Offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Beaver Works Summer Institute is an intensive pre-college summer program, running roughly for 160 hours in a four-week period.

As of the 2026-27 cycle, six of eight Ivy League schools require SAT or ACT scores again: Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, and Penn.

Most research programs run 8 to 12 weeks. But the paper itself is only the first deadline. You also need time to use it.

The latest official SSP acceptance rate is 16%. SSP reported 3,739 completed applications, a 16% admission rate, and 588 enrolled students in 2025.

The Ross Mathematics Program is one of the most competitive math-based programs. According to the latest data collected by the program, it accepted about 15 percent of its applicants, all of whom had showcased their mathematical expertise through their work in the application problem set.

BU calls RISE highly competitive and selective: about 190 students attended in 2025, chosen from thousands of applicants, and BU publishes no acceptance rate.

UC asks first-year applicants to answer four of eight personal insight questions, each in 350 words or fewer, and no prompt carries more weight.

Crimson Education can be worth it if you want one team to handle your whole application, but get the price and terms in writing before you commit.

Cornell admitted 6,077 of 72,523 applicants for fall 2025, an 8.38% acceptance rate, and enrolled 3,827. Early Decision admitted 1,889 of 10,057, an 18.78% rate.

Columbia College and Columbia Engineering admitted 2,946 of 59,611 applicants for fall 2025, an overall acceptance rate of 4.94%.

MIT's published admissions report lists 1,334 admits from 29,281 applicants, a 4.6% acceptance rate.

Princeton's fall 2025 acceptance rate was 4.4%: 1,868 admits from 42,303 applicants. Its yield was 75.4%.

UChicago's institution-linked fall 2025 Common Data Set records 2,039 admits from 45,533 applicants, or a calculated 4.48% acceptance rate.

Caltech's fall 2025 acceptance rate was 3.79% (428 admits from 11,285 applicants), and its yield was 57.94% (248 enrolled from 428 admitted), according to its 2025-26 Common Data Set.

NYU's 2025-26 Common Data Set reports 10,340 admits from 114,125 fall 2025 applicants, a 9.1% acceptance rate.

Harvard's Class of 2029 admitted 2,003 of 47,893 applicants, a 4.18% acceptance rate. Its yield was about 83.6% (1,675 enrolled).

Penn admitted 3,570 of 72,544 fall 2025 applicants, a 4.92% acceptance rate, and enrolled 2,420, a 67.8% yield.

If you're thinking about a career in business, finance, banking, or launching a startup someday, finance is something you'll have to understand one way or another. Choosing an online finance course can be a genuinely smart decision. Unlike long pre-college programs, you don't need to worry about travel or housing with an online course.

If you're a high school student interested in exploring an academic field beyond the classroom, a selective research program can provide an early introduction to college-level scholarship. These programs allow you to investigate a topic in depth while working with faculty members, researchers, or PhD mentors on meaningful research projects.

Beyond the general sense that AP classes "look good," there are several concrete, specific benefits worth understanding on their own terms, since they matter in different ways depending on your goals.