Archive for the 'For Parents' Category

Hello Overland families and friends!

Thanks for a wonderful summer!  Please check our SmugMug photo website to see photos from all of our trips.   All photos were taken by our leaders and are available for free download for home printing or professional printing through SmugMug.  All photos from the summer will be online by Friday, August 12.

Overland SmugMug Website

Enjoy!

The Staff at Overland

Hello Overland families and friends!

Overland’s summer blog updates will be every Saturday for most of our programs and on Wednesdays for BA, NEA, CEP 2, CEP 4 and FST. You can expect one post for our two-week trips, two for our three-week trips, three for our four-week trips and so on. Feel free to call our office for any other updates during the summer; the office is staffed 7 days a week from 8:00am to 10:00pm EDT.

After many requests for pictures, we’ve decided to try to get photos of Overland groups going forward. That being said, many leaders do not have camera phones or access to computers so we may not be able to get a picture of every group. However, after leaders return to Williamstown from their trips, we’ll upload their photos on the Overland SmugMug site!

Thanks!

An American Challenge group moments before reaching the Pacific Ocean.

Our daily flow of applications is steadily building!  Families always ask us on the phone, “When should we apply?”.  If Overland is in your plans for next summer, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to ensure your first choice trip is still available.

Trips that are filling quickly this January include:

-Alpine Challenge
-Alaska Explorer
-Field Studies Peru
-Hawaii Service
-Language & Service Costa Rica – 3 weeks
-Paris to the Sea

How can you learn about a program you’re interested in or decide if Overland is the right fit for your family?  We’re happy to provide you with references for a specific trip you’re interested in or a list of families from your area who’ve participated in Overland programs before.  Just give us a call and we’ll send you a list of families who would be glad to talk with you about their experience with Overland.

A Nova Scotia & Acadia group atop Cadillac Mountain last summer.

Another great way to learn more is to meet us in person at one of our slideshow presentations held across the country this winter.   Meet one of our full-time staff members, see a slideshow of photos from past Overland summers, and ask questions about the program you’re interested in.   Give us a call to RSVP and get the address of the presentation.

Beyond that, you can call our office seven days a week and ask questions about the trip you’re interested in and get the latest on program enrollment.  We’re happy to talk to students and parents to answer your questions and help you find a program that’s right for you.   Give us a ring at 800.458.0588.  If you’re looking for a great summer adventure for 2011, now is the time to apply!

A good friend and I were talking this morning outside the Overland office and he mentioned how his mother used to tell him that the job of a parent is to give a child both a nest and wings. Then he nodded toward our office and said “You guys are great at helping parents give their children wings.”

I appreciated the compliment and I think he’s absolutely right. We’ve always seen ourselves as far more than simply a summer experience or program, more than just biking or hiking, or language study or service. We see ourselves as partners with parents… partners who provide the kind of role models and standards that parents are eager for their kids to have.

At the heart of every Overland experience is a carefully crafted series of challenges with a clearly defined goal… and leading each group is a pair of superlative leaders. Our summer programs challenge and support our students; they push them and give them confidence. Our students return home with a deepened understanding of who they are and what they have to offer. They’re always happy to be home… but they’re also just a bit closer to spreading their wings and leaving the nest at last.

-Tom Costley

Cate, Luke, Liz and I tore through three seasons of the Friday Night Lights television series last fall. Some of the show’s racier content made for some awkward moments for the four of us but we stayed with it because the characters and the storylines (especially in seasons one and three) were compelling.

We were all surprised – and pleased – to see two supporting characters emerge as stars in the third season. Tyra, once a super social party girl, grows into an ambitious young woman who wants more from life than what the fictional town of Dillon, Texas, promises. Landry, the quintessentially uncool brain, through an unlikely romance with Tyra, develops a deep self-confidence that helps him grow into far more than just a narrowly-focused AP-crushing student.

Their relationship culminates when Landry helps Tyra with her college application essay. The problem is that Tyra’s essay is terrible. It’s a predictable rehash of her activities, with Applebee’s as a metaphor and cliched conclusions as to what it all means.

It’s not Tyra’s fault. Like most high schoolers, Tyra hasn’t had much experience with writing a personal essay. Most English assignments ask for an analysis of a piece of literature, history work focuses on recalling and synthesizing events and science labs demand a clear, sequential detailing of an experiment. It’s no wonder that Tyra (like most high schoolers) produces a shallow essay. No one has ever asked her to look at her life and to see the arc of it – the moments of importance, of meaning, of success, of failure… of personal growth and realization. No one has ever asked her to write an essay about herself and her dreams.

But Landry won’t accept the simplistic essay she’s written. He insists that she look deeper, that she write from the heart… that she tell her unique story. In frustration, Tyra asks Landry if she’s supposed to write about her father who left her, her dissolute mother or her troubled sister? Should she write about spending most of her teenage years filled with anger and hate?

Landry – a great teacher, and an even better friend – responds to her emotional outburst with a simple question: “What changed?”

And with that, Tyra heads down a path that will make her essay a thing of beauty and insight. When it’s done, she reads it to him and then asks: “What did you think?” And Landry responds: “… it’s great.”

But more importantly, Tyra says: “I think it’s great, too.”

Writing a great college essay is not easy. Every senior, like Tyra, needs a Landry – someone who can help draw out your story while allowing the story to be uniquely yours. That’s what we try to do with our College Essay Program.

Overland’s College Essay Program is a teen summer program that  gives rising seniors the chance to spend a week on the Williams College campus in a small group of peers brainstorming, drafting, writing, revising and polishing an essay. From the start the goal is to get beyond the predictable rehash of your high school activities and honors, to help you find your unique story and its meaning.

By the end of the week, you’ll read your essay to the group and hear their loud and supportive praise.

More importantly, though, we’re sure you’ll look at and say “I think it’s great, too.”

-Tom Costley

Watch the clip from Friday Night Lights on YouTube.

There are a number of summer programs that could be called adventure camps for teens – and Overland is certainly one of them.

But that title is somewhat of a misnomer. Overland programs are in some ways adventures, and in other ways we’re a camp, and we do serve teens (although we also serve 10, 11 and 12 year-olds). But I’d really rather be described as a “Program For Adventurous Kids Who Seek To Challenge Themselves In Exciting Ways In Some Of The World’s Most Beautiful Settings.” But I guess that’s a mouthful.

So, I’m stuck with adventure camps for teens (at least for this blog post) – what are some of the options?

For middle-schoolers, we have a number of teen adventure camps right here in New England – you can hike Mt. Washington, go on a Vermont bike tour, or attend a summer writing program on the Williams College campus. For more adventurous teens, you could climb a 14er in Colorado, sea kayak among the islands near Vancouver, or study Spanish abroad in Barcelona.

For students in high school, there are even more possibilities for teenagers who want an adventure in the US or abroad. We have a cycling tour in Nova Scotia, backpacking in Yellowstone National Park, summer community service in Costa Rica, French language immersion classes in Paris, and a safari on the Serengeti.

Wherever you are this summer, you’ll be in a small group of your peers and with two great Overland leaders.

Please join us in 2010!

-Tom Costley

In the last 25 years I have often been asked if participating in a summer program helps with the college admission process.

My answer, which has been confirmed by friends who work in admissions offices, has always been that no single event, experience or program is likely to make a influential impact on a student’s admissions prospects by itself. Instead, the top schools are looking for a sustained commitment to any undertaking that is an interest – or better yet, a passion – of the student.

Over the years I have marveled at the thousands of Overland students who love hiking, biking, service or language… and who, over their summers with us, have developed a set of skills and leadership abilities that are transferable to an infinite variety of settings. These are the kind of ambitious, talented, focused and adventurous students that make our groups thrive. They are wonderful young people now, they will be campus leaders in college, and they’ll energize their professions and their families.

At Overland we are committed to our mission: to show our students the beauty – and unlimited promise – of the world… and to help each of them to find their place in it. Happy, proud of their accomplishments, and committed to their interests, our students navigate the college admissions process with the confidence that comes from knowing who they are and what’s most important to them. They’re the kind of young people every college wants.

To read a student profile of an Overland alumna and excerpts from her college application essay, please click here.

To read about Overland’s College Essay Program, a one-week college application program in Williamstown for current 11th graders, please click here.

-Tom Costley