If you’re a high schooler interested in exploring the ideas of human existence, you should consider participating in a philosophy program! A summer program will allow you to develop your skills, build your confidence, and gain an academic edge in a field you’re interested in.
Philosophy deals with the study of fundamental questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and value. Participating in a philosophy program can offer experiences that will fuel your intellectual curiosity and show college admissions officers your commitment to exploring diverse fields of knowledge. These programs will also help you develop your critical thinking and analytical skills, gain guidance from experts, and build strong networks that can help you achieve your future goals.
Here’s our curated list of the 14 best philosophy summer programs for high school students!
Subject Areas: Contemplative philosophy
Location: DRBU’s Sudhana Center campus in Ukiah, CA
Eligibility: High school students aged 14–18 years can apply.
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the slots are filled.
Dates: July 7–July 20, 2024; TBA for 2025
Cost: Tuition for the summer program is $1,800 for two weeks. The tuition covers the cost of classes, housing, meals, books, and activity fees. Limited need-based scholarships are available.
The DRBU Summer Program in Contemplative Philosophy is a two-week college-level program for high school students based in Ukiah, California. Each day includes a Seminar, Contemplative Exercise, Arts Workshop, meals, and various extracurriculars, including electives and other fun activities planned by the Resident Assistants (RAs), who are all current DRBU students or alumni.
- The Seminar will allow you to read, reflect on, and discuss great books from the world’s various philosophical, spiritual, and literary traditions. The Seminar is led by DRBU faculty.
- In the Contemplative Exercise, you'll explore the same questions as in the Seminar but through embodied contemplative practice instead of intellectual inquiry.
- The Arts Workshop will allow you to express the concepts and questions you explore in the Seminar through your creative process. By engaging in various practices such as writing, drawing, and theater, you will delve into the meditative aspect of art and explore art-making as a form of expression and mindfulness.
You will also have plenty of time to relax, hang out, and get to know the other students. During the weekend, you will get to explore the local area by taking a hike in the redwoods, or a trip to the coast!
Subject Areas: Environmental health and engineering, behavioral economics, psychology, international relations, neuroscience, data science, machine learning, network science, biophysics, biotechnology, chemistry, physics, history, philosophy, political theory, sociology, and more!
Location: Virtual
Application Deadline: May 21, 2024, for the summer cohort and September 25, 2024, for the fall cohort.
Dates:
- Summer seminar: June 24–September 2, 2024
- Fall seminar: October 23, 2024–February 19, 2025
- The dates are flexible for Horizon Labs, but you must apply 4 weeks in advance.
Eligibility: High school students with good academic standing (>3.67/4.0 GPA) can apply. Most accepted students are 10th/11th graders! Only a couple of tracks require formal prerequisites, more details of which can be found here.
Horizon offers trimester-long research programs for high school students across subject areas such as data science, machine learning, political theory, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, psychology, and more! It is one of the few research programs for high school students that offers a choice between quantitative and qualitative research!
Once you select a particular subject track and type of research you’ll be paired with a professor or Ph.D. scholar (from a top university) who will mentor you throughout your research journey. If you’re interested in philosophy, Horizon offers courses that will allow you to study cognitive science to investigate the nature of mind, consciousness, and cognition. You’ll work to create a 20-page, university-level research paper that you can send to prestigious journals for publication as a high school student.
This program is a solid opportunity for you to pursue a research program in highly specialized fields, under the guidance of a top scholar. The program also provides a letter of recommendation for each student and detailed project feedback that you can use to work on future projects and college applications. You can apply here!
Subject Areas: Buddhist epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics.
Location: Online Synchronous or Online Asynchronous or On Campus at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Eligibility: High school students aged 16–19 years can apply.
Application Deadline: June 20, 2024; TBA for 2025
Dates: 7-week session; June 24–August 9, 2024
Cost: $3,900 (4-credits). Financial aid is available.
Harvard Summer School’s Secondary School Program (SSP) is a 4- or 7-week academic program for motivated high school students in academically rigorous college courses for college credit.
In this “Buddhist Philosophy” course, you will explore the rich traditions of Indian Buddhist philosophy. More specifically, you will get to discuss topics in Buddhist epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of action, and philosophy of mind. You will focus on the arguments that Buddhist philosophers used to defend their views and respond to their critics. In addition to understanding these arguments in their historical contexts, you will learn about their relevance in today’s scenario and investigate how they are being used in contemporary philosophy.
You can attend the course in person on campus, participate live online at the time the class meets via web conference, or watch the recorded video asynchronously. Recorded sessions are typically available within a few hours of the end of class and no later than the following business day.
Subject Areas: Political philosophy—problems of justice, equality, and freedom.
Location: Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Eligibility: Current high school sophomores, juniors, or seniors at least 16 years old by the program start date can apply.
Application Deadline: January 16, 2024; TBA for 2025
Dates: 8-week session; June 24–August 18, 2024
Cost: $4,116
Summer Session at Stanford University offers an opportunity for high school students to earn credit and an official transcript from Stanford.
The “Introduction to Political Philosophy” class will introduce you to political philosophy through the problems of justice, equality, and freedom. You will focus on contemporary political thought, engaging in debates about each of these concepts and identifying connections between them. You will discuss topics such as problems of justice, the relationship between ideal conditions of justice and current social conditions, the forms of injustice that can be remedied by the state, the meaning of equality, how to assess equality, the obligation to mitigate ‘natural’ inequalities, how much personal freedom should be allowed in society, and more. Throughout the course, you will evaluate answers to these questions, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of different arguments and theoretical frameworks.
Subject Areas: Metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics.
Location: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Eligibility: Students in grades 9–12 can apply. This camp is also open to graduating 8th-graders.
Application Deadline: May 30, 2024; TBA for 2025
Dates: June 10–June 14, 2024; TBA for 2025
Cost: Tuition for The Dialectic is $375. Tuition covers the cost of the camp including instruction, lunches, materials, and facilities. Limited need-based scholarships are available.
The Dialectic: Philosophy Summer Camp is a week-long intellectual exploration designed for high school students. During this immersive experience, you will engage in thought-provoking questions, group discussions, and instructive sessions, all structured around the camp’s theme for the year. In 2024, the camp explored the theme—What is the nature of the self? Students learned about what it means to be a self, what makes us who we are, are those things stable or changing, and what is at stake when we ask such questions.
During the camp, you will work with ASU’s graduate students and attend guest lectures by ASU professors from diverse fields, including Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, Ethics, Philosophy of Technology, Social and Political Philosophy, Psychology, Behavioral Economics, and traditional Philosophy of Well-Being. You will also get to interact with like-minded peers and get a glimpse into the life of a college student.
Subject Areas: Multidisciplinary—biology, psychology, physics, philosophy, economics, data science, computer science, gender studies, engineering, chemistry, business, entrepreneurship, international relations, environmental science, and more!
Location: Remote — you can participate in this program from anywhere in the world!
Cost: Starts at $2,800. Financial aid is available!
Application Deadline: Varying deadlines based on cohort. The main summer deadlines are March 17, April 14, and May 12. The final deadline for the summer cohort is typically in June.
Dates: The summer cohort runs from June to August, the Fall cohort from September to December, the Winter cohort from December to February, and the Spring cohort from March to June. (The program options range from 12 weeks to 1 year).
Eligibility:
- You must be currently enrolled in high school.
- Students must demonstrate a high level of academic achievement (Note: Students must have an unweighted GPA of 3.3 out of 4).
- Previous knowledge of your field of interest is optional!
The Lumiere Research Scholar Program is a rigorous research program 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.
During the program, you will get to attend individual sessions with your research mentor and writing coach who will help you decide on a topic for your research. You’ll spend the next few weeks exploring your research topic and attending workshops on the research process. At the end of the 12-week program, you’ll have developed an independent research paper! You can choose research topics from psychology, physics, economics, data science, computer science, engineering, chemistry, international relations, and more. You can find more details about the application here!
Subject Areas: Philosophy of science, bioethics, medicine, and law.
Location: Brown University campus, Providence, RI
Eligibility: Students completing grades 9 to 12 between the ages of 14 and 18 can apply.
Application Deadline: May 24, 2024; TBA for 2025
Dates: July 15–July 26, 2024; TBA for 2025
Cost: $5,256 (Residential) | $4,076 (Commuter)
Brown University’s Pre-College programs are designed for students keen to explore the challenges and opportunities of college, including academics and social life.
In the “Informed Leadership” course, you will be introduced to the interdisciplinary field of Science, Technology, and Society. This humanities course will help you understand how scientific and technological progress has changed society's ideas about life and death, efficiency and authenticity, and agency and obedience. You will get to discuss topics such as progress in the digital age, how scientific advancements improve or disrupt an individual’s quality of life, the impacts of new technologies on modern democracies, and more.
This course will teach you how to analyze scientific studies and artifacts as cultural texts. You will also learn about power dynamics within these texts and fields, and explore ways to use scientific and technological policy to promote a fairer society. You will also enhance your understanding of leadership and define socially responsible leadership for yourself. This course will help you to combine your passion for science with the humanities. Those keen to learn about bioethics, medicine, and law are particularly encouraged to participate.
Subject Areas: Philosophy, freedom, liberty, moral and legal rights.
Location: UMass Amherst campus, Amherst, MA
Eligibility: Rising high school seniors from Springfield and Holyoke, MA can apply.
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the slots are filled.
Dates: July 14–August 3, 2024; TBA for 2025
Cost: Free for all accepted participants; Students will also be eligible to receive 3 college credits.
Question Everything is a residential summer program for high school students, offered by the UMass Amherst Department of Philosophy. This program will help you explore exciting philosophical issues in a fun environment and give you a glimpse of college life.
In 2024, Question Everything’s theme was “Freedom and Liberty”, where participants explored topics such as inalienable rights, liberty, free will, the difference between moral and legal rights and how these relate to liberty, do young children have a right to liberty, can government justifiably take away or limit someone’s liberty, is incarceration ever morally justified, the connection between having a right to liberty and having free will, and more.
During the weekdays, you will attend interactive sessions by UMass professors about an issue related to the theme. You will engage in discussions, debates, role-play activities, games, and reading or writing activities, all connected to the theme. You will also have time to do your research about an issue that you find particularly intriguing and present your findings to others!
Subject Areas: Political philosophy, applied ethics, philosophy of science, philosophy of art, indigenous philosophy, and the history of philosophy.
Location: Online via Zoom
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors and seniors can apply.
Application Deadline: Registration ends on July 26, 2024, but late applications may be considered until August 2 if seats are available.
Dates: August 5–August 16, 2024
Cost: $220. Need-based full scholarships are available. All materials will be provided cost-free by the camp organizers. You will also have online access to Portland State University Library materials.
At the Philosophy Summer Camp at Portland State University, you will develop critical thinking and academic writing skills in a discussion-based, interactive format. You will work on a major project with a Portland State University faculty member. Topics will include political philosophy, applied ethics (environmental ethics, animal ethics), philosophy of science, philosophy of art, indigenous philosophy, and the history of philosophy.
During the camp, you will work with faculty, TAs, and peers to choose, develop, and present a project grounded in an area of philosophical interest. Topics include cancel culture, postmodern art and totalitarianism, Citizens United and corporate spending in politics, a slam poetry performance on the nature of art, duties toward Central American Refugees, artificial intelligence, and the nature of understanding. You will also attend guest lectures by PSU faculty members and receive university-level 4 credits for Introduction to Philosophy.
Subject Areas: Philosophy, leadership, critical thinking, and reasoning skills.
Location: Oakland University, Rochester, MI
Eligibility: All high school students can apply.
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the slots are filled.
Dates: July 8–July 12, 2024; TBA for 2025
Cost: $600 (Overnight Camp) | $250 (Day Camp). Need-based scholarships are available.
Oakland University’s Philosophy Camp is a weeklong residential experience for high school students to talk about important questions in philosophy. Since 2018, the camp has provided students with a short but rigorous program that helps them build skills in the short term and further their philosophical reading and development in the future.
During the day, you will engage in a variety of activities, such as reading, conversing, group discussions, and lectures, and in the evening, a few ‘Socratic’ activities, such as campfires, scavenger hunts, and tree climbing. The camp's main goal is to provide you with a hands-on, engaging experience that will help you develop your critical thinking and reasoning skills. In 2024, the camp explored the theme “Nature”, where topics such as understanding one’s place in nature, what kinds of things have natures, the difference between the natural and the artificial world, and more were discussed.
Subject Areas: Philosophy, artificial intelligence, science, faith, reality, and skepticism.
Location: Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–12 between the ages of 14 and 19 can apply.
Application Deadline: March 1, 2024; TBA for 2025
Dates:
- Session 1: June 10–June 14, 2024
- Session 2: June 24–June 28, 2024
Cost:
- The tuition for the in-person camp regular sessions is $350. This tuition covers the cost for the duration of the camp, as well as all materials, facilities, and instruction.
- Optional after-camp programming from 4:00-6:30 pm in the week a camper is enrolled is $50.
The Philosophy and Critical Thinking (PACT) Summer Camp, conducted by the Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University, offers students an insightful introduction to the world of philosophical thought. It's designed to introduce students to philosophy through learning experiences that are rigorous, engaging, and fun. During the camp, you will form a community of inquiry to reflect on issues you care about, practice critical thinking skills, and tackle some of the biggest questions in philosophy today.
In 2024, the camp was conducted with two session options, each with a different theme. The theme for session 1 was Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence, where students explored the hows and whys of artificial intelligence, and debated its ethics and potential threats to humanity. The theme for session 2 was Science, Faith, and Reality, where students delved into concepts such as whether science can answer every question, whether faith can be rational, and so on.
Subject Areas: Political philosophy
Location: Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Eligibility: Rising high school juniors, seniors, and college freshmen can apply.
Application Deadline: April 30, 2024, or until all spaces are filled; TBA for 2025
Dates: July 15–July 19, 2024; TBA for 2025
Cost: $450. The camp fee covers course materials and lunch for the duration of the camp.
Zephyr Institute's Philosophy Camp is a week-long summer day camp for rising junior and senior high school students and incoming college freshmen focused on political philosophy. The camp will allow you to understand why politics has become an area of confusion, conflict, and political philosophy deadlock. It will help you navigate through the confusion and start a rational, constructive, genuine political discussion by revisiting fundamental principles. During the camp, you will explore questions such as—what is the purpose of the state? and what does it mean to have a just society?
You will also study Plato, Aristotle, and excerpts from various political philosophers to explore the moral and philosophical foundations of human political communities. This camp provides a solid opportunity for beginners, as no prior exposure to the study of philosophy is necessary. You will simply be expected to read the assigned texts and attend guest lectures.
Subject Areas: Philosophy, the meaning of life, mortality, and immortality.
Location: Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–12 between the ages of 14 and 19 can apply.
Application Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the slots are filled.
Dates: June 24–June 28, 2024; TBA for 2025
Cost: Tuition is $125 per student and covers all the costs of instruction, materials, and daily lunch. Need-based financial aid, in the form of full scholarships, is available.
The VCU Summer Camp in Philosophy, conducted by the university’s Department of Philosophy faculty members, offers high school students an opportunity for intellectual exploration and personal growth.
During the camp, you’ll spend your time engaging in activities that will introduce you to the world of philosophy. Through playing games, performing theatrical dialogues, creating presentations, attending sessions with guest speakers, and participating in a scavenger hunt, you will learn to ask thought-provoking timeless questions, look at things in a new way, and create a community for yourself. In 2024, the camp explored the theme “The Meaning of Life”, where topics such as the existence of an afterlife, immortality, the meaning of human life, and more were explored.
Subject Areas: Philosophy, consciousness, mental states, analytical reading and writing skills.
Location: Columbia University, New York, NY
Eligibility: High school students in grades 9–12 can apply. Students must be at least 16 years old to participate in the NYC Residential Summer Program.
Application Deadline: Applications are closed now but the deadlines vary depending on the session.
Dates: June 24–July 12, 2024, TBA for 2025
Cost:
- $12,449 per session (3-week residential program)
- $6,100 per session (3-week commuter program)
- Need-based financial aid is available for New York residents participating in the NYC Commuter Summer Program.
You can check here for a detailed breakdown of costs.
Columbia University’s Pre-college Program offers several philosophy courses to choose from, ranging from 1-3 weeks, either in-person or online. The philosophy courses listed here cover topics such as religion, modern literature, the afterlife, epistemology, existential freedom, and consciousness.
In the "An Introduction to Philosophy" course, you will delve into questions related to immaterial and physical states, the relationship between the mind and brain, various types of consciousness, and more. This will be accomplished through a philosophical analysis of several attempts to explain the nature of the mind and mentality. Course activities include class debates, group presentations, the designing of thought experiments, critical writing exercises, and close textual analysis. The broad goal of the course is to improve your analytical reading and writing skills, while the more specific objectives include giving you a solid understanding of issues in the philosophy of mind as well as an understanding of the methods of philosophy.
David Wilkinson is a freelance writer for Horizon and currently resides in the United States.