PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Most of Brown’s undergraduates may be gone until fall, but the University is still alive with activity this summer. Besides the array of conferences, exhibits and talks that happen throughout June, July and August, Brown’s pre-college academic and leadership programs will bring more than 5,300 students to campus from all over the world, most of whom will live on campus for between one and seven weeks.

“Our pre-college programs are right at the core of what Brown is about — aligned with our mission to share knowledge and provide transformative educational experiences,” said Adrienne Marcus, associate dean for pre-college and undergraduate programs at the School of Professional Studies, which runs the pre-college programs.

Last year, Brown’s academic and leadership pre-college programs enrolled 4,930 students from 49 states and 74 countries.

A central mission of Brown’s academic and leadership pre-college programs, Marcus said, is to provide broad access to them for low-income students. Last year the School of Professional Studies awarded more than $1.75 million in scholarships to approximately 465 pre-college students demonstrating financial need and academic merit. More than 230 of these young people received aid through partnerships with mentoring programs, schools and community groups primarily from urban districts across the country.

“For many students, Brown’s pre-college programs open up the way they think about themselves,” Marcus said. “It helps them to set their sights higher and realize that they can handle college courses and succeed away from home.” 

The majority of students who come to Brown in the summer are high school freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors who live and learn on Brown’s campus as part of Summer@Brown, choosing from more than 300 non-credit courses that represent the range of Brown University’s open liberal arts undergraduate curriculum. Outside of class, students experience the independence of college life and participate in a full program of events and activities. 

More than 500 high school students participate in either a Brown Leadership Institute or Brown Environmental Leadership Lab (BELL). The two-week-long institutes combine the development of socially responsible leadership with focused study on academic topics such as health, global development, social entrepreneurship, public policy, and medicine. Students integrate their learning through course workshops on leadership styles, public speaking and active listening, and the development of an “action plan” project related to their school or home community. 

BELL students live and learn on location (one session takes place at the Haffenreffer Estate in Bristol, Rhode Island, and the other takes place in Alaska) for two weeks where they address the challenges of global and local environmental issues in a hands-on learning environment. Field research, discussions, site visits and debates are a few of the ways students learn together and develop socially responsible leadership skills they can apply in their home communities.

In addition to these academic and leadership programs, Brown’s sports camps bring more than 3,000 students, ages six to 18, to campus for both residential and commuter camps. Students can attend camps specializing in 19 sports ranging from basketball and lacrosse to rowing and fencing. Camps are led by Brown's varsity coaches, their staffs and current Brown athletes.

Other summer programs at Brown include pre-baccalaureate college credit courses for graduated high school seniors; an intensive English language program for non-native speaking high school students; a handful of location-based high school programs that embed Brown academics in off-campus locations such as the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and Segovia, Spain; and a two-week residential STEM program for rising high school students.