Jim Skamarakas

I received an email asking about my opinion n the National Youth Leadership Forum and their Medicine program. Here is my reply

Joseph,
My opinion - yes

The slick flyers will lead you believe otherwise. But ask yourself, in this day and age, what teacher is going to access your child’s home address and send it in to a third party company without your knowledge and prior written consent?

Now talk to an actual person, call them and get a sales pitch answer. Ask them for the exact name of the teacher or individual who gave them your personal information and that of a minor child, and they will say it came from a mailing list and your child checking a box on a form sking for information from colleges

A what? A checkbox? How is an organization that does nothing but organize seminars, sleepovers and trips for parents to send their kids on an educational institution? For that you have to call the SAT people. And they apparently will sell the list to anyone who has anything to do with education. Now when I think of that check box “Do you want materials and information from educational institutions and organizations?” I think of a college, university or some other school that is at least regionally accredited. Be it brick and mortor or online, but at least accredited. But no, these “organizations” get access to all your information.

 

Look, if you are one of the following, then send your child -

1 - A parent with too much money to burn

2 - A parent that doesn’t want to spend time with you kid and in need of daycare for a teenager for a few days

3 - A parent who has very little money to send your kid to college and wants to waste it on snake oil salesmen hoping that this seminar will lead to some magic formula to pay for college

Good luck and I hope you make the right decision for you and your daughter

Jim

From: Joseph ******
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 11:35 AM
To: Jim Skamarakas
Subject: NYLF/MED

Our daughter who is a sophomore in high school receive a letter inviting her to attend NYLF/MED we came across your positing questing how the students are selected, due you know if the forum it self is a rip-off

Joseph A. ******

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