![[Currents header graphic]](http://www.ucsc.edu/homeart/currents_header.gif)
October 19, 1998
By Jennie Sutton
Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth
Johns Hopkins University
Nearly 200 gifted young people studied on the UCSC campus this past summer in an academic camp sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Academic Advancement (CAA).
The CAA Summer Program brought the students to Santa Cruz to participate in one of two three-week sessions of the academic camp. The camp was for students who have completed grades seven, eight, or nine.
Students qualify to attend CAA's Summer Program by taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test in seventh grade and scoring in the top 2 percent for their age level.
CAA students choose one course of study to pursue intensely during the summer session they attend. They log in more than 100 classroom hours with an instructor and a teaching assistant, with fewer than 15 other students per course.
This past summer, the offerings at UCSC included genetics, neurobiology, self-paced mathematics, psychology, engineering design, creative writing, and public speaking and communication.
People who were on campus this summer may have seen CAA students walking to classes at Crown College, eating meals at Merrill Dining Hall, or hanging out at their residence halls at Crown. When the students were not in class, CAA offered activities ranging from ultimate frisbee and nature hikes to large weekend events like a Friday night dance around the Crown College fountain or games on the East Field.
UCSC's facilities and its conference staff will bring CAA back to the campus next summer, said a representative of Johns Hopkins.
CAA is part of Johns Hopkins University's Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth, which has run academic summer programs for talented youth since 1980.
UCSC accommodated the institute's growing needs this past summer when it became the institute's 17th site for 1998. UCSC is one of four such sites in California.
The institute serves nearly 7,000 students each summer in three different summer programs: CAA and the Center for Talented Youth's Older and Younger Students Programs. These programs are hosted at 17 sites nationwide, including Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, Loyola Marymount University, Franklin and Marshall College, Hamilton College, and Mount Holyoke College. Two marine science programs are also offered, one of which takes place in association with the Long Beach Maritime Foundation.
Summer employment at one of the institute's sites as a teaching or resident assistant, administrator, or instructor is perennially listed as one of the Princeton Review's "America's top 100" internships.
Over 1,200 staff members worked for the institute nationwide last summer, and approximately 40--including three UCSC students--worked at the UCSC site.
UCSC students or faculty who are interested in working for the Johns Hopkins Institute in Santa Cruz or at another site should call (410) 516-0053 or consult the institute's summer employment Web page.