The Purpose-Driven Summer Camp

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Nancy Soschin finds the transformation disturbing. Soschin runs Summer Solutions, a consultancy group that guides parents to appropriate camps for their kids. "There is still a big population of kids, particularly in the Northeast, who go to traditional eight-week camps, learning to become independent and experiencing all the wonderful things that happen in growing up," says Soschin. "But now people have this attitude that they also need to learn something new or find a way to get ahead in school. To me, it's grossly unfortunate, because kids are so stressed out. The fact that they have to perform at camp as well is a little sad," she laments. "They'll go to tennis camp one week, computer camp another and acting class for a third, and then their parents say, 'He's got a week open in July before a family vacation. What kind of camp can we shove in then?'" Soschin has no problem with specialized camps in theory, but she thinks many kids are being made to focus too early. "I wouldn't send an 8-year-old to baseball camp," she says. "It's too intense. They learn the sport from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., then watch a video after dinner, which is usually about baseball. It's just not camp. Kids that age could go to traditional camps."

Taking a decidedly untraditional route, many teenagers are pursuing an opportunity more akin to the Peace Corps than camp. Gordy Kaplan, executive director of the Midwest Association of Independent Camps, says community-service camps are the hottest development in the field. Particularly popular, other experts say, are those programs in which participants travel to remote parts of the U.S. and to foreign countries to help local populations. Last summer Ryan McNeill, 16, of Lake Forest, Ill., went to Costa Rica with the Road Less Traveled. At a cost of $3,995 for 22 days, McNeill and his group stayed in a small town and made improvements to the local school, replacing the roof and building bathrooms. "It was a chance to see another country from a different perspective, not a hotel, and to actually meet people in the culture," he says. He is also mindful of the program's other benefits, noting that the trip gave him 75 community-service hours, partially satisfying a requirement for membership in the National Honor Society.