We have two kids who have been on regular enrollment at R4PK for a few years now, so I think we are in a position to judge the effectiveness of the program.
My twelve-year-old son is a strong programmer by now after moving through various languages (VB, C#, C++, Java) and has built enough of a foundation that enables him to pick up new languages (like Javascript) on his own quickly. My younger son is still working through the intermediate courses but has gotten a love for the visual design.
My sense is that the program presented by RP4K is effective due to interesting projects (the games line up with what most kids like), small classes and excellent instructors. Both my wife and I are in technical fields and we could have attempted to teach our kids ourselves, but I think there are things that are just done better in a structured class setting.
For our boys, we prioritized the in-school term programs above the summer camps (although we do the odd summer camp too), although we know parents who do it the other way. But either way, to build strong programming skills, we believe that it is best to sustain this over multiple years and frequent (weekly) exposure. So there is value when taking this path to try and sustain it and see it as a multi-year investment.
The tuition can be costly, but given the doors that it could open, I feel it is a sound investment.
So I give this a 5 out of 5.
