Summit Semester serves boys and girls ages 13 to 19 (20 years old only if they turn 20 while enrolled in the program) who are graduates of a wilderness therapy or residential treatment program. The typical student may exhibit any number of the following characteristics:

• Low self-esteem
• Low motivation
• Poor decision making
• Difficulty interpreting social cues
• Impulsivity
• Susceptibility to negative peer pressure
• Defiance of authority
• Refusal to take responsibility for behavior
• Academic underachievement
• School refusal
• Suspension or expulsion from school
• Confrontational behavior
• Drug or alcohol experimentation or abuse
• Unresolved grief resulting from inadequate coping skills
• Adoption issues
• Social alienation
• Computer dependence
• Depression or hopelessness
• Promiscuity

The clinical team understands that there are teens whose problems require forms of treatment different than that provided by Summit Semester, either due to the nature or severity of the students' problems, their resistance to seeking help with those problems, or because they present a danger to themselves or others. For this reason Summit's application process requires that detailed information regarding the applicant be reviewed by the clinical team.