10 Math Programs for High School Students in North Carolina
If you’re a high schooler serious about math, a math summer program gives you time to work on real problems instead of just prepping for the next test or quiz. You get practice with tools and techniques used in research, finance, and computing- exposure that's hard to come by in a standard classroom. Many programs also put you in direct contact with mentors working in the field, whether that's a university researcher, a graduate student, or someone applying math professionally outside academia. Those connections can lead to letters of recommendation, ongoing research collaborations, or simply a clearer picture of what studying math looks like after high school.
Why should you attend a math program in North Carolina?
San Antonio offers STEM programs through institutions like UT Health San Antonio, the Southwest Research Institute, and UTSA's Klesse College of Engineering, and some programs also offer virtual participation. You could conduct hypothesis-driven cancer research, build and program robots, or work on a space science project alongside an engineer, either on campus or remotely depending on the program. Whether you live in San Antonio or are coming from out of state, or prefer to participate virtually, you can find a program suited to your interests and experience level.
We've reviewed the available options and narrowed our list to 10 math programs for high school students in North Carolina.
If you’re looking for online summer programs, check out our blog here.
Key takeaways
These 10 math programs for high school students in North Carolina span pure mathematics research (PRIMES-USA, Girls Talk Math), applied fields like quantum computing (MathQuantum) and elections (Institute for Mathematics and Democracy), and college-level coursework (Duke Summer Session, Stanford Pre-Collegiate).
Several highly selective programs, including NC Governor's School, Girls Talk Math, and the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy, are free, while Duke's Summer Session and Stanford's Pre-Collegiate Institutes cost over $3,000.
Remote options like PRIMES-USA, MathQuantum, and Veritas AI's AI Fellowship let students engage in year-long or intensive research with mentors regardless of location.
Programs like NC Governor's School and NC-MSEN require North Carolina residency or district nomination, while others, including PRIMES-USA and MathQuantum, accept students nationally or internationally.
1. NC Governor's School — Mathematics
Location: Meredith College, Raleigh, NC; Greensboro College, Greensboro, NC
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Highly selective, requires school- or district-level nomination
Dates: June 21 – July 18
Application deadline: Local deadlines vary; nominations need to be made typically in the fall
Eligibility: Gifted high school juniors residing in North Carolina and holding an unweighted GPA of 3.25 or higher
For four weeks, you will work through contemporary problems in mathematics, tackling material both independently and in small groups alongside students nominated from across the state. Seminars and guest lectures from mathematicians make up a regular part of the week, giving you direct exposure to the kinds of questions researchers in the field are actually working on. The math track takes up about 70 percent of class time, with the rest split between two required interdisciplinary areas, one built around questions in epistemology and one on self and society. None of the work is graded, and none carries course credit, since the four weeks exist purely for open-ended exploration outside any curriculum requirement.
2. Veritas AI’s AI Fellowship
Location: Virtual
Cost: Varies by program type; full financial aid available
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: Vary by cohort: Spring, Fall, Summer, and Winter
Application deadline: Spring (January), Fall (September), Summer (May), and Winter (November). You can apply here.
Eligibility: High school students who have completed the Veritas AI Scholars program or have some experience with AI or Python
Veritas AI offers high school students passionate about AI a supportive environment to explore their interests. The programs offer collaborative learning, project development, and one-on-one mentorship opportunities. Students are expected to have a basic understanding of Python or are recommended to complete the AI Scholars program before pursuing the fellowship. The AI Fellowship program will allow students to pursue independent AI research projects. Students work on their research projects over 15 weeks and can opt to combine AI with any other field of interest. You can find examples of previous projects here and read about a student’s experience in the program here.
3. Girls Talk Math
Location: UNC, Chapel Hill, NC
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: July 13 – 24
Application deadline: March 20
Eligibility: Rising 9th through 12th graders from the Triangle Area
Over two weeks on UNC's campus, you’ll work in small groups on math problems that go beyond anything covered in a standard high school curriculum, developed for the camp by UNC math graduate students. Alongside the problem sets, the camp curriculum features the history of women in mathematics, tying the math you're working through to the people who've shaped the field. Despite the name, eligibility isn't restricted by gender: the official program welcomes participants of any gender identity, background, or ability.
4. Lumiere Research Scholar Program: Math Track
Location: Remote! You can participate in the program from anywhere in the world.
Cost: Varies by program type; full financial aid available.
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: Varies by cohort: fall, summer, spring, and winter. Options range from 12 weeks to a year.
Application deadline: Varies based on cohort
Eligibility: Students in high school who demonstrate strong academic performance
The Lumiere Research Scholar Program is a rigorous research program designed for high school students. It offers extensive one-on-one research opportunities across a broad range of subjects you can explore as a high school student. The program will pair you with Ph.D. mentors to work one-on-one on a research project. At the end, you will have developed an independent research paper! You can choose from areas such as math, data science, computer science, engineering, chemistry, psychology, physics, international relations, economics, and more. Learn more about the application here, and check out students’ reviews of the program here and here.
5. Duke Summer Session — Mathematics courses
Location: Durham, NC or online
Cost: $3,145
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: June 29 – August 10
Application deadline: June 15
Eligibility: Current high school sophomores and juniors aged 16+
Duke Summer Sessions lets you enroll in a regular Duke undergraduate math course, sitting in the same sections as matriculated Duke students studying subjects like Multivariable Calculus and Laboratory Calculus II, taught at the same pace and depth as during the regular academic year. The course runs on an accelerated six-week schedule, compressing what's normally a full semester of material into that window. You can take it as a local commuter, attending class on Duke's campus, or fully online if you're not local or you're an international student. Whichever format you choose, you finish with an official Duke transcript and standard undergraduate course credit.
6. NC-MSEN Pre-College Program (NC State)
Location: NC State University, Raleigh, NC
Cost: $110 registration fee. Scholarships available. Summer Scholars component costs $275 per week, or $175 per week for students already enrolled in Saturday Academy
Acceptance Rate/Cohort Size: Not specified
Dates: Saturday Academy runs during the fall and spring semesters, 10 sessions total. A separate Summer Scholars Program runs for multiple weeks during the summer
Application Deadline: Rolling, first-come-first-served
Eligibility: Open to students in grades 6-12 residing in Eastern and Central North Carolina. Students in 12th grade are not eligible for the Summer Scholars Program
The NC-MSEN Pre-College Program builds a full year of STEM enrichment around Saturday Academy sessions, where you take coursework in math, science, communications, and technology alongside peer and university tutoring. Beyond the classroom sessions, you get exposure to STEM careers, guidance on college admissions and scholarships, and the chance to compete in local, regional, and state math and science competitions. Many students layer in the separate Summer Scholars Program, which adds hands-on lab work and field trips during a multi-week summer session.
7. Institute for Mathematics and Democracy High School Summer Research Program
Location: Remote
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Highly selective; ~17 – 28 students in the past cohort.
Dates: Six weeks in the summer (late June – early August)
Application deadline: March 6
Eligibility: Current high school students (domestic and international)
Most of the program focuses on a single research question at the intersection of mathematics and how elections and democratic institutions actually function. Most projects involve pulling apart real election or census datasets, looking for patterns that reveal something about fairness, representation, or electoral design. You meet with your mentor twice a week and separately with your own project group to keep the work moving, while the full cohort also gathers weekly for guest lectures from mathematicians and reform-minded practitioners in the field. Past groups have measured how court rulings shifted gerrymandering metrics like the efficiency gap and Polsby-Popper compactness scores, or modeled how changing the size of the U.S. House would have altered past presidential election outcomes. One session midway through is set aside specifically for the college application process, and the program closes with each group presenting its findings to the cohort.
8. MIT PRIMES-USA
Location: Virtual
Cost: None
Acceptance rate: Selective; small cohort/year
Dates: January 1 – December 31
Application Deadline: December 1 of the previous year
Eligibility: High school sophomores and juniors residing in the U.S. outside the Greater Boston area
You will spend a full year working with an MIT-affiliated mentor on an unsolved problem in mathematics, which is a rare and unique opportunity even at the college level. The year opens with an intensive reading phase in which you will work through advanced material and turn in a written report that determines whether you move on to research. From there it’s on to testing methods, submitting an interim report in early June, and refining your work through the summer. Sophomores work in group projects while juniors can choose to work solo or with a partner, and mentors are drawn from MIT along with partner universities like Cornell, Stanford, and the University of Michigan. You will close the year with a formal paper and a conference presentation each October, the same event where the in-person Boston-area track presents.
9. MathQuantum High School Fellowship
Location: Virtual
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate: Highly selective; ~10 high school students/year
Dates: Two weeks in the summer
Application deadline: February 13
Eligibility: High school students with a strong background in mathematics; international students can also apply.
This two-week online fellowship mixes math content with quantum information science. Sessions combine lectures and seminars with hands-on activities and professional development workshops, covering how mathematical tools get applied to problems in quantum computing. By the end, you’ll develop and present a mini-project connecting what you've learned to a specific question in the field. Depending on the year, fellows also get paid attendance to the Qubit by Qubit High School Summer Camp as part of the program; when that's not offered, the fellowship runs its own separate set of hands-on quantum computing activities instead. The fellowship sits inside a larger university research group focused on training mathematicians to work in quantum information science, providing exposure to active research questions.
10. Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes — Discrete Mathematics
Location: Online
Cost: $3,200
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: June 15 – June 26 (Session 1) or July 6 – July 17 (Session 2)
Application deadline: March 13
Eligibility: Students in grades 9–11 who have completed pre-calculus
This two-week online course focuses on discrete, non-continuous math structures that feature prominently in modern public-key cryptosystems like RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and ElGamal, tracing how number theory underlies systems used for real encryption. Graph theory gets its own deep dive too, covering planarity, shortest-path algorithms, and isomorphism instead of just definitions. Alongside these topics, you’ll build actual proof-writing skills, practicing mathematical induction and proof by contradiction on problems that require a real argument, not just a computed answer. The course carries no grades and no credit, so the two weeks are built purely around going deeper into material you won't see in a standard math class.
Frequently asked questions
1. What are the best math programs for high school students in North Carolina?
Strong options depend on interests. Students interested in pure math research might consider PRIMES-USA or NC Governor's School, those interested in applied math might look at the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy or MathQuantum; and students wanting college credit might consider Duke Summer Session.
2. Are there free math programs for high schoolers in North Carolina?
Yes, several programs are free, including NC Governor's School, Girls Talk Math, the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy High School Summer Research Program, MIT PRIMES-USA, and MathQuantum High School Fellowship.
3. Can students earn college credit through a math program in North Carolina?
Yes, Duke Summer Session lets students enroll in an actual Duke undergraduate math course and finish with an official Duke transcript and standard undergraduate credit.
4. Are any of these math programs open to students outside North Carolina?
Yes, MIT PRIMES-USA is open to students residing in the U.S. outside the Boston area, MathQuantum accepts international students, and the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy's program is open to both domestic and international students.