All I can say is scam, scam, scam! Do not send you child. We made the mistake of sending our daughter and it was a bad experience for her and us. From all the walking she developed a very bad blister and needed medical assistance, and could not get any, she was given a bandaid and told they do not have medical assistance on staff or give medical advice. ( even though they state they do 24 hours a day) The "opportunities' to visit places are 30 second stops to take pictures in DC. literally did not step inside one of them. They were allowed about 7 hours of sleep per night and for a 10 year old is about 3 hours too few. Had them in class until 10:00 PM everynight.

I almost went a day early to pick my daughter up but she convinced me not to do it.

When I talk directly to the "trained counselors" upon picking my daughter up I all I got was lip service that they were not ware of any issues. I sent multiple emails and called several times asking for someone in charge to voice my complaint over the lack of medical care and not one return call or email.

We had to actually take my daughter to our family doctor for treatment when she came home!

We felt terrible we sent her. Should have realized it was a scam, but since she is in the gifted program at school, nominated by her gifted teacher and everything looked so professional,,,,well we should have known.

Spend the 2k and plan your own DC vacation, take the whole family and actually learn and do more on your own.

I honestly cannot believe this organization is still allowed to operate it is so bad, the word fraudulent comes to mind.

Bad idea to send your kid. It is not a hard receive thing. This is a marketing ploy to make it look like a coveted program. Every year 100,000 students were given this offer. Each batch has 300+ students and they run close to 40 batches. Hence almost 10,000 students fall for this every year. This does not count to college admission. Read more in my (harinair) earlier posting....

We were considering letting my son do this, but we are a little skeptical about the no parent rule. Dont get me wrong, my 13 year old son has been a straight A student since 1st grade. We get he needs to learn to do things by himself, but 6 days and 5 nights is a bit much to be on his own with strangers. Another thing is we have shelled out alot of money for him to be in special academic clubs, we just recieved his letter of acceptance so how is he suppose to raise that kind of money by July 1st, unless we give it to him. If my child is so smart and he has been nominated to participate in anything, how come it cost so much. We have two other children and my husband is the only one working. From what we have heard on this website we dont and cant just give $2,000 away. Its such a big chance.

My son too received this nomination and I am too sick by understanding how they run this scam. To begin with they send teachers and educators letters asking them to nominate "gifted" kid. If they did not they will send other emotional letters informing them they were bad persons since their deserving students missed a "lifetime of chance". The educator is also not aware of "the greatness" or lack there of" of the program and starts nominating the students. The educators are not asked to tell why they think the students deserve this nor they were asked the grades.

Now the CYLC will send a great looking letter which misleads you into thinking that it is run by or has the endorsement of the US Congress or US Government. The price tag's of near $1900 would give a hint to parents. If not the availability of sessions every week gives a hint. They try to make it appear that the nomination is too hard to receive. We have already congratulated my son and given him a sense of achievement by the time we figure out the whole thing is a marketing ploy.

Now it seems like they are employing paid forum posters to post great comments saying "my daughter went there and it is a life time of experience..." and so on. My guess is in many cases the choice of words suggest a paid forum poster.

I am Ok for a "for profit" organization running this - I am a guy who supports profit making businesses. However the parent company Envision EMI LLC tries to effectively hide the "for profit" nature and displays a non-profit or US Government accredited program. Their glossy nomination has the names of senators many of them recruited to their Honorary Advisory board just like you were cheated. Further more it runs multiple programs named "National Youth Scholars Program", "Junior Congressional Youth Leaders Conference" and some others too. The parent company's DC Better Business Bureau (BBB) rating is "F":
www.dc.bbb.org/codbrep.html?ID=7001305&cons=y

The "real" kids who have gone there says that they were supervised and trained by unqualified adults. Beyond that these 10-12 year old kids were asked to walk too much and was given only few hours of rest. Most historical sites have only photo-op and they spend very little time. Most time wasted in eating food... waiting for lineup and waiting for bus or in travel.

You are better served if you choose a summer program from an accredited local University. It will be cheaper and it will help you to get into college.

All I know about it is that people find it to be a tad costly for what they receive.

It's been discussed in this thread: community.greatschools.net/q-and-a/378653/This-also-relates-to-this-putative-Junior-Leadership-Conference

and

community.greatschools.net/advice/852/TRUTH-OF-THE-Junior-National-Young-Leaders-Conference

Did you have any specific questions about the program--selection of attendees? Or have you been to the presentation?

does anyone know anything about the junior national young leaders conference in Washington, D.C.

I would not say this is a SCAM, but close. Our daughter is there right now, and is voicing many concerns. The photo ops are all outside buildings, they do not go into any of them. The information provided us stated lines like "visit the hallowed halls of the capital" photo ops available. The Whitehouse visit was walking for 15 minutes from the parked bus and given 30 seconds to take a picture of the WH in the back, through a gate!
They are kept in meetings until 10:00PM and given 30 minutes for 4 of them to get showers ( lights out 10:30) and then out of bed at 6:00 or 7:00AM. She is 11! No downtime at all. From all the walking tours, ( basically walking by buildings) she developed a bad blister, we told her to see the Nurse ( in the info provided it states a nurse is onsite 8-5 everyday) she was told they do not give medical advice.
I called the admin office and onsite staff, expressed my concern and requested someone call me. No one has called us back. I am asking my daughter tonight if she wants to come home early, if she does I will go get her. The money is not an issue for us, it is the fact we feel this program was severely misrepresented and the result of that is we put our daughter it a not very good situation. It makes us feel terrible.
We would not recommend this program to anyone!

My son got inducted this year for the national junior honor society. I want to get more information on what it offers, any events,group gathering, etc. Any informations will be very helpful.

Hi, I'm glad you asked. My son was nominated and we decided to have him attend. He was SOOO disappointed in the experience. At the time $ was not our issue. We were happy to dish it out for a quality experience about history and leadership. Our son was met by a counselor that was far less mature than he was. He described his frustration with her "rules" as being overzealous and not individuated. (he is very mature and doesn't need alot of rules to behave-but at the same time will conform even though frustrated) Said it felt like he was being disrespected and treated like a baby. My son is very interested in history and was shocked that the day they went to "see the liberty bell" that the had to quickly walk by it in a large group (outside the building) while listening to a period dressed speaker drone on... He had the same experience while visiting the White House "There it is. Take 2 pictures and move along" Overall I believe he had a negative experience due to the large-one size fits all format and the staff who may be interested in history and politics but have little training in pre-teen development. I think it makes more sense to use the $ to have your family visit and plan to your child's interests.

that's a relief, I thought I would be letting down my son's school and our community if I didn't send my son to this conference. I did write to the organization and they let me know if this year was to short of a notice that I could try for next year.

If it's any consolation, my son has been receiving offers like this since he was 10 or so (People to People Ambassadors, CYLC, and others). He was a wiggly child with good academic grades, and these offers always seemed to play upon parents' pride. They'll say your student was chosen, your student will represent your area because of their great citizenship skills, and yet if you talk to his specific teachers, no one will have nominated him. In our case, the organization we belong to sold out the mailing list.

They'll say you must attend specific meetings to get actual costs, and they'll offer some form of fundraising. The fundraising will be to hit up every person you know or use a form letter and try to get every business in town to kick in money.

While these are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, I think there are a lot of opportunities that aren't money makers.

thanks for replying. I've reviewed the web site, it seems like this is like a camp. Now my son is only 10 yrs old, and I don't really feel comfortable with him being away for a week. Also this is heavy financially and yes I do realize this well help my child in his education and life. I did send an e-mail requesting how to find out about financial assistance, but the deadline has passed. Am I crazy for passing up this great chance for my child to attend this conference.

Congratulation to your son.

Here is the website of the conference.

www.cylc.org/jrnylc/