Equinox Program Description

What is Equinox?

Equinox is a three-week program of advanced study for academically talented adolescents completing 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade. The program offers an invigorating mix of challenging course work and social and cultural activities.

Academics

In Equinox, a master instructor experienced with gifted adolescents teaches each course. Classes meet five hours a day, five days a week, and require several hours of homework each night. Advanced Placement (AP)* courses are geared to prepare students for AP examinations given in May of the following year. Honors level courses on topics not typically covered in high school are also offered in Equinox. Most honors courses are taught in the traditional instructor-led format, but a few of the math courses are structured as Individually Paced (IP). IP math courses are designed for students with the interest and ability to accelerate their study of mathematics and who can assume significant responsibility for their own learning. Students work independently through the course material and at their own pace. Participants receive support and individual attention from the instructor and teaching assistant who oversee the course.  Mastery must be demonstrated to move to subsequent chapters in the text. Students who do not complete the entire course may continue their work through the Gifted Learning Links Summer Bridges distance-learning program.  There is an additional cost for this accommodation.

Regardless of the type of course a student enrolls in, Equinox students are strongly discouraged from participating in other activities during the session due to the intensive academic focus.

*NOTE: The College Board has initiated a new course review and approval process for all institutions offering AP courses. Because the College Board's approval timeline is later than our publication deadline, not all courses have been through the approval process. We will update the AP approvals as we receive them. Click here for up-to-date course descriptions.

Click here for the list of 2008 Equinox courses.

Program Philosophy

Equinox helps students to develop self-awareness, intellectual self-confidence, critical thinking skills, and a capacity for autonomous and self-directed learning. Students in the program receive academic and personal support from teachers and residential teaching assistants. Self-governance, within an established structure, is encouraged in the classrooms and dormitories. Students manage their own time after class and may decide to participate in staff organized activities, to study or to just spend time with their friends. At some sites, this freedom may include the ability to go off campus or to use public transportation without a staff person, though students are always with a buddy.

In addition to the opportunity to study at Northwestern’s Evanston campus, Equinox students have the opportunity to study at the University of Illinois at Chicago in Chicago, Illinois through the Civic Leadership Institute and at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio (see joint CTD/CWRU Equinox Program).