UPenn Summer Research Programs for High School Students

This page is part of our guide on how to do research in high school. Most lists of Penn summer options come from companies that sell their own programs, so this one uses only Penn’s pages, dates each claim, and separates Penn-run research internships from the paid academies that sit beside them.

Does Penn run a summer research program for high school students?

Yes, in two different forms. Penn Research Experience for High School Students (PREHSS) is a five-week lab internship in Penn Arts and Sciences, where students are assigned a mentor and a research project and give a final presentation in the last week.^[1] Penn’s own story describes it as open to rising juniors and seniors at Philadelphia public and charter high schools.^[2] The Summer Academies are a separate set of paid programs run through Penn Arts and Sciences High School Programs.^[4]

Program	Run by	Who it is for, per Penn	Cost or pay, per Penn
PREHSS	Penn Arts and Sciences	Rising juniors and seniors at Philadelphia public and charter schools^[2]	$1,500 award for completing the five weeks, plus meal and travel support^[1]
TREES	Penn CEET, environmental science	Students who have completed grade 9, 10 or 11, with a GPA of at least 3.0 out of 4.0, who can commute^[3]	Tuition-free^[3]
Summer Academies	Penn Arts and Sciences High School Programs	Applicants with a full transcript, a recommendation letter and essays^[5]	$6,700 for two weeks, $10,050 for three weeks (2026)^[4]

Penn’s pages also say what year each entry refers to, and that matters in the next section.

Are the Penn research internships open for next summer?

Check before you plan, because Penn’s pages say different things. The PREHSS page states that the 2026 program is complete and that details for 2027 will be announced later in the year, with no 2027 dates or deadlines listed.^[1] The TREES page states that the program will not be offered in Summer 2027.^[3]

Neither page tells you how to apply for a future session, so contact the office named on the page. For PREHSS that is the Office of Academic Excellence and Engagement in Penn Arts and Sciences.^[1] The PREHSS page does not list eligibility, so the Philadelphia public and charter school detail above comes from a Penn story published in August 2025, and the rules for a later year may differ.^[2]

Penn’s K-12 pipeline list names other research-related offerings, including an OER Summer Research Experience and the Research and Engineering Apprenticeship Program, and says Penn offers over 200 pipeline programs in all.^[7] That list gives no eligibility or format, so open each program’s own page for terms.

What do Penn Summer Academies cost, and are they research?

The Summer Academies are paid programs with a tuition price. For 2026 Penn lists $6,700 for the two-week academies and $10,050 for the three-week academies, including program fees and residential costs.^[4] A $1,500 nonrefundable deposit secures a seat and counts toward the total, and the $100 application fee is separate and nonrefundable.^[4]^[5]

Several academy titles include the word research, such as Biomedical Research, Chemistry Research and Neuroscience Research.^[6] Penn describes the academies as subject-intensive programs, says the science academies offer hands-on lab work, and says faculty, professionals and teaching assistants lead them. Its page does not describe what each academy’s students produce.^[6] Read the academy description before you assume it gives you a project of your own. Our guide to what a mentored research program involves explains how a course differs from a mentored project.

Penn says Philadelphia residents at School District of Philadelphia public or charter high schools may be eligible for a scholarship, and that no scholarships are currently offered to other applicants.^[4]

How do you apply to the Summer Academies?

Penn reviews applications on a rolling basis, in the order received, until programs fill. Its 2026 page lists a May 1, 2026 deadline for the Summer Academies, notes that decisions can take up to six weeks, and says applications for summer 2026 are now closed.^[5] Penn does not list 2027 dates on that page, so treat any other site’s deadline as a guess.

Penn lists these parts of an application:^[5]

A full transcript.
One recommendation letter.
Essays.
English proficiency scores for non-native English speakers, unless a waiver applies.

Penn describes a minimum 3.5 high school GPA as the profile of successful applicants, not a stated hard cutoff, and says some programs have prerequisites.^[5]

How can you tell a Penn-run program from one that uses the name?

Check who runs it on a page you can verify. A Penn-run program sits on an upenn.edu page and names the Penn school or center in charge. A company may rent space on a campus or borrow a name while selling its own program. This checklist works for any program:

Open the program’s own page. Does the address end in upenn.edu, and does it name the Penn unit in charge?
Find the cost or pay on that page. Compare it with any other site and trust the Penn page when they differ.
Read what you will do. A lab internship, an academy and a company’s own mentoring are different things.
Ask who teaches or mentors you, and get the answer in writing.
Ask what is refunded and when, and get that in writing too.

Our hub on how to tell if a research program is legit covers red flags and questions to ask before you pay.

What can you do if you are not eligible for a Penn program?

You can start research without a program. A project needs a question, a source of data or text, and feedback from someone who knows the field. Read how to find a research mentor and how to volunteer in a lab. If you are comparing universities, our post on Harvard summer research programs uses the same format.

What should you do next?

Open the Penn pages for the year you plan to apply and write down the eligibility, cost or pay and deadline. Then decide whether a Penn internship, an academy or a project you run on your own fits your goal. If you want an outside view of how your overall profile reads, the free review on ivy-league.io is built for that.

What do we not know?

Costs, dates and eligibility on Penn’s pages change each year, and Penn’s pages for different programs refer to different years. The PREHSS page does not state eligibility or how to apply, so the eligibility given here comes from an earlier Penn story and may have changed. Whether PREHSS runs again next summer and what its rules will be are not yet announced on the page. This is not a complete list of Penn programs: Penn’s own list names many more, including medical school and engineering offerings whose terms vary. We do not know how any program affects an admission decision, and no source we know of shows that it does.