Camp Nebagamon

By Adam Kaplan

As some of you may know, I have one child that has already gone through the college admissions process, one that is about to begin the process, and one more that will be starting down that road in just a couple of years. Now as any of you that have helped your children through that process before know, it can be incredibly stressful, and at times a humiliating and challenging experience.

Having gone through the college admissions process and paying attention to what has been going on in the world around me for the past 16 years of doing this job, one other thing has become quite clear to me… Nebagamon has been doing it all wrong.

The problem: The Project Board

The Camp Nebagamon Project Board denies children a college education

For those of you that are not quite familiar with the structure of a day at Nebagamon, let me summarize. Basically, we have four different activity periods in a day (two in the morning and two in the afternoon). Posted outside our Rec Hall (dining hall) there is a large Project Board that lists each of the twenty different projects (activity areas) that we offer every single day. Before breakfast each morning, the staff members that are in charge of each of these areas will put a sign up on that board indicating what is being offered down at their project area for the day. After breakfast, the boys come out to the project board, check to see what is being offered all over camp that day, and then make their own decisions about what to do with their day.

This system allows boys to try something new virtually every single day of the summer, if they wish to. It allows them to try out and perhaps discover new interests. It allows them to be in charge of what their summer looks like in terms of the skills they will discover, pursue, and focus on. Can you believe it? How could we have been so misguided?! This system of free choice, children being forced to make their own decisions, seek out new passions, and learn about their own yet undiscovered skills and interests, has no doubt resulted in 90 years of Nebagamon campers wasting the valuable and ephemeral years of childhood in endeavors that have nothing to do with getting into college whatsoever.

You see, as modern American society has taught us, the only chance that our children have to gain college acceptance, is to specialize, at as early of an age as possible. Colleges have no interest in well-rounded applicants that have discovered that they are capable of things that they never knew they were capable of doing. They have no interest in students that dilly dally in one activity one day and then try something different on another day. Colleges demand expertise in one’s chosen (or assigned) area of childhood skill.

First, on behalf of the institution, I want to apologize to the literally thousands of children that have been denied higher education because of our misguided and irresponsible approach to summer camp. We should have known better and are now keenly aware of the damage we have caused to our campers. (Thank goodness parents sign that waiver…)

More importantly, our caretakers have already destroyed the project board and we are very excited to introduce the new program at Nebagamon. Starting in the summer of 2019, each child will be assigned exactly ONE project area to attend for each project period for the entire summer. Each day will be spent drilling the campers on that one project area so that by the end of the summer, each camper’s college application (something that they will work on at rest period each day) will show, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the focus and expertise that he has achieved… and his readiness to be accepted to college… even as a 3^rd grader.

Needless to say, we will be revamping our project areas as well. It is absurd and embarrassing that Nebagamon has wasted 90 years with silly pursuits like tennis, art, sailing, canoeing, and wilderness skills. Our exciting new program will focus only on the worthwhile activities of the world… AKA the ones that will get the boys into college. All former projects will be eradicated and our new projects at camp starting this summer will be – engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, molecular engineering, biomolecular engineering, geotechnical engineering, computer engineering, optical engineering, thermal engineering, optomechanical engineering… and waterskiing (sorry, but we have invested way too much money in waterskiing to trash it so soon). Children will be assigned one of these activities based on aptitude pretests that parents will administer in mid-April.

We are extremely excited to be a part of helping our campers get into college through this LONG OVERDUE change. We really expect that the kids are going to LOVE the new system as they will no doubt really appreciate the future that we are gifting them.

Finally, we want to apologize once again for ruining so many kids over the years through our system of activity choice, self-discovery, and forcing children to have such frivolous and unfocused childhoods. Our bad…

…and Happy April Fool’s Day.