my summers with Education Unlimited! Their curricula and environment were exceptionally conducive for learning and social development. As a student, I learned crucial public speaking skills and made life long friends. As an instructor, I was impressed by the EU pedagogy, which put an emphasis on teaching students to love learning while providing a safe environment for campers to flourish.
A really excellent company offering great summer programs!