10 University AI Research Programs for High School Students
If you are looking for a structured way to explore the field of artificial intelligence, a university-led AI research program is worth considering.
University AI research programs designed for high school students can be opportunities to explore academic interests without committing to expensive credit-bearing pre-college courses. These programs offer hands-on experience, mentorship, and skill-building over lectures and assignments. Hosted by leading universities and research institutions, they help you connect with experienced faculty, engaging projects, and real-world challenges.
Additionally, university-led AI research programs offer you a chance to experience college-level academics and research. The experience will also boost your college applications, highlighting your curiosity, drive, and willingness to learn beyond the school curriculum.
In this blog, we’ve narrowed down 10 university AI research programs for high school students.
1. Carnegie Mellon University’s AI Scholars
Location: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Cost: Free
Program dates: June 21 – July 19
Application deadline: March 1
Eligibility: High school juniors who are 16 or older and are U.S. citizens, permanent residents, or registered with DACA
At Carnegie Mellon University's AI Scholars program, you will spend four weeks on campus delving into AI through both academic coursework and research. This fully-funded AI research program for high school students focuses on offering project-based learning. So, during the program, you will work in a team to develop and present an AI solution to address a real-world challenge. You will also attend lectures led by CMU faculty and researchers and explore core AI concepts such as machine learning, neural networks, and data-driven decision making. You will also get to interact with tech industry professionals and explore how AI is used to address societal problems. The program also emphasizes equity in STEM, offering access to discussions around inclusion and ethics in AI.
2. Veritas AI Programs
Location: Virtual
Cost: $2,290 for AI Scholars; $5,400 for AI Fellowship with Publication & Showcase; $6,900 for both programs. Need-based financial aid is offered to AI Scholars participants.
Program dates: Multiple 10- to 15-week cohorts in a year, including winter, fall, spring, and summer.
Application deadline: Rolling basis | Spring sessions have a January deadline, Summer programs have a May deadline, Fall programs have a September deadline, and Winter cohort has a November deadline
Eligibility: High school students | AI Fellowship applicants should either have been AI Scholars participants or have some familiarity with AI concepts or Python.
Veritas AI, an initiative founded by Harvard graduate students, offers various programs for high school students interested in exploring artificial intelligence. Its AI Scholars program is a 10-session introduction to the basics of AI, machine learning, and data science. It is also an opportunity to work on AI-based hands-on projects. For a more advanced learning experience, the AI Fellowship with Publication & Showcase allows you to collaborate with mentors from top universities on unique, individual research projects. This program also offers support if you want to publish your work in high school research journals. You can check out a few examples of past program projects here.
3. Princeton University - AI4ALL
Location: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Cost: Free
Program dates: July 9 – 30
Application deadline: April 9
Eligibility: 10th graders (rising 11th graders) who live in the U.S. or Puerto Rico and qualify as low-income
Princeton University's AI4ALL program is an opportunity to learn how AI is developed, applied, and studied through a research-based lens. This three-week AI research program focuses on both technical education and ethical reflection. Here, you will get to work on a small-group research project led by Princeton graduate students. The project, which you will present at the end of the session, will focus on real-world issues, such as the societal impacts of AI in areas like healthcare, privacy, or criminal justice. You will also attend lectures from AI faculty, explore ongoing research at Princeton, and engage in discussions about how AI shapes society. A two-day trip to Washington, D.C. is also part of the experience, offering you a chance to connect with people working at the intersection of AI and public policy.
4. Lumiere Breakthrough Scholar Program
Location: Virtual
Cost: None—the program is fully funded
Program dates: Vary based on the selected cohort (Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter) | Multiple 12-week cohorts are scheduled throughout the year.
Application deadline: Spring (January), Summer (May), Fall (September), and Winter (November).
Eligibility: High school students and recent high school graduates with a high level of academic achievement—accepted students typically have an unweighted GPA of 3.3 out of 4
The Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation is a non-profit initiative that offers fully funded research opportunities to high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds. The initiative originated from the Lumiere Research Scholar Program, which offers one-on-one research experiences. Its flagship offering, the Lumiere Breakthrough Scholar Program, mirrors Lumiere Education’s Individual Research Scholar Program by pairing exceptional high school students with Ph.D. mentors for personalized, 1-on-1 research guidance. Over 12 weeks, you will work closely with a mentor to develop an independent research paper. Research topics are available in a wide range of disciplines, including psychology, economics, computer science, data science, international relations, chemistry, engineering, and more. You can find out more about the program on the application form here.
5. NYU’s Machine Learning Program
Location: NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NY
Cost: $3,050 tuition + other additional optional costs for housing, dining, etc.
Program dates: Session 1: June 16 – 27 | Session 2: July 7 – 18 | Session 3: July 28 – August 8
Application deadline: April 21
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9 – 11 who have some programming experience and have completed Algebra 2 | Applicants typically have a minimum 3.0 GPA.
NYU Tandon’s Machine Learning program allows high school students to explore how algorithms, data, and mathematics come together to form the foundation of modern AI. Through lectures and hands-on projects, you will learn how techniques like linear regression, neural networks, and cross-validation are used to develop machine learning models that can recognize images, interpret speech, or make predictions. You will also write and test code, analyze datasets, and experiment with training models to solve problems, while gaining insights into the logic and decision-making processes behind AI systems. This experience also covers engineering problem-solving strategies and encourages you to think critically about the societal challenges that machine learning can help address.
6. MIT’s Beaver Works Summer Institute
Location: Virtual and in-person at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Cost: Free
Program dates: Online Courses: February 3 – June 20 | In-person Summer Program: July 7 – August 3
Application deadline: March 31
Eligibility: High school students entering their senior year who are U.S. citizens.
The MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute is a highly selective program that introduces high school students to advanced topics in STEM through hands-on, project-based learning. If you are entering your senior year and have a strong STEM foundation, you can choose courses to explore AI in fields like autonomous vehicles, medical analytics, and cognitive assistants. In courses such as Autonomous Cognitive Assistance (CogWorks), you will tackle machine learning applications in vision, audio, and language, build Python-based tools from scratch, and work in a team on real-world capstone projects. For those interested in healthcare, the Medlytics course focuses on applying AI models to medical datasets and covering techniques like decision trees and convolutional neural networks. Each course covers AI research, combines lectures with coding labs, and culminates in a final challenge or demonstration, helping you build technical skills and creative problem-solving abilities.
7. Harvard Computer Society’s AI Bootcamp
Location: Virtual
Cost: Regular price: $495; final priority price: $695
Program dates: June 2 – 6, June 9 – 13, June 16 – 20, June 23 – 27
Application deadline: May 30 (rolling until full)
Eligibility: High school students with strong mathematical skills (preferably including calculus) and mandatory proficiency in Python programming | Age-related exceptions are considered on a case-by-case basis
The AI Bootcamp is a five-day program offered by Harvard Computer Society, which is a student-run organization at Harvard College. Here, you will explore cutting-edge developments in AI and ML through a mix of lectures, coding labs, and collaborative projects. Led by Harvard graduate researchers and undergraduates, the program covers key areas like generative AI, model training, and neural networks, while emphasizing current research directions at Harvard. You can choose between an Introductory track, which requires a solid foundation in Python and math, and an Advanced track that requires prior experience with AI/ML tools like PyTorch and shifts the focus toward independent research. Throughout the week, you will develop a mini-research project where you apply what you have learned to investigate real-world AI problems. By the end of this AI research program, you will complete a structured project and become familiar with college-level research settings.
8. Stanford AI4ALL
Location: Online
Cost: $4,000
Program dates: June 18 – July 2
Application deadline: January 24
Eligibility: Current 9th graders or rising 10th graders over the age of 14 by the start of the program can apply.
Stanford AI4ALL is a virtual program that introduces students to AI in the context of its impact on healthcare, society, and the environment. During the program, you will join a small cohort in a fully virtual setting and explore the fields of machine learning, computer vision, robotics, and natural language processing through daily instruction and guided research. You will work in a team under the mentorship of Stanford researchers, tackling research questions that reflect current challenges in AI and its ethical use. Whether it’s designing models for medical imaging or analyzing bias in language models, your project will offer you some experience with AI tools and help you explore the implications of AI. The program also offers access to mentorship and career panels to help you get early industry exposure. By the end of the session, you will have produced a research project and have some practical coding experience!
9. UPenn’s Wharton Data Science Academy
Location: The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Cost: $9,799 + $100 application fee | Need-based financial aid is available
Program dates: July 13 – August 2
Application deadline: April 2
Eligibility: Students in grades 10 and 11 with strong math and coding skills, an interest in data analytics, and preferably some knowledge of statistics
The Wharton Data Science Academy engages high school students in the practical and analytical aspects of data science through exposure to real-world applications of AI and ML. In this program, you will develop skills in data wrangling, visualization, and statistical analysis, while using the R programming language—a tool widely adopted in professional research. You will learn to frame data-driven questions, analyse datasets, and apply ML models to get insights through hands-on work on a group-based research project, which you will also present during the program. The curriculum combines lectures from Wharton faculty with hands-on work and mentorship from experienced TAs. You will also hear from a few guest speakers, who will share insights regarding data science as a career.
10. Georgetown University’s Artificial Intelligence Academy
Location: Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Cost: Residential: $3,525 | Commuter: $2,730
Program dates: July 7 – August 2
Application deadline: April 15
Eligibility: High school students who are 15 or older
If you're interested in exploring the intersection of science, ethics, and politics in the context of AI, Georgetown’s Artificial Intelligence Academy offers a focused academic setting to do just that. Here, you will spend the week examining how AI systems are developed and deployed, while also analyzing the societal impact of automation, algorithmic bias, and global regulatory trends. The program offers lectures, guest speaker-led sessions, and group discussions, where you will explore concepts like responsible AI design, transparency, privacy, and competing ethical frameworks from Western and non-Western perspectives. The curriculum also covers geopolitical dynamics, including how nations are shaping AI policy and competing for technological leadership. You will also summarise your learning in a final project that proposes policy or design solutions for an AI-related issue of your choosing.
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