College application essay camps

After finding this CollegeConfidential thread, I read a little more about college application camps.  Here are a few examples.

StorySudio College Application Essay Camp

A fun, invigorating, and productive week for high school juniors and those getting ready to apply to college….

Over the course of the week, you'll brainstorm topics and ideas, write first drafts and incorporate feedback to write a second or third draft. By Friday, you'll have met the challenge of writing your essays, leaving you and your family to concentrate on other college decisions. Craft these pieces this summer and avoid first-semester anxiety as admissions deadlines loom.

Location:  Chicago
Course Fee: $1250.00

Overland’s College Essay Program offers rising seniors the chance to spend a week and a half on the Williams College campus producing the essay needed for their college applications. Each of our students will have the time to create, revise and polish his or her essay while enjoying the natural beauty of the surrounding Berkshires.
Location: Williamstown, Massachusetts
Cost: $1995 (airfare not included)

College Prep for the Arts - Writing the Personal Essay at UCLA

Mornings and some evenings will be spent researching colleges, small group discussions of the merits and myths of various programs, individual consulting time, reviewing application procedures for your colleges and department choices, developing an individual timeline calendar and writing and editing the initial drafts of your essays -- all under the guidance of our consultants. Afternoons will be spent touring college theater, dance and film and digital media departments in the Southern California area. A Q&A will be held with each department we tour.

Location:  Los Angeles
Tuition:  $2812

YWC: The College Admission & Application Essay

Description:  High school seniors and community college transfer students will have the opportunity to develop thoughtful, personal, powerful admission and application essays for colleges, universities, and other post-secondary programs.

La Jolla, CA

Fee of $300

How much does tutoring improve SAT scores?

My friend Catherine, after reviewing various meta-analyses, says this:

Students get about 30 points on average (across reading/math), with 8 points of that going to reading & the rest to math.
I don't think anyone has ever looked at the high-end tutors (there are families in NYC spending $25K to $40K for a year of SAT prep for one child).
Now that I'm in the thick of SAT prep, I believe the meta-analyses.
I don't see how anyone can coach the reading section, which is fantastically sophisticated, much beyond the 8-point average gain researchers find.
And 20 points on math sounds right to me, too, though we're trying for more.

30 points applied to the 1600-point SAT math and reading sections is confirmed in this report.

Test-prep programs generally include three elements: a review of test content, practice on test questions, and orientation to the format of the test. In 2009, in cooperation with NACAC, Mr. Briggs reviewed three national data sets and found the average effect of commercial coaching is positive, but slight. Test-score bumps were more in the neighborhood of 30 points (on a 1,600-point scale at the time), far from what some in the industry claim. He does point out that there may be specific programs that are more effective than others, but evidence to support that is weak.

My unscientific extrapolated estimate for the 2400-scale SAT would be that tutoring provides an average 45-points bump.