Application Information

The rate of acceptance at Horizon Academic is generally about 30%. When evaluating applications, we look for strong grades, good time management skills, a demonstrated interest in the course topic, and excellent communication skills.

The total time commitment for Horizon Academic is about 100 hours. On a weekly basis, students can expect 8-10 total hours of reading, writing, homework, and class time.

The program's Fall and Spring trimesters span 15 weeks. The Summer trimester follows a compacted schedule of 10 weeks In order to accommodate different summer holidays across the world.

Horizon does not require that students have prior research experience. Our faculty, as well as our writing advisors, work closely with students on learning the fundamentals of academic research and writing.

Since our professors and students are located around the world, and we strive to ensure that classes are scheduled at flexible and mutually convenient times and dates. Students around the world are divided up into cohorts based on their times and dates of availability.

All online sessions are conducted using advanced video-conferencing software that offers scholars an experience similar to a small seminar or face-to-face meeting. Students and faculty can see, hear, talk, and text chat with each other. Our platform also allows for screen-sharing so that students can view texts, videos, PowerPoint presentations, and other visual aids.

We select our program dates with the schedules of busy high school students in mind and time the ending of each trimester to avoid conflicts with final exams.

Because our instructors and students are based in many different time zones across the world, each class time is carefully considered in order to maximize the convenience of all students. The timing of each course cohort is different, so please reach out to us if you are curious about what time during the day or evening a particular class will be offered.

By completing a 20-25 page long research paper with a professor, students can pursue an academic passion in a structured extracurricular environment. All students receive detailed feedback, an assessment, and a letter grade from their professor. Students who cultivate a positive relationship with program staff can request a letter of recommendation for college admission or for their future academic careers. Students may also pursue independent publication at a conference, an academic journal, or an essay competition if their paper is of exceptional caliber (although we caution against applying for our program if you are exclusively concerned about publication, since this outcome is impossible to guarantee). Finally, students have a much deeper understanding and appreciation for what college level work in their field looks like, helping them to decide what to select as a major in university and to demonstrate a commitment to this subject before they apply to university.

Yes. Horizon Academic provides extensive support to students as they complete their projects and offers a low staff-to-student ratio. Please contact us for more information regarding tuition and questions about need-based financial aid.

Yes. Students retain all intellectual property and authorship rights on the work that they complete.

Horizon Academic welcomes all high school students as well as students who are taking a gap year between high school and college. The majority of our students are sophomores and juniors (meaning that, from the time that they enroll in the program, they expect to graduate high school in 1-2 years).

Horizon Academic is a completely online research program for high school students to do a college level research paper after school or during the weekends or the summer. It is rare that any students in the same class live in the same state or even the same country, so in the interest of fairness to all of our students, there is no physical lab space for student use. Even for our more STEM-related topics like environmental engineering and machine learning and biotechnology, most quantitative research projects use desktop research methods utilizing publicly available data sets. Our students sometimes independently find local university lab resources, utilize citizen lab spaces, or gather original data in the field (for example, through surveys or through collecting water or soil samples).

Our program's objective is to mentor students through the process of doing college level research. After all, before worrying about publication, it’s important to write and develop an idea worth sharing. Many of our students are more interested in attempting college level work in a specific topic, gaining a better sense of certainty about a possible college major, doing a project they find fun and engaging, or earning a letter of recommendation.

Some of our students see value in publishing their work after completing their papers. We do offer free guidance on publication if a student gets an A grade or better, and we provide a free list of publications and competitions that students may use regardless of their grade. Our students have been published in various journals including The National High School Journal of Science and Low Carbon Economy. Others have been invited to present at national academic conferences such as the National Aquaponics Association National Conference. Others still have adapted their papers to win or place highly in competitive state science fairs. However, you should not apply for this program if you do not value doing the research in its own right; our program's goal is educational and focuses around the process of academic research. We are not a publication factory.