Updated March 21, 2025

Princeton Summer Programs for High School Students

Bonus Material: PrepMaven’s Summer 2025 Calendar

Many colleges–including Princeton University–ask their applicants to answer the following question:

How did you spend your last two summers?

For most high school students, especially upperclassmen, summertime is a chance to unwind, catch up on sleep, and spend time with friends.

Relaxation is vital and frequently well-earned! 

Yet filling your summers with other meaningful activities, including volunteering, research opportunities, and college programs, can be doubly vital. Rich summer experiences can help you solidify and jumpstart your classroom learning while connecting you with like-minded peers.

Plus, they can make it easier to answer that college application question–when that time comes!

Whether you’re a Princeton local or a student keen to spend time in proximity to Princeton University, this post is for you. Keep reading for insight into the best Princeton summer programs for high school students.

You’ll also get access to our Summer Calendar, which can help students organize the programs and activities they’ll be pursuing this summer. This calendar also includes information about virtual activities and online programs.

Grab this below.

Download Summer Calendar

Here’s what we’ll cover:

1. Princeton Summer Programs for High School Students
2. Princeton-Based Summer Programs
3. Bonus: PrepMaven’s Summer 2025 Calendar

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Princeton Summer Programs for High School Students

There are currently three Princeton summer programs for high school students directly affiliated with Princeton University. These include the Laboratory Learning Program, the Summer Journalism Program, and Princeton Sports Camps.

If you’re eager to learn more about academic year opportunities at Princeton University, check out our post on Princeton courses for high school students. 

Princeton University’s Laboratory Learning Program

This “full-time, free research experience in the sciences or engineering” is available to students 16 and older at the time of applying. 

If accepted to this program, high school students participate in a research project with faculty members and fellow researchers for 7-10 weeks in the summer. Research opportunities vary every year.

Here’s a glimpse of summer 2025’s research projects, available in natural sciences and engineering:

• Understanding Historical Trend of Global Climate Policy Adoption
• Multiscale Simulation and Machine Learning of Materials
• Exploratory Computer Vision Project
• Spatial Audio and Hearing Aid Research
• Modeling Disease Dysregulation Using Large Genomic Datasets
• Exploring Motor Skill Learning from Another Angle: How Different Cognitive Strategies are Leveraged for Improving Motor Performance

Students can specify up to two projects they’re interested in when applying in the spring prior to the Laboratory Learning Program’s start. The application period runs from February 15 to March 15, 2025. 

**Note: High school students do not receive any kind of academic credit for participating in this program. Nor does the Laboratory Learning program give Princeton University applicants a greater advantage in admissions.

Princeton Summer Journalism Program

Princeton’s Summer Journalism Program is a free residential summer opportunity for eligible high school juniors. 

Every summer, forty participants spend ten days on Princeton’s campus, learning from professors, journalists, and alumni and collaborating together to produce the Princeton Summer Journal (published at program culmination).

The best part about this program? Its impact extends beyond the summer intensive. Following the program, each student is matched with a college advisor, who helps them navigate the college admissions process their senior fall. 

This program is highly competitive—only 40 participants are chosen from a pool of hundreds.

Applications open each year in November and close in February; the application deadline in 2025 is February 28.

**Note: Preference in participant selection is given to high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds.

The James Madison Program Seminar

For high schoolers interested in politics, history, and government, the prestigious James Madison Program at Princeton offers a way to get involved in over the summer.

While the James Madison Program is mostly for current undergraduates at Princeton, they also have one program open to high schoolers: The James Madison Seminar on the Principles of American Constitutionalism. 

This is a 1-week, in-person seminar where participants will live and study together near (but not quite on!) Princeton’s campus.

The seminar explores questions of power, equality, and liberty in American politics, with readings that include the Federalist Papers and de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, alongside other classic texts of American history.

The entire program (including room and board) costs $350. These seminars are also taught by real professors. Though we assume it changes from year to year, the lecturers for 2025 are a professor from Arizona State and and another from University of Texas at Austin.

Princeton Sports Camps

Princeton University has been offering summer sports camps and clinics to young athletes since the 1990s. These camps are directed by Princeton University varsity coaches and held on-campus.

Overnight attendants stay in campus dorms and eat their meals at campus dining halls.

Camps are available for the following sports:

• Baseball
• Basketball
• Cross Country
• Fencing
• Field Hockey
• Football
• Ice Hockey
• Lacrosse
• Rowing
• Soccer
• Squash
• Softball
• Strength & Conditioning
• Swimming & Diving
• Tennis
• Track & Field
• Volleyball
• Water Polo
• Wrestling

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Princeton-Based Summer Programs

There are numerous Princeton summer programs for high school students hosted on Princeton University’s campus. 

While these are not directly organized by the university, they offer high school students a chance to experience the campus and various facilities firsthand.

Many of these programs are geared towards gifted learning, making them ideal for precocious learners eager to dive deep into subjects like coding, debate, journalism, and more. 

W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Summer Institute

At the W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Summer Institute, aspiring young scholars gather on Princeton University’s campus to deepen their time management, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and problem-solving skills. The Institute offers Pre-Scholar and Scholar Academies, for rising 8th and 9th graders and rising 10th-12th graders, respectively.

Pre-Scholar Academies are 4-week summer intensives. Participants participate in either the Junior Achievers Academy (for rising 8th graders) or the Fellows Mentoring Academy (for rising 9th graders). Scholar Academies are 5-week summer intensives and include engineering, leadership, business/finance, and pre-med/neuroscience honors programs.

Summer Institute for the Gifted

SIG participants have the chance to live on campus and utilize Princeton’s amazing facilities during this summertime intensive.

The Summer Institute for the Gifted at Princeton brings together talented students from all over the world for three weeks. As an SIG camper, you’ll have a chance to explore multidisciplinary curriculum spanning Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math, Humanities, and Fitness and Recreation on Princeton’s campus. 

When not taking such courses, students can explore the Princeton Art Museum, Frist Campus Center, Prospect Garden, and more. Students age 13-17 are welcome to apply to this program.

Admission to the Summer Institute for the Gifted program is on a rolling, first-come, first-served basis for qualified students. The priority enrollment deadline for 2025 is May 15.

Note: Princeton University is not a listed location for SIG Programs in 2025 , but students can participate in SIG programs on-campus at Yale, Cornell, UCLA, Emory, Bryn Mawr, Berkeley, and others.

iDTech

For over ten years, iDTech has been giving students a chance to explore tech in its many forms through a summer intensive at Princeton. At this STEM summer camp, students explore machine learning, coding, artificial intelligence, robotics, and beyond.

iDTech prides itself on its stellar instructors (often industry experts), intimate class sizes, and accelerated, fun style of learning.

Classes are held at the Princeton Theological Seminary, Quadrangle Club, and Cloister Inn. iD tech camps, for students ages 7-17, are each one week long; iD coding and AI academy camps, for students ages 13-18, are two weeks.

Program in Algorithmic and Combinational Thinking (PACT)

Aspiring computer scientists and mathematicians won’t want to overlook PACT, a unique summer program that gives students a chance to dive deep into the world of theoretical computer science.

This five-week educational program emphasizes the math and algorithms students need to know to succeed in the computer science field. It’s funded in part by Rutgers University and the National Science Foundation. 

The only requirements for this program? “High school algebra, the willingness to work hard and be challenged, and, above all, the desire to learn.”

Some summer program students may be eligible to continue studying on Saturdays throughout the academic year.

Note: For 2025, PACT will have an option to participate virtually as well as in-person on Princeton’s campus. 

Princeton Tutoring/PrepMaven Courses

PrepMaven and its sister site, Princeton Tutoring, have been providing academic tutoring, test, prep, and college counseling services since 2005.

The co-founders of the company are Princeton University graduates, and their team of 150+ tutors/instructors are comprised mostly of Princeton University undergraduates and graduates.

While their office is located within the Princeton Entrepreneurial Hub, they work with students across the country through live & online courses:

• SAT MasterClass – an SAT course led by one of the co-founders
• College Essay Workshop – learn from a Harvard-educated screenwriter & complete the college essay in 4 weeks
• Academic Writing Workshop – build both thinking and writing skills

Private tutoring is also available if preferred or if students can’t make the courses.

We want to reiterate that attendance of any of these programs does not advantage Princeton University applicants in any way. It’s important to apply to these programs for the experiences they offer, first and foremost.

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Download PrepMaven’s 2025 Summer Calendar

Eligible students have a lot to choose from when it comes to competitive Princeton summer programs for high schoolers. That’s why we’ve created PrepMaven’s 2025 Summer Calendar, a helpful tool for organizing this summer’s activities, particularly those that are now virtual / online.

With this calendar, you’ll be able to:

1. Identify your experiences of interest and start / end dates (if applicable)
2. Narrow down this list of experiences to your top 3-5
3. Block out these experiences on a digital calendar for an easy birds-eye view of your summer
4. Find extra details and links to all of the summer programs mentioned in this list (we’ve done the work for you!)
5. Document your time so you can feel confident filling out your college application resume down the road

Download Summer Calendar

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Kate

Kate is a graduate of Princeton University. Over the last decade, Kate has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay.