Gavra: In the five towns, some of the kids go to a superb summer program at Stony Brook University run by a frum husband and wife team of professors where they get a chance to do real top-notch research. However, this is far away from where most of the frum kids live, and also is in a coed environment which some parents may object to. I am not at all sure that even places like DRS or SKA have their own facilities for it. If there were programs like this offered in-house within the Yeshiva high schools, it would be unbelievable. I realize it costs a lot of money, but this is the best investment the community can make for the future.
BTW, not all science projects are expensive, and one can learn a tremendous amount on a tight budget, if you only have a knowledgeable teacher.
In general, I think the girls HS have better Chol programs than the boys do. However, they still merely try to meet Regents standards except for the AP classes. The Regents have been terribly watered down lately in the Sciences and are almost worthless. I have noticed that the Math Regents have not been watered down, though, and have actually added some new topics that were not there when I was in school, such as probability, and rotations/reflections, etc.