The Unwritten Rules of Summer Camp Registration

It’s a sure sign that the nice weather is coming; the summer camp rejection forms have been mailed! Now kids don’t have to wait until the college application process to get a taste of what it’s like to be deeply disappointed. Today we can expose them early when they are denied entrance to several summer camp programs. Well, just the ones they really, really, really want to attend.

Who knew getting into summer camp had become a competitive sport?

Surely I missed the memo on that one. It’s spring and many camps are already full, even the expensive ones. Perhaps someone forgot to tell these parents we are in the grips of a crippling recession.

So based on what I’ve learned in just the last month or so, I’ve compiled a list of the unwritten rules of summer camp registration. These rules are never spoken aloud, but universally understood by parents everywhere.

• The cheapest camps will be the hardest to get into – and even if you get your form in the very first day by driving it to the post office on a cold December morning, expect to be waitlisted. By the way, your kid will always have a higher number than any other child they know trying to get into the same camp.

• Being waitlisted is sort of like camp purgatory, it could go either way. The only thing for certain is that by the time you know for sure which way it is going, you will have lost your deposit and your reasoning abilities. (ie. That was a stupid camp anyway; who would want to go to such a dumb camp?)

• Your child will want to attend at least two camps that are on the same week – and that week will be the one you have already booked for an expensive summer vacation in a beach front house on St. Thomas. Your children will say they would rather go to camp and make gimp bracelets than go parasailing in the Caribbean. Your tickets are non-refundable.

• Filling out camp forms will be harder than doing your taxes. There are a lot of papers to keep track of, all with varying due dates, deposits, registration information and cancellation policies. You will most definitely miss some important deadline that will force you to beg a camp director for mercy. You will lose your dignity but retain your child’s spot.

• The most expensive camp will be the one the kids like the least. It’s just Murphy’s Law. The cheapest one, the one you couldn’t get into, will get rave reviews from your friends and neighbors. You will vow to try harder next year, maybe sending a biographical essay or a historical perspective on the camp’s significance in with the registration request. That might do it.

• One of your kids will get sick on the Monday of their favorite camp week. They will not be sick when you are on vacation or when your (free) in-laws are staying over to help out. And the illness will last for two or three days. The money you lose will be the equivalent of half your Caribbean vacation – the one your kids say will be so boring compared to roasting a hot dog over a camp fire.

• This fall in school, when asked to write an essay about what they did over the summer, your children will not mention summer camp. They will write about things like going to the movies and playing Wii and making a fort in your backyard. When you remind them about camp, they’ll say “Oh yeah, that too.”


Before you jump out the nearest window, take my advice and sign them up anyway because you’ll need the break. But start planning now or you’ll be shut out of the more sought after offerings like Li’l Angels Spa Camp where your darlings will learn fine etiquette, modeling, how to give a great mani/pedi and be treated to limousine field trips. (Yes, it’s a real camp in Delaware). There is also an Explosives Camp in Missouri where kids can learn the fine art of things like, and I quote, blowing up a tree stump and obliterating a watermelon. If that doesn’t “spark” your interest how about code breaking and surveillance techniques at Spy Camp in Pennsylvania? Yup, all very real camps where there are probably waiting lists.

Better get going on those forms.