10 Summer Data Science Programs for Middle School Students in New York
- Stephen Turban
- Jun 17
- 7 min read
Amidst rapidly changing advances in technology, starting early is key. For aspiring data scientists or programmers currently in middle school, enrolling in a summer data science program is a great decision to build foundational knowledge. Through virtual and in-person sessions, workshops, and boot camps, you will also be exposed to practical lessons in computer science.
These programs also provide a guided approach to apply your skills to deal with real-life situations through mandatory projects and presentations. Attending an introductory middle school program also gives you a headstart, before applying to advanced high school level camps and STEM programs. The best programs also include team-building sessions, collaborative work and interaction with peers and experts alike.
Here’s a list of 10 interesting summer data science programs for middle school students:
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Cost: Varies with Financial Aid available
Dates: Varies for different cohorts
Application Deadline: Varies for different cohorts.
Eligibility: Students in grades 6-8
Location: Virtual
Lumiere’s Junior Explorer Program is an eight-week multi-disciplinary program for middle school students. Through virtual tutorials and one-to-one mentorship, students get the chance to explore their academic interests in various fields, including computer science, artificial intelligence, and data science. After choosing the subject of their choice, you will spend the first four weeks researching different topics with your PhD mentor from a leading university! In weeks 5 and 6, you will be expected to settle for a defined topic and research project. In the final two weeks, you will build your project with help from your mentor.
You can present your project in any form, including a high-school level research paper, a Harvard Business-style case study, a presentation, and more! You also get the opportunity to improve your writing skills in two individual sessions with an established writing coach. In recent years, over 50 academic journals have published work by Lumiere’s Junior Explorers.
Cohort Size: Limited seats available.
Cost: $3,849 (Discounts available for early sign-ups)
Dates: July 6 - July 31
Application Deadline: Not specified.
Eligibility: Students in the 12-14 and 15-18 age brackets
Location: Virtual
Berkeley Coding Academy's summer Data Science program invites aspiring middle school and high school students to participate in a four-week virtual program. Through online sessions, students learn how to write python functions, use dot-notation, work around loops & numpy arrays, prepare data for machine learning, and more! Tutors use tools like Google Colab Notebooks and libraries like NumPy, Pandas and Keras.
A small cohort-size, averaging 6 students, allows scope for doubt-solving and one-to-one interaction with an expert program director and mentors. You will also be expected to use your learnings to curate a data story to make predictions with the help of statistics, professional plots, and machine learning models. Each student is awarded a certificate of participation, with their projects linked.
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Cost: Varies for different cohorts. (Financial Aid available)
Dates: June 7 - June 9 (Weekend Cohort)June 8 - June 19 (Weekday Cohort 1)July 13 - July 24 (Weekday Cohort 2)
Application Deadline: Varies for different cohorts, more details available here
Eligibility: Students in grades 6-8
Location: Virtual
Veritas AI’s AI Trailblazers is a two-week virtual programme for middle schoolers wanting to build their foundations in python, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. In ten sessions, you will delve into subjects such as exploratory data analysis (EDA), data regression problems, neural networks, AI ethics, and more! The mentorship feature ensures a focus on collaboration and advanced learning.
For their final presentation, groups of three to five students work on a guided project and build real world AI models. Projects chosen as per group interest can range from the application of artificial intelligence in gaming, healthcare & sports to crime detection, political science, and education. Past participants have built models to support malaria detection and CIFAR-10 recognition.
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Cost: Free
Dates: July 6 - July 30
Application Deadline: May 15
Eligibility: Students in grades 6 & 7 (For New York residents only)
Location: Andries Hudde Magnet School, Brooklyn, NY
The Science of Smart Cities (SoSC) programme by New York University invites middle school students from New York to participate in a four-week STEM program. Through 9 hours of daily instructions and sessions for four days in each week, students understand how subjects in engineering, computer science & technology can be used to create safe and sustainable cities.
You will learn more about electronics & circuitry, coding & microcontroller programming, and urban science. You will also be expected to apply your learnings, build a project and demonstrate its utility in solving a real-world problem related to urban infrastructure, transportation, wireless communication, or more!
Acceptance Rate: Highly Selective
Cost: $3,200 for Tuition, $65 Application Fee (Course-specific costs could amount up to $100)
Dates: June 15 - June 26 (Session I)July 6 - July 17 (Session II)
Application Deadline: March 13
Eligibility: Students in grades 8-11
Location: Virtual
Stanford’s Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes offers courses in a variety of subjects for middle school and high school students, including in computer science. In introductory courses to C++ and Java Programming, you will learn the fundamentals of the programming languages such as basic syntax, data types, expressions, and more. Other courses focus on the incorporation of computer science in several fields such as art, design, and business.
Each course typically consists of 2-hour-long live online tutorials for five days in each week. Outside the classroom, you will attend instructor office hours and work on your assignments. The program also offers you the chance to network with experts and other talented peers through student life seminars, workshops, and activities.
Acceptance Rate: Highly Selective
Cost: $4,117 (Financial Aid available)
Dates: June 28 - July 17
Application Deadline: May 11
Eligibility: Students in grades 5-6
Location: Speyer School, New York, NY
John Hopkins CTY’s summer course catalogue has much to offer for middle schools students, including STEM programs. In the Introduction to Robotics course, also held in New York, students engage with computer science concepts like algorithms, sequential control flow, and Boolean operators. You and other participants will also be expected to program and test robots, as part of the coursework.
Each class accepts a limited number of participants, ensuring ample attention and time to each student. While there are no course prerequisites, you must have CTY-level test scores to be eligible for participation. The in-person experience also allows you to meet experts from the field of computer science and get to know like-minded peers!
Acceptance Rate: Not specified.
Cost: Free
Dates: August 3 - August 14 (For students attending in-person); Virtual Camps will be available throughout summer.
Application Deadline: Not specified.
Eligibility: Students aged between 13 and 18 (For women and gender-expansive students only)
Location: New York, NY
Kode With Klossy’s two-week coding camps are open to students aged between 13 and 18, who are women or gender-expansive teenagers. You will learn fundamental concepts in artificial intelligence, data science and web development, including topics ranging from algorithms, data sets & natural language processing to SQL, Python & data visualisation.
No prior coding or computer science experience is required to attend the camp, making it a beginner-friendly program. In addition to the academic curriculum and direct learning activities, the camp also organises a speaker series where they invite women achievers in the field of technology.
Acceptance Rate: Open to everyone who applies.
Cost: Free to enroll, $219 to earn a certificate.
Dates: Self-paced.
Application Deadline: Applications accepted on a rolling basis.
Eligibility: Everyone is eligible to attend.
Location: Virtual
Harvard University offers a series of computer science courses for beginners, including middle school students. The catalog includes courses in data science, programming, artificial intelligence, and more! The CS50: Introduction to Computer Science program focuses on aiding algorithmic thinking with a focus on topics like data structures, encapsulation, resource management, security, and web development.
A thorough engagement with the course familiarises you with programming languages such as C, Python, SQL, and JavaScript plus CSS and HTML. The curriculum also includes program sets, with students scoring above a specified threshold becoming eligible for certification. You can attend the course on your own schedule.
Acceptance Rate: Open to everyone who applies.
Cost: Free to enroll, $249 to earn a certificate.
Dates: Self-paced.
Application Deadline: Applications accepted on a rolling basis.
Eligibility: Everyone is eligible to attend.
Location: Virtual
Designed for people with no prior experience, Stanford School of Engineering’s Computer Science 101 is also open to participation for middle schoolers. You will gain a comprehensive understanding about computers and delve into subjects such as hardware, software, and internet. Subsequently, you will also engage with concepts like digital media, abstraction, logic, bugs, structured data, and more!
The course doesn’t require you to download any external software, the curriculum and its practical application is undertaken within the web browser. No previous coding or computer science experience is required to attend the course.
Acceptance Rate: Multi-length courses available throughout the year; more details available here.
Cost: $1,895 for Enrichment Course, $3,995 for College Credit Course (Financial Aid available)
Dates: Varies as per cohort.
Application Deadline: Typically, a week prior to the start date.
Eligibility: Students aged 13 and above.
Location: Virtual
Georgetown University hosts several pre-college online programs, including multi-length courses related to computer science and artificial intelligence. In the Artificial Intelligence program, you will learn basic concepts in AI, machine learning, AI ethics, large language models, AI tools, and more! The instruction and course work involves virtual tutorials, multimedia engagements, simulations and curated assignments.
Students receive guidance from a mentor for a deeper understanding of all the subjects. As part of the course, you will also design a final capstone project in the form of an original AI prototype or concept to tackle a real-world problem, while also factoring ethical and safe uses of artificial intelligence.
Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a Ph.D. student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.