15 University AI Programs for High School Students
- Stephen Turban
- 45 minutes ago
- 10 min read
As artificial intelligence becomes more common across industries, understanding its foundations is becoming increasingly useful. Fields such as engineering, medicine, finance, and research rely on AI-driven tools and models. For high school students interested in technology or applied sciences, university-hosted AI programs provide early exposure to these ideas through focused study in machine learning and data science.
Why consider university-hosted AI programs?
University-hosted AI programs are designed to reflect college-level expectations. Students may work through topics such as data analysis, algorithms, or introductory machine learning, often using real examples and structured assignments. Learning in a university environment also helps students adjust to the pace and style of higher-level coursework. These programs can help you decide whether AI is a subject you want to pursue further and give you experiences to reference later.
With that in mind, here are 15 university-hosted AI programs for high school students!
If you’re looking for a list of more competitive AI programs to apply to alongside the ones on this list, check this blog out!
15 University AI Programs for High School Students
Location: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Cost: None
Acceptance Rate: Selective
Dates: June 20 – July 18
Application Deadline: February 1
Eligibility: Open to students in 11th grade at the time of application submission, age 16+
AI Scholars at Carnegie Mellon University is a four-week residential summer program for rising high school seniors. Before arriving on campus, you complete a short virtual Python course, then spend the summer studying data, algorithms, and machine learning through classes taught by CMU faculty. You work in small groups on research-style projects with guidance from professors and graduate students and present your work at the end of the program. The schedule also includes mentorship sessions, college and financial aid workshops, and talks about AI careers. Living on campus gives you daily exposure to college-level academics and peers who are focused on computer science and AI.
Location: Oxford, Cambridge, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto, and Boston
Cost: Varies; financial aid available
Application Deadline: Multiple summer cohorts; rolling admissions.
Program Dates: 2 weeks during the summer
Eligibility: Students aged 13-18 currently enrolled in middle or high school
The Academic Insights Program lets high school students experience university life firsthand. You will live on campus and study in small groups of 7-10, and learn from tutors from eminent top universities like Oxford and Cambridge. You can explore a wide range of subjects, spanning over 20 options, including Architecture, AI, Business Management, Computer Science, Economics, Medicine, Philosophy, and more. The courses are experiential and focus on hands-on learning. You may find yourself conducting dissections in medicine, designing a robotic arm in engineering, participating in a moot court for law, or building creative writing portfolios and business case studies. By the end of the program, you’ll complete a personal project, receive written feedback, and receive a certificate of completion. You can find more details about the application here.
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; prioritizes students from under-resourced communities
Cost: Free
Dates: June–August (runs for 6 weeks)
Application Deadline: April 18
Eligibility: U.S. and Puerto Rico-based students entering or enrolled in high school in the Fall; no prior coding experience required
MIT FutureMakers is a free, six-week online summer program that introduces you to artificial intelligence through structured lessons and team projects. The program begins with guided instruction on how AI systems are built, trained, and evaluated, then moves into group work where you apply those ideas to a community-based problem. You receive mentorship from MIT undergraduate students throughout the program and spend time learning how to explain technical ideas clearly. No prior coding experience is required, and the program is designed to build skills step by step.
Location: Virtual (hosted by the University of Washington)
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective
Dates: Vary by the session
Application Deadline: Varies by session
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors, seniors, or college freshmen from underrepresented backgrounds
AI4ALL at the University of Washington is a virtual summer program that introduces you to data science and artificial intelligence through small-group instruction. You study how machine learning models work and examine issues like bias, accessibility, and fairness in technology design. Classes are led by university researchers and include discussion-based sessions rather than lectures only. A key part of the program is learning how AI systems affect people with disabilities and how design choices shape access. The program focuses on both technical foundations and ethical decision-making.
5. RAISE at MIT
Location: Virtual
Cost: None
Application Deadline: Varies according to the course
Program Dates: Varies according to the course
Eligibility: High school students for select programs (some programs are also open to Middle school students).
The Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) initiative offers interactive tutorials and applications for self-paced AI learning. One featured tool, Doodle Bot, introduces robotics, Arduino programming, and machine learning, helping you understand hardware fundamentals through a Creative AI platform used in STEM workshops across the U.S. and Mexico. Another resource, Personal Image Classifier (PICaboo), guides you through building a custom AI-driven image classification model integrated into an interactive game.
Location: Online
Cost: $4,120. Financial aid is available
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; cohort size not publicly disclosed
Dates: June 15 – June 26
Application Deadline: Typically in February
Eligibility: High school students; emphasis on students from underrepresented backgrounds in STEM
Stanford AI4ALL Online is a two-week virtual program that introduces you to artificial intelligence through live classes and group work. You attend daily sessions led by Stanford-affiliated instructors and work with other students on guided problem-solving activities. The curriculum covers core AI ideas alongside discussions about ethics, policy, and real-world use. The program also includes college preparation sessions and guest talks. Participation is full-time during scheduled hours, with additional independent work outside class.
Location: Online
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective; limited cohort size
Dates: July 7–August 2 (online course begins February 3 and must be completed by June 20)
Application Deadline: Must register for the prerequisite online course by February
Eligibility: U.S.-based rising juniors and seniors who complete the online prerequisite course; prior Python experience recommended
MIT Beaver Works’ Serious Games with AI program is an online summer course where you learn applied artificial intelligence by building a simulation-based game in Python. The work centers on modeling disease spread and decision-making, using code to represent agents, systems, and outcomes inside a game environment. You move through weekly assignments that involve designing logic for intelligent agents, handling data inside the simulation, and visualizing results. Along the way, you learn how technical choices affect users and outcomes, and how teams structure software projects using basic Agile workflows.
Location: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Cost: None
Acceptance Rate: Competitive
Dates: July 9 – 30
Application Deadline: April 9
Eligibility: Rising 11th graders who meet one of these socioeconomic conditions and are from the U.S. or Puerto Rico
In the Princeton AI4ALL program, you’ll spend three weeks living on Princeton’s campus and take a two-day field trip to Washington, D.C. During the program, you’ll attend daily lectures by Princeton AI faculty, dive into hands-on research projects led by graduate students, and explore the social, ethical, and policy implications of artificial intelligence. You’ll also receive career coaching, participate in small-group mentoring, and build close connections through workshops and communal activities. By the end of the program, you’ll present your project in a group showcase and join a community dedicated to making AI more inclusive and responsible.
Location: Virtual (New York-based program)
Cost: Free
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Highly selective; small cohort
Dates: June 27 – July 15 (3 weeks)
Application Deadline: Typically early spring
Eligibility: Rising 10th–12th graders from underrepresented backgrounds in AI; preference for NY metropolitan area students
Columbia AI4ALL is a three-week virtual summer program that introduces you to artificial intelligence through both technical lessons and social context. You study topics such as classification, clustering, data bias, and model evaluation through faculty-led sessions and guided group projects. The program places consistent focus on how AI systems affect people and how design choices shape fairness and access. You work closely with mentors and peers throughout the program and complete a final project that brings together technical ideas and real-world considerations.
Location: On campus at Harvard University (Boston, MA)
Cost: Free; stipends available for low-income students
Acceptance rate/cohort size: Selective
Dates: Late June – mid July (2 weeks)
Application Deadline: Typically early spring
Eligibility: Rising high school freshmen through seniors; basic algebra recommended
Data Science in Action is a two-week, on-campus summer program at Harvard where you learn data science and machine learning through a hands-on engineering project. You start with Python basics and core ideas in statistics and machine learning, then apply them to train image-recognition models. Working in teams, you program a small self-driving car that uses your trained model to navigate its environment. Instruction comes from Harvard faculty, researchers, and graduate students, and the program focuses on how data science tools are used in real research and engineering contexts.
11. SHARP! Program
Location: University of Illinois, Chicago
Cost: $3,500; financial need scholarships are available.
Application Deadline: February 6
Program Dates: 11-month program - Summer Research Component (June 15 – July 24) plus mandatory school-year component (August–April)
Eligibility: High school students who are at least 16 years old by the start of the program.
The SHARP program at the University of Illinois Chicago is a four-week summer research experience for rising high school juniors interested in AI, robotics, and biomedical engineering in healthcare. You’ll work in research labs, gaining hands-on experience in medical imaging, robotic-assisted surgery, and AI-driven diagnostics while being mentored by scientists. The program includes lectures, career mentorship, and biomedical workshops, helping you develop skills in data analysis, programming, and biomedical technology applications. You’ll also participate in a suturing lab and robotic surgery simulations, getting practical exposure to medical procedures. The experience concludes with a research presentation at the SHARP! Symposium.
Location: New York University Tandon School of Engineering, New York, NY
Cost: $3,180
Acceptance Rate: Selective; Minimum 3.0 GPA required
Dates: Three session options – Session 1: June 15–27 | Session 2: July 6–17 | Session 3: July 20–31
Application Deadline: May 15
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–11 who have completed Algebra 2 or equivalent and have prior programming experience in any language (International applicants must also submit proof of English language proficiency)
NYU Tandon’s Summer Program for Machine Learning is a two-week, full-day academic program where you work through the foundations behind how machine learning systems are built and tested. You move from basic data handling and model design into topics like linear regression, cross-validation, and neural networks, with each concept tied to small problem sets and applied examples. Instruction is led by Tandon faculty with support from graduate mentors, and class sizes are kept small so you can ask questions and get feedback as you code and analyze results. Projects and examples draw from areas such as image recognition, autonomous systems, and health data, showing how math and programming come together in practice.
Location: Purdue University Northwest, Hammond Campus, Hammond, IN
Cost: $130
Acceptance Rate: Open; space available on a first-come, first-served basis
Dates: June 16–20
Application Deadline: Rolling; students accepted until three weeks before camp
Eligibility: High school students entering 9th grade or higher in the fall
Purdue University Northwest’s AI and Machine Learning Summer Camp is a one-week, in-person program focused on understanding how AI tools work under the hood. You spend the week writing Python code to implement basic machine learning methods such as linear regression, k-nearest neighbors, and simple neural networks. Each day builds on the last, starting with core ideas in AI and moving toward complete project workflows, including data preparation and evaluation. Examples are drawn from everyday systems like recommendation engines, energy forecasting, and trading models, helping you connect algorithms to real uses.
Location: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (Twin Cities metro area)
Cost: Typically between $125 – $175
Acceptance Rate: Selective; prioritizes women and underrepresented racial groups
Dates: One-week sessions during summer; an advanced week option is available
Application Deadline: Varies by year; typically spring
Eligibility: High school juniors and seniors; welcoming to students with no prior coding experience; sections available for all-girls groups and mixed-gender groups
The Machine Learning Summer Day Camp at the University of Minnesota is a one-week program where you learn machine learning by working directly with real datasets. You use Python to explore data from areas like medicine, ecology, and public records, then build models to answer specific questions you choose. Projects can range from classifying images to predicting outcomes from historical data, giving you room to follow your own interests. Instruction is designed to support beginners while still challenging students who want to go further, and small group work is a central part of the experience. An optional advanced week lets you continue with more complex projects, such as training chatbots or building trading models.
Location: UC Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering, Riverside, CA
Cost: Free (funded by National Science Foundation grant)
Acceptance Rate: Open
Dates: July 28–August 1
Application Deadline: July 18
Eligibility: High school students interested in emerging data science and AI fields
The Data Science Summer Camp at UC Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering is a free, week-long introduction to data science and artificial intelligence. You work through guided labs that cover Python basics, data cleaning, visualization, and simple machine learning ideas. The focus stays on learning by doing, with time spent working directly with datasets and tools used in research and industry. Faculty and instructors show how data science supports engineering, science, and applied research, rather than treating it as a purely theoretical subject. By the end of the week, you will have practical exposure to how data is collected, analyzed, and interpreted in technical fields.
One other option—the Lumiere Research Scholar Program
If you’re interested in pursuing independent research, consider applying to one of the Lumiere Research Scholar Programs, selective online high school programs for students founded with researchers at Harvard and Oxford. Last year, we had over 4,000 students apply for 500 spots in the program! You can find the application form here, check out students’ reviews of the program here and here.
Also check out the Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit research program for talented, low-income students. Last year, we had 150 students on full need-based financial aid!
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.
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