14 Summer Programs for High School Students in Singapore
A summer program can be one of the more effective ways to use a school break if you have a specific interest you want to develop or a career direction you are trying to map out. These programs let you explore subjects beyond the school curriculum, giving you practical exposure to research methods, technical tools, or professional contexts that you would otherwise only reach at university. They are also useful for building a peer network, since participants come from different schools and backgrounds, and the shared reason for being there makes it easier to form lasting connections.
Why should you attend a program in Singapore?
Singapore's universities and government institutions run a solid range of pre-university programmes, with universities such as NUS, NTU, and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy all offering options tailored to high school students. Whether you want to spend a week working in a university research lab, compete in a defence-technology hackathon, build policy scenarios alongside peers and pitch them to government and industry leaders, or attend university-level seminars in a subject you are thinking about pursuing, all these options and more are available. Students already living or studying in Singapore will find these programs an accessible way to gain a real sense of what local universities are like from the inside. For those coming from elsewhere.
We have gone through the available options and identified 14 summer programs for high school students in Singapore.
If you’re looking for online summer programs, check out our blog here.
Key takeaways
These programs span research placements, AI and generative AI training, defense technology, business, and public policy, with local university programs such as NUS SRP and NTU NRP, as well as virtual programs abroad, including Stanford, Wharton, and Columbia.
Several local programs are free, including NUS SRP, NTU NRP, Singapore Futures Youth Competition, and DSTA BrainHack, while shorter university-run camps, such as NUS Science Summer Camp and SMU Young Leaders Programme, cost between SGD 2,700 and SGD 3,500.
The long-term research programs (NUS SRP and NTU NRP) run for several months, from April through January, while most other in-person programs are concentrated one-week sessions in June and July.
Application deadlines cluster heavily in the February to June range, with NUS SRP and NTU NRP closing earliest on February 24, while several virtual programs based abroad, such as Columbia's Summer Online Immersion, accept rolling applications.
1. NUS Science Research Programme (SRP)
Location: National University of Singapore and affiliated research centres, Singapore
Cost: Free
Acceptance Rate: Extremely competitive
Dates: April (Research Methods Module, online) and June onwards (minimum two-week full-time lab attachment, continuing through the following January)
Application Deadline: February 24
Eligibility: JC1 and Year 5 Integrated Programme students in Singapore with strong H2 science subjects and a school principal recommendation
One of Singapore's oldest pre-university research programmes, the SRP has been running since 1988 in partnership with the Ministry of Education's Gifted Education Branch, and it remains one of the most rigorous ways a high school student in Singapore can enter a real research environment. You’ll begin with the Research Methods Module in April, an online component covering research ethics, lab safety, and the R&D landscape at NUS and its partner centers. From there, you identify a research topic and secure a faculty mentor. June marks the start of the intensive phase, which involves at least two weeks of full-time lab work at NUS, A*STAR, the Genome Institute, DSO, or other affiliated institutions, depending on your project area. Fortnightly meetings from July through October continue the work of experimentation, data collection, and analysis. The programme concludes with a scientific paper published in the annual Science Research Congress proceedings. If you are taking it as an H3 subject, it also goes through a formal oral defense. Projects span Life and Medical Sciences, Chemical and Physical Sciences, and Engineering.
2. Veritas AI
Location: Virtual
Cost: Varies by program; financial aid available
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: Multiple 12 – 15-week cohorts throughout the year
Application deadline: Rolling enrollment; deadlines vary by cohort: Summer (May), Fall (September), Spring (January), and Winter (November). You can check details and apply to the program here.
Eligibility: High school students; AI Fellowship with Publication and Showcase accepts previous AI Scholars participants or those with some experience working with AI or Python.
Veritas AI, founded and run by Harvard graduate students, offers a range of online programs for high school students passionate about artificial intelligence. If you are looking to get started with AI, ML, and data science, you can choose the AI Scholars program. Through this 10-session boot camp, you will learn about the fundamentals of AI and data science and get a chance to work on real-world projects. Another track for more advanced students is the AI Fellowship with Publication & Showcase. During this program, you will get a chance to work 1:1 with mentors from top universities on a unique, individual project. A key feature of this program is that it offers you access to the in-house publication team to help you secure publications in high school research journals. You can check out some examples of past projects here and read about a student’s experience in the program here.
3. NTU Nanyang Research Programme (NRP)
Location: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Cost: Free
Acceptance Rate: Highly competitive
Dates: April 13 – January 15
Application Deadline: February 24
Eligibility: JC1 and Year 5 Integrated Programme students in Singapore, endorsed by their school
Over eight months, from April to December, the NRP places you in NTU's research environment, where you work on a project under the supervision of an NTU faculty member. Available projects cover computing and data science, engineering, the natural sciences, business, the humanities, arts and social sciences, and education, drawn from across NTU's colleges and research institutions. You can work individually or with a partner. The work culminates in a formal Research Paper submitted in January, followed by an Oral Presentation Assessment in late February or early March. The NRP is particularly relevant for students whose interests run outside the lab sciences, so if you want to pursue a research question in economics, media, history, or a social science discipline, the faculty supervisors and research frameworks available here present a strong opportunity.
4. Lumiere Research Scholar Program
Location: Remote! You can participate in the program from anywhere in the world.
Cost: Varies depending on program type; full financial aid available.
Acceptance rate: Selective
Dates: Varies by cohort: summer, winter, fall, and spring. Options range from 12 weeks to a year.
Application deadline: Varying deadlines based on cohort
Eligibility: Students in high school who demonstrate a high level of academic achievement
The Lumiere Research Scholar Program is a rigorous research program tailored for high school students. The program offers extensive 1-on-1 research opportunities across a wide range of subject areas for high schoolers to explore. The program pairs you with Ph.D. mentors to work 1-on-1 on an independent research project. At the end of the program, you will have developed an independent research paper! You can choose research topics from subjects such as computer science, data science, engineering, chemistry, psychology, physics, international relations, economics, and more. You can find more details about the application here, and check out students’ reviews of the program here and here.
5. Singapore Futures Youth Competition
Location: Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore
Cost: Free
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Dates: June 16 – 19
Application Deadline: March 29
Eligibility: Students currently enrolled in post-secondary or pre-tertiary educational institutions in Singapore
Organized by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, this four-day programme has you envisioning what Singapore might look like in 2050 through the lens of how young people can shape the nation through civic contribution. The first three days are a futures thinking workshop led by LKYSPP faculty, where you’ll learn analytical methodologies for building scenarios about how society might develop under different conditions. It is the kind of framework policymakers use to think about uncertainty and long-range planning, and the workshop introduces you to the logic of the policymaking process and the tools for translating a societal challenge into a coherent proposal. On the final day, your team presents its scenarios to experts and leaders from Singapore's public and private sectors and receives direct feedback. Throughout the programme you’ll also interact with peers from a range of local institutions and gain access to the school's wider network.
6. NUS College Summer School
Location: NUS College, Singapore
Cost: SGD 2,725 for Singaporeans, SGD 5,450 for international students
Acceptance Rate: Highly selective
Dates: June 21 – 27
Application Deadline: Rolling till June 20
Eligibility: Pre-university students aged 16–18 who have English proficiency
The academic core of the week is The Synthesis Lab, a team project where you work through a real-world problem from brief to final pitch in front of programme faculty. Between project sessions, you attend taster seminars across NUS's major subject areas, such as Engineering, Business, and Psychology, as well as interdisciplinary courses like Computational Problem Solving and Thinking with Writing. Themed fieldwork tours with faculty who specialize in sustainability and urban migration lead small groups through Singapore, using it as a living case study. The programme models NUS College's actual Honors curriculum, so the approach throughout is about connecting ideas across disciplines. By the final day, you have worked through a complete research-and-presentation cycle and have a concrete sense of what interdisciplinary university education actually involves.
7. SMU Young Leaders Summer Programme
Location: Singapore Management University, Singapore
Cost: SGD 3,500
Acceptance Rate: Highly selective
Dates: July 13 – 18
Application Deadline: May 17
Eligibility: High school students aged 16–18 with a strong academic record
Technology literacy is the central focus of SMU's one-week programme. The content takes you through data analytics and visualization, foundational machine learning concepts, Python programming, and algorithmic thinking, with sample classes in cybersecurity and software engineering that show how these tools are applied in practice. SMU's teaching format leans heavily on discussion and collaboration, with classes being held in the university's seminar rooms and being focused on group work to test ideas. The week ends with a team project and presentation to a panel of judges, asking you to connect the technical skills you have picked up to a problem worth solving.
8. NUS Science Summer Camp
Location: National University of Singapore, Singapore
Cost: SGD 2,950
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Dates: June 29 – July 3
Application Deadline: March 31
Eligibility: Students in Grades 10–12
The Science Summer Camp takes you through lectures by NUS faculty on topics such as food science, sustainable fuels, and the physics of living systems, with each session paired with demonstrations that make the underlying concepts concrete. Lab work includes using electron microscopes to examine subatomic and molecular structures, chemistry and biology experiments applied to everyday problems, and an introduction to how machine learning tools are actually used in research settings. A science quiz mid-week adds a competitive element. Participants have historically come from across Asia and beyond, providing rich exposure to a diverse peer group.
9. NTU GenAI Bootcamp
Location: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Cost: SGD 3,106.50
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Dates: June 29 – July 3 or August 3 – 7
Application Deadline: June 27 for the June track, August 1 for the August track
Eligibility: High school, junior college, or pre-university students aged 16 and above
This five-day program covers the current generative AI landscape in sequence, from conceptual foundations to systems capable of planning and acting autonomously. You begin with the basics of GenAI, how models like GPT and DALL-E differ from earlier AI, what the shift from analysis to creation means, and how the underlying tech stack works. The second day is practical, working directly with Copilot tools across writing, code, data, and design, including platforms like GitHub Copilot and Midjourney. Day three introduces agentic AI systems that use memory, tool use, and multi-step reasoning to complete tasks without constant human input, and you build basic versions with AutoGPT and custom GPTs. The fourth day focuses on applying these capabilities in academic and professional contexts, including putting together an AI portfolio. The programme closes with a group challenge where teams analyze an actual AI deployment and present on its ethical dimensions. Lab visits to NTU research facilities and an external industry visit run alongside the classroom content throughout.
10. DSTA BrainHack
Location: Multiple venues in Singapore
Cost: Free
Acceptance Rate: Open to all eligible students
Dates: Month of May for competition training and qualifiers, physical finals held June 10 – 11
Application Deadline: May 19
Eligibility: Post-secondary students enrolled full-time in local Singapore institutions
BrainHack is an annual defense-technology festival run by the Defence Science and Technology Agency. Across its competition tracks, you could be working through Capture-the-Flag cybersecurity challenges at the Cyber Defenders Discovery Camp, training and deploying AI models for tactical decision-making in TIL-AI, programming autonomous drones with computer vision and obstacle avoidance in RoboVerse, or building a web application around a defense-related problem statement in CODE_EXP. The workshop tracks include SpaceCube, which runs game-based missions on spaceflight; INFRAxCODE, which covers Infrastructure-as-Code through real cloud and IT scenarios; and XRperience, which takes you through building Extended Reality experiences from first principles. A Tech Showcase, running alongside the competitions, lets you see how DSTA engineers apply these same technologies in active defense work, and speaker sessions by practitioners run throughout the event.
11. NTU Inspiring: Future Exploration Programme
Location: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Cost: SGD 3,542.50 for June, SGD 3,106.50 for July
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Dates: June 22 – 26 or July 20 – 24
Application Deadline: March 25 for June run, May 25 for July run
Eligibility: High school, junior college, or pre-university students aged 16 and above
Five days of faculty-led seminars cover a wide range of NTU's research interests, including Singapore's economic development and policy, the mechanics of FinTech and digital finance, quantum science and its current applications in medical imaging and semiconductors, and more. Between lectures, you’ll get to visit NTU's specialist facilities such as the Robotics Research Centre, the Singapore Centre for 3D Printing, the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, the Garage@EEE student maker space, and the MAE Innovation Lab. Researchers walk you through active projects and explain what they are trying to solve. An admissions briefing from NTU's Office of Admissions and guided visits to Singapore landmarks round out the schedule. If you want broader exposure to a Singapore university before committing to a field, this program is a good option.
12. Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes
Location: Online
Cost: $3,200
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective, approximately 16 students per batch
Dates: June 15 – 26 | July 6 – 17
Application Deadline: March 13
Eligibility: Students in grades 8–11, with each course having its own criteria; open to international students
Across two live-online weeks, you’ll take one course from a catalogue of more than 75 offerings covering artificial intelligence, creative writing, bioscience, engineering, mathematics, philosophy, computer science, and more. The courses are synchronous, so you will attend live daily class meetings with students from over fifty countries, taught by instructors who are subject specialists and who designed the course content. You’ll receive a written evaluation from your instructor and a certificate of completion at the end. The selectivity, small batch sizes, and rigor of the curriculum make this a valuable option for international exposure in a virtual format.
13. Wharton Pre-Baccalaureate Program
Location: Online
Cost: $4,230 per course
Acceptance rate: Highly selective
Dates: Multiple batches throughout the year; summer dates are May 26 – July 1 or July 2 – August 7
Application Deadline: March 25 or May 6 for summer batches
Eligibility: High school students with a minimum 3.5 unweighted GPA, who are not graduating in advance of the term
Wharton's credit-bearing academic track for high school juniors and seniors draws on the school's full undergraduate business curriculum, covering topics ranging from financial markets and accounting to entrepreneurship, operations, and organizational behavior. Each course earns 0.5 University of Pennsylvania course units, which most post-secondary institutions recognize as two transferable credits, and the credits appear on an official UPenn/Wharton transcript. Classes are delivered live online with Wharton instructors, kept small and made up entirely of high school students, and assessed at undergraduate standard with quizzes, midterms, and finals. You can take up to two courses per session and re-enroll across multiple sessions until graduation. Summer enrolment also includes access to the Wharton Youth Network, a ten-week parallel programme with trading simulations, weekly trading workshops, and faculty speaker sessions running alongside the coursework.
14. Columbia University Pre-College Programs — Summer Online Immersion
Location: Online
Cost: $2,867 (one-week session) / $4,017 (two-week session)
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Dates: June 22–26, July 6–17, or July 20–31
Application Deadline: Rolling
Eligibility: Rising 9th-12th graders, including international students
Over one or two weeks, you can take live online courses from a catalog of more than 40 offerings across architecture, biology, economics, law, mathematics, philosophy, politics, social sciences, computer science, and more. Classes meet Monday through Friday in Zoom-style sessions and are structured around discussions, debates, simulations, and group projects. The two-week program also provides access to the Columbia Writers Academy, a parallel track dedicated to crafting and refining college application essays with instructor guidance. No college credit is awarded, but upon completing the programme, you receive a Columbia University Certification of Participation and a written instructor evaluation. Since the programme runs entirely online with Eastern Time session slots, Singapore students typically take the 5 pm–8 pm ET track, which falls in the morning Singapore time. International students are welcome across all three sessions.
Frequently asked questions
1. What summer programs are available for high school students in Singapore?
Options include long-term research programs, such as NUS Science Research Programme and NTU Nanyang Research Programme, short university-run camps, such as NUS Science Summer Camp, SMU Young Leaders Summer Programme, and NTU GenAI Bootcamp, policy and defense-focused programs, such as Singapore Futures Youth Competition and DSTA BrainHack, and virtual programs based abroad, such as Veritas AI, Lumiere, Stanford Pre-Collegiate, and Wharton Pre-Baccalaureate.
2. Are there free summer programs for high school students in Singapore?
Yes, NUS Science Research Programme, NTU Nanyang Research Programme, Singapore Futures Youth Competition, and DSTA BrainHack are all free. Veritas AI and Lumiere charge tuition but offer financial aid for qualifying students.
3. Which Singapore programs are best for students interested in AI or technology?
Students interested in AI and technology might consider NTU GenAI Bootcamp for a structured introduction to generative AI tools, SMU Young Leaders Summer Programme for data analytics and machine learning fundamentals, and DSTA BrainHack for competitive tracks in cybersecurity, drone programming, and AI model deployment.
4. When should I apply to summer programs for high school students in Singapore?
The earliest deadlines are NUS SRP and NTU NRP (February 24), followed by NTU Inspiring Future Exploration Programme's June run (March 25) and NUS Science Summer Camp (March 31). Several virtual programs based abroad, such as Columbia's Summer Online Immersion, accept rolling applications year-round.