A Complete Guide to the Berkeley Business Academy for Youth (B-BAY) Academic Year Startup Launchpad

Updated October 2026

TL;DR

The B-BAY Academic Year Startup Launchpad (earlier called the B-BAY Academic Year program) is a two-semester online entrepreneurship program run by UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. You work on a team to build a Business Model Canvas in the fall. In the spring, you test it with customer interviews and a prototype. It’s open to rising 10th to 12th graders and gap year students. Tuition for 2026-27 is $6,450 for California residents or $6,950 for out-of-state students, plus a $100 application fee, and limited need-based scholarships are available. If you’d like to research a business or economics question of your own with a mentor, you can apply to the Horizon Academic Research Program.

If two-week business camps feel too short to get past the brainstorming stage, the B-BAY Academic Year Startup Launchpad gives you a full school year with one venture. The Startup Launchpad is a virtual program from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, taught by Haas faculty, MBA alumni, and undergraduates. Your team builds a business model in the fall, tests it with customers in the spring, and presents to judges at the end of each semester. To get in, you submit one essay of 400 words or less on a Haas leadership principle, a short video essay, two recommendations, and a transcript. This guide covers eligibility, cost, deadlines, how the application works, and the program’s strengths and tradeoffs. If you’re weighing selective options, see our list of competitive business programs for high school students.

What is the Berkeley Business Academy for Youth (B-BAY) Academic Year?

The Academic Year Startup Launchpad is a virtual, two-semester entrepreneurship program run by the Berkeley Business Academy for Youth (B-BAY) at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. B-BAY has run programs for pre-college students since 2009 and is part of Haas’s Institute for Business & Social Impact. The academic year program launched in fall 2024, and Berkeley now lists it as the Startup Launchpad.

You meet live with your cohort twice a week and work in a team on a venture that develops across fall and spring. Courses are taught by faculty, MBA alumni, and undergraduate students of Berkeley Haas. B-BAY high school alumni serve as peer leaders for student teams, and guest speakers from industry drop in to share how things work outside the classroom.

Program overview at a glance

How does the admissions process work, and who is eligible to apply?

The program is open to rising 10th, 11th, and 12th graders, plus gap year students. B-BAY reports a 10% acceptance rate across its 2026 high school sessions. If you’re comparing selective options, our guide to competitive business programs for high school students is a good next stop.

B-BAY reviews applications on a rolling basis, and it notes that spots can fill before the final deadline. For the most recent cohort, there were three rounds (June 7, August 9, and September 7, 2026), with recommendation deadlines a few days after each. Decisions went out between July 31 and September 10, 2026.

Here’s how the application works. You first submit your basic information and the $100 fee. Then you get a link to upload everything else, and B-BAY recommends doing that within 7 days. Applications aren’t reviewed until all materials and the fee are in. B-BAY doesn’t offer fee waivers.

Your application needs:

• One essay of 400 words or less that answers three prompts in a single, flowing piece. The most recent prompts asked what the Haas principle “Beyond Yourself” means to you, when you chose to go beyond yourself and what you learned, and how B-BAY will help your academic and professional goals. If English isn’t your first language, you add a short paragraph about your English background, and it doesn’t count toward the word limit.
• Two recommendations: one from an academic teacher and one from a coach or mentor. B-BAY emails a form directly to them, and it doesn’t accept letters.
• A transcript with grades from the past two years. Unofficial is fine, as long as it shows your name and school.
• A video essay of 1 to 2 minutes where you introduce yourself and talk about what the Haas principle “Confidence Without Attitude” means to you and how you’ve shown it in teamwork.
• A possible interview. You may be asked to do a virtual interview with the Admissions Committee. International applicants are interviewed to check English proficiency.

Berkeley encourages you to connect your answers to the Haas Defining Leadership Principles. If you’re admitted, you have 10 calendar days to enroll and pay in full.

What will I learn at B-BAY?

The program works more like a two-part business course than a one-off workshop. You meet on a fixed schedule, build one project over the year, and complete coursework through Canvas, Playlab, and Glidr.

Fall: Business Model Canvas

You start by learning business and entrepreneurship fundamentals. Your team practices spotting business opportunities in your community and beyond. Then you map your idea on the Business Model Canvas, a one-page grid with nine blocks (customer segments, value proposition, revenue streams, costs, and more) that lets you see a whole business at once. The goal is to work toward product-market fit, a go-to-market strategy, and financial viability.

Spring: Lean LaunchPad and prototyping

In spring, you switch to the Lean LaunchPad method. Every part of your Business Model Canvas becomes a hypothesis, and you test it by doing customer discovery (yes, that means talking to actual potential customers). You also develop a prototype. Teams are matched with industry mentors and Berkeley Haas MBA alumni to get feedback on their ideas.

Capstone showcases

Each semester ends with a showcase. In the fall, your team presents its Business Model Canvas to judges and gets feedback for the spring. In the spring, you present a prototype of your final product and what you learned from customer discovery. Winning spring teams get faculty mentorship, advanced learning, and access to Berkeley’s entrepreneurship network.

What skills will you build at B-BAY?

The program focuses on frameworks that founders and business students actually use. Over the year, you practice how to:

• Break a business idea into the nine blocks of the Business Model Canvas and see where it’s weakest.
• Think through product-market fit, a go-to-market plan, and whether the numbers can work.
• Turn assumptions into hypotheses you can test with customer discovery interviews.
• Build a prototype and revise it based on what customers tell you.
• Present your work to judges and answer their questions using the data your team collected.
• Work with teammates who may be logging in from different time zones and countries.

How have past students benefited from B-BAY Academic Year?

The Startup Launchpad is still new, so Berkeley’s outcome stories come from a mix of programs. According to a Haas Institute for Business & Social Impact post, Academic Year students conducted more than 850 customer interviews during the spring validation phase.

One of them, Xander Yacoubian from Canada, was on the team that won first place in the Academic Year Showcase Competition. Another, Nimai Garg, said the program helped him connect creativity with business strategy as CEO of Bright Sparks Academy, an educational nonprofit.

B-BAY’s Alumni page also features students from its earlier programs:

1. Harrison Engel (B-BAY Class of 2022): In 2020, Harrison founded @Pieces.Archive, an Instagram business that promotes independent fashion brands and has more than 150,000 followers. At B-BAY, his team placed second in the final competition for an AI sentiment analysis software concept. He’s part of the founding cohort of the Berkeley Haas Spieker Undergraduate Business Program.
2. Ronak Shetty (B-BAY Class of 2021): Ronak built his business and marketing skills at B-BAY and worked with program mentors on his college essays. He later graduated from Stanford and co-founded Aprendalo.org, an online ESL tutoring service for people who can’t afford English lessons.
3. Brigette Mahoney (B-BAY Class of 2022): Brigette studies Management Science and Engineering at Stanford. She developed a passion for finance and entrepreneurship through B-BAY and came back to work on the B-BAY team for two summers. She was set to join Goldman Sachs as a Private Wealth Management Analyst in summer 2026.
4. Siddharth Ramalingam (B-BAY Class of 2023): Siddharth studies business and computer science at UCLA and founded OpenHacks. He says B-BAY inspired him to pursue finance and sparked his interest in entrepreneurship. He now mentors B-BAY students and describes the community as making you “part of the B-BAY family for life.”

If you complete the Startup Launchpad, you receive an official UC Berkeley Certificate of Participation and written evaluations from your teaching assistants, usually within 6 to 8 weeks of the program ending.

Strengths and considerations

Strengths

1. Program depth: Two semesters give you time to build a business model, test it, and revise it. A two-week camp usually only gets you through the first step.

2. Methodological rigor: You learn and apply established frameworks like the Business Model Canvas and Lean LaunchPad, and your spring work is driven by customer interviews.

3. Berkeley Haas connection: You’re taught by Haas faculty, MBA alumni, and undergraduates, matched with industry mentors in the spring, and you finish with a UC Berkeley Certificate of Participation and a personalized evaluation.

Considerations

1. Significant time commitment: Classes meet twice a week for 75 minutes, and your team will meet outside class too. You get two excused absences per semester, and missing multiple sessions can cost you your certificate.

2. Purely virtual experience: The 2026-27 cohort meets entirely online. If remote learning works well for you, our list of online business programs for high school students has more options in the same format.

3. Cost: Tuition is $6,450 or $6,950 plus a $100 application fee, and scholarships are limited. Tuition isn’t prorated, and B-BAY doesn’t give refunds if you withdraw. If budget is a big factor, check out our list of free business programs for high school students.

4. No college credit: Courses are graded, but they don’t carry college credit.

Where else can you study business in high school?

If you’d like an in-person experience at Berkeley, B-BAY also runs the Summer Entrepreneurship Residency, a two-week residential program where teams write a business plan. For founders who already have traction (B-BAY mentions 250+ active users or $1,000+ in revenue, but it encourages others to apply too), there’s the two-week Summer Founder Bootcamp.

For more summer ideas, browse our list of the best business summer programs for high school students or these business programs to add to your resume.

And if the finance and pricing side of your venture is what hooks you, take a look at our online economics programs for high school students.

How does B-BAY Academic Year compare to similar programs?

If you want both a summer intensive and a year-long project, you can plan for both. The Launchpad’s 2026 rounds ran from June to September, so you could do a two-week summer program and still start the Launchpad in the fall.

The Startup Launchpad is built around a team venture. If you’d like to study a business or economics question of your own in depth, the Horizon Academic Research Program is a selective online program that pairs you 1:1 with a mentor.

What students often ask about the B-BAY Startup Launchpad

Image source: UC Berkeley