Typically, Seneca Valley High School sophomore Whitney Mayer directs her own summer enrichment program, using her computer and natural curiosity to learn everything from foreign languages to Tudor history. But this summer, Harvard University will do the teaching. Mayer, 15, learned recently that she was among the 1,000 students worldwide accepted to the elite university’s Secondary School Program. Open to students completing grades 10-12, the program allows students to earn college credit. The Evans City teen will take part in the program’s four-week session, rather than the full eight-week course, because she has had other summer program offers. She is considering studying law in Boston and taking part in a youth leadership conference in Washington, D.C. She had to turn down Brown University’s offer to attend its summer program because it conflicted with Harvard’s. Mayer credits her parents, and a school project that required her to post her academic information into the testing and scholarship database CollegeBoard.com, for her accomplishment. “They’ve always been there to push me and nurture me,” Mayer said. Joseph and Cyndy Mayer, both pharmacists and diabetes educators, started when their only child was young. “We were always doing science experiments,” Joseph Mayer said. “When she was four, she was curious about solar energy, so I took her outside, put a baking sheet with tin foil on the ground in the summer sun and told her we’d have eggs.” While she excels in the sciences, Whitney’s goals lie beyond biology, and even across the ocean. “My goal is to go to Oxford (University, in England) and study international business,” she said. “I want to be an entrepreneur.”

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