10 tips for getting your kid into summer camp

Redmond, WA, USA  (2007-03-02)

With approximately 10,000 camps across the country how are you supposed to pick one? And just how much money will you have to spend?

The following tips can help you navigate the selection process.

1. Get the ball rolling. If you haven’t already found a sleep-away camp for this summer, now is a good time to concentrate on choosing one. Most enrollments happen between December and March. After that, you could land on waiting lists that never yield openings. (The deadlines may not be as onerous for day camps in your area, but ask just in case.)

2. Reflect on your child’s interests and personality. Just because the child of someone you know liked a certain camp, that doesn’t mean yours will. The same camp might not even be a good fit for two siblings from the same family. Interview a variety of camp directors until you get a good sense of what will be best for your child.

3. Decide between specialized or general. For a first sleep-away camp experience, many counselors recommend camps with a general focus so a child can discover new interests. A host of specialty camps also have emerged in recent years, focusing on everything from ballet to diving to football to science to video-game animation to overseas archeological digs, so remember to consider those too.

4. Count the costs. Privately run sleep-away camps charge about $400 to $2,000 a week – a price tag that typically covers general activities, meals, basic medical care and incidentals such as laundry. You can search for camp details on the Web sites of the National Camp Association, the American Camping Association, MySummerCamps.com and numerous other camp-directory Web sites.