15 Online Writing Programs for High School Students
- Stephen Turban
- 2 hours ago
- 8 min read
If you’re a high school student who wants to improve your writing, online writing programs can be a good way to do that. These programs let you work with instructors and other students on writing activities, read pieces that challenge your thinking, and get feedback on your work.
Why consider an online writing program?
Online writing programs are hosted by universities, nonprofits, and educational organizations, so you can access college-level instruction from home. Many of these programs focus on revision, clarity, and craft through workshops, guided lessons, and discussions. You might work on personal essays, creative pieces, research writing, or analytical projects while learning how to articulate your thoughts more clearly. Participating in an online writing program can add depth to your college applications by showing sustained engagement with writing beyond required classes.
With that, here is a list of 15 online writing programs for high school students!
Cost: Varies by the program. Full financial aid is available.
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: Summer (June–August), Fall (September–December), Winter (December–February), and Spring (March–June).
Application Deadline: Spring (January), Summer (May), Fall (September), and Winter (November).
Eligibility: Current high school students with a minimum unweighted GPA of 3.3.
The Lumiere Research Scholar Program is a rigorous research program tailored for high school students. The program offers extensive 1-on-1 research opportunities for high school students across a broad range of subject areas that you can explore as a high schooler. The program pairs high school students with Ph.D. mentors to work 1-on-1 on an independent research project. At the end of the 12-week program, you’ll have developed an independent research paper! You can choose research topics from subjects such as psychology, physics, economics, data science, computer science, engineering, chemistry, international relations, and more. You can find more details about the application here.
Cost: Free (online session)
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: Winter: January 18 to March 1
Application Deadline: September 8
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–12 with a 3.0+ GPA.
The Iowa Young Writers’ Studio is offered by the same institution that hosts the world-famous Iowa Writers' Workshop. You will benefit from six-week asynchronous online courses that cover a broad range of creative writing genres. The program is designed to build your writing portfolio through weekly exercises, peer feedback sessions, and in-depth discussions of assigned texts. You will gain hands-on experience in the "workshop" model, learning how to give and receive constructive criticism on original drafts. While the sessions are flexible, the rigorous schedule requires you to meet weekly deadlines and engage deeply with your peer cohort.
Cost: Varies; financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: Spring/Fall (15 weeks), Summer (10 weeks, June–September)
Application Deadline: Multiple deadlines for Spring, Summer, and Fall cohorts
Eligibility: High school students in good academic standing (>3.67/4.0 GPA).
Horizon offers trimester-long research programs for high school students across subject areas such as data science, machine learning, political theory, and more! Horizon is one of the few research programs for high school students that offers you the choice to engage in either quantitative or qualitative research.
Once you select a particular subject track, Horizon pairs you with a professor/PhD scholar who acts as a mentor throughout your research journey. As a participant, you will be expected to develop a 20-page research paper that you can send to prestigious journals for publication as a high school student. The program also provides a letter of recommendation for each student and detailed project feedback that you can use to work on future projects. Apply here!
Cost: None (Earn community service hours)
Acceptance rate/cohort size: 10 participants
Dates: Not specified (Check website for seasonal details)
Application Deadline: Rolling
Eligibility: Students aged 15–18
Project Write Now offers a virtual workspace for teenagers to explore the professional side of writing and publishing. You will serve as an editorial assistant or participate in The Interview Project, where you conduct interviews and craft human-interest stories. As an editorial assistant, you work on marketing and website content creation for Bridge Ink, a young adult literary magazine. You will gain hands-on experience in managing an online publication and participating in editorial meetings to shape the teen writing community. This program is great because it functions as an internship, rewarding your work with community service hours rather than charging tuition.
Cost: $1,380
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: June 21 – June 26
Application Deadline: April 1
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors or seniors between the ages of 16 and 18
Writing at the Yale Young Writers’ Workshop, hosted by Yale University, is shaped through discussion and critique rather than lectures. You will write daily in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, and then bring drafts into small workshops led by published writers. Sessions focus on voice, structure, and revision, with close attention to how contemporary writing works on the page. The experience depends heavily on peer exchange and sustained engagement with your own drafts.
Cost: $3,080; financial aid available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Average class size of 16.
Dates: Session One: June 15 - June 26 | Session Two: July 06 - July 17
Application Deadline: March 13
Eligibility: Students in grades 8–11
Virtual classrooms at the Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes Creative Writing course, offered by Stanford University, combine structured instruction with experimentation. You will write across genres, respond to prompts, and analyze published work to understand how stories are built. Workshops emphasize revision and discussion rather than performance. Over time, you begin to predict your own habits as a writer and test new approaches to structure and voice.
Cost: $1,325
Acceptance Rate/Cohort Size: Highly selective
Application Deadline: April 6
Dates: August 3-7
Eligibility: Open to rising sophomores through graduating seniors
The Juniper Institute for Young Writers is designed for high school students looking to enhance their creative writing through workshops, craft sessions, and writing labs led by MFA students. You’ll work in small groups to share your writing, explore new ideas, and receive constructive feedback. Scholarships are available to those requiring financial assistance. For the virtual session, Juniper Young Writers Online (JYWO) offers an intensive, week-long experience. You’ll collaborate with Creative Writing instructors, working writers, MFA students from the UMass Amherst MFA for Poets and Writers program, and a community of peer writers.
Cost: $995
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: June 14–19
Application Deadline: Applications will open in March
Eligibility: Students aged 16–18
Live discussion anchors the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, hosted by Kenyon Review. Sessions mix writing time with focused conversations about craft, form, and revision. You will meet one-on-one with instructors to talk through drafts, often focusing on structure or language choices. The goal is generation and reworking rather than completion, leaving you with new material and clearer habits.
Cost: $575/student, but financial assistance is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: Typically June - July
Application Deadline: March 1
Eligibility: Students currently in grades 9-12 can apply to the program (including graduating seniors and gap year students)
The Adroit Journal’s Summer Mentorship Program offers high school students and recent graduates a unique opportunity to refine their creative writing skills through one-on-one mentorship with established writers. Focused on poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction/memoir, the program emphasizes the art of drafting, redrafting, and editing. You will share their work weekly or biweekly with mentors and peers, gaining invaluable feedback and insight into the creative process. Over 65% of mentorship graduates have matriculated at Ivy League universities, Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge.
Cost: $1,195 ($250 deposit due at registration)
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: July 6 - 10
Application Deadline: July
Eligibility: Grades 9-12
If you are a high school student looking to develop your creative writing skills, Sarah Lawrence Writers' Week is a great fit. The program focuses on creative expression in a supportive environment. Workshops are small, with only 18 students per group and two faculty members, ensuring you receive individualized attention. Through interactive workshops, you will explore your writing, receive feedback from peers and mentors, and refine your craft. The program concludes with a celebration featuring readings from both faculty and students, showcasing the work developed throughout the week.
Cost: $750 (online); financial aid available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: July 7 – 16
Application Deadline: Early Registration: June 1 | Final Registration: July 1
Eligibility: All high school students
The Harvard Crimson Summer Journalism Academy offers a rare look inside a major student-run newspaper. You will receive training in news writing, investigative journalism, and opinion writing led by current Crimson editors. The program includes seminars with professional journalists who provide insights into the business strategy and technology required to run a modern publication. You will gain hands-on experience by working toward a portfolio of publishable works, receiving personalized feedback on every draft. Whether virtual or in-person, you will be part of a high-energy newsroom environment that emphasizes speed, accuracy, and ethics.
Cost: $2,950
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Not specified
Dates: July 20 – August 7
Application Deadline: Not specified
Eligibility: Current 9th-11th grade students
The Research and Writing Conventions course, offered by UPenn, is a three-week online program designed to introduce you to the structural and persuasive techniques used in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. You will analyze how scholars across disciplines frame questions, organize arguments, and use evidence persuasively. Writing tasks involve analyzing published research and drafting your own research-driven pieces. Feedback emphasizes structure, logic, and documentation rather than creativity alone.
Cost: $1,895 (Enrichment) | $3,995 (Credit)
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: July 20 – August 31 (Credit) | July 20 – August 17 (Enrichment)
Application Deadline: Varies; typically one week before the session starts
Eligibility: Students aged 13 and up
Georgetown University offers both credit-bearing and enrichment courses for young writers. You will attend faculty-led sessions that cover narrative techniques, characterization, and plot development. The program allows you to choose between a non-credit format for personal growth or a credit-bearing format to start your college transcript early. You will gain hands-on experience by completing a final project featuring a collection of your original fiction pieces. The course includes both individual and group-based writing activities, ensuring you receive a balance of independent work and peer feedback. Upon completion, you earn a Certificate of Completion from Georgetown.
Cost: $349 per workshop; 15% discount when registering for 2+ workshops
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Small cohorts of up to 30 teens per workshop
Dates: Multiple summer sessions offered (specific dates vary by workshop)
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions
Eligibility: Ages 13-19 (high school students worldwide)
Writing inside Write the World Virtual Summer Writing Camps, run by Write the World, feels less like a class and more like joining an active writing room that stays open all day. Your mornings are built around live workshops where you talk through drafts, receive feedback, and watch how other writers approach the same prompt in different ways. The rest of the day is quieter and more self-directed, writing in response to prompts, revising earlier work, and reading peers’ pieces with care. Workshops vary by focus, from long-form fiction to college essays to poetry, but the rhythm stays consistent: write, share, respond, rewrite.
Cost: $300 (non-refundable after May 16)
Acceptance rate/cohort size: 12-14 students per group; non-selective
Dates: June 9-20
Application Deadline: May 16
Eligibility: Ages 12-18 (high school students and recent graduates)
Days at the Morehouse Summer Online Writing Camp, offered through Morehouse College, are long, steady, and built around the belief that writing improves through practice rather than performance. You will write alongside others, respond to prompts, discuss short readings, and talk about what works and what doesn’t in early drafts. Instructors write during sessions too, sharing unfinished work and revisions, which changes the tone of feedback from evaluation to conversation. Individual conferences give you time to slow down and look closely at your own habits, where you get stuck, what you return to, and what you avoid. Across genres, essays, fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, the program keeps circling back to the same questions about clarity, intention, and choice.
Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a PhD 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.
Image Source - Yale University logo