Summer Program for Juniors (TASP) | Apply
Note: For information about the application process, please check back during the 2009 application period, which typically begins in December.
Test scores and transcripts have only a limited influence on our impression of a candidate's potential to contribute to and profit from TASP.
Far more important to our decision are the essays written for the application. These essays give applicants a chance to characterize themselves and to demonstrate their independence of thought, curiosity, and concern for social and political issues.
The students whose personal and intellectual abilities make them excellent TASP participants do not necessarily have a sophisticated educational background. We try to evaluate the accomplishments of all applicants in light of their circumstances. In this way we hope to ensure geographic, economic, and racial diversity. Because TASP is an experience in community living as well as in intellectual growth, we try to select students who seem concerned for the welfare of others and who are flexible enough to enjoy the challenge of interacting with people whose perspectives and experiences vary enormously.
The application process is rigorous—more so than most college admissions procedures—and each application is given serious, thorough, individual attention. Completed applications are due near the end of January. Each application is evaluated by two or more of our trained readers, most of whom are current college students who have participated in TASP. Over 150 of the most promising candidates are then interviewed in March by regional representatives of Telluride Association. In late April or early May, using all the accumulated information about each candidate, the Summer Programs committee makes the final selection of participants and alternates.
In the important summer before a student's senior year in high school—a year in which students often make significant decisions about the future—the value of a summer spent learning, thinking, and comparing ideas in good company cannot be estimated too highly. TASPs have provided this opportunity for fifty-four years, and we expect the 2009 programs to continue this extraordinary tradition.
Download the 2008 TASP Brochure (pdf format)
To request more information, please contact us.