Frequently Asked Questions

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 at least 100 hours. On a weekly basis, students can expect 8-10 total hours of reading, writing, homework, and class time. Students are welcome and encouraged to put in more time into their projects if they have additional free time, but our experience is that 100 hours is the total commitment to develop a good long-form research project

• Students must be enrolled in high school at the time of application (defined as grades 9-12). Most accepted students are in grades 10 and 11.
• Students must have a strong GPA and demonstrate meaningful interest or achievement in their subject field. We require that applicants have a 3.67 unweighted GPA or equivalent.
• Students do not need to have prior coursework in the subject to which they're applying (this would be unreasonable, since few high schools offer classes in Genetics or Neuroscience, for example). However, we expect that students will have taken the most challenging and relevant classes available to them in high school, and we expect that students have a working understanding of the basics of the subject to which they're applying, as demonstrated by their coursework, extracurriculars, and personal reading.
• Students must have an average of 10 hours each week of free time to dedicate to the program.
• Students must be punctual and have excellent time management skills.
• Students must have reliable access to an internet connection, a microphone, and headphones.

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. We require that applicants have a 3.67 unweighted GPA or equivalent.

The exact timing of each class depends on the location and schedule constraints of our students and faculty. Students are never required to take part in classes that conflict with mandatory school activities, and most of our classes are scheduled from between 5:00-10:00PM on weekdays, or on weekends.

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.

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 offers an extensive selection of courses and topics for a student interested in medicine and health sciences, but selection of a course will depend on what kind of medical interest the student wishes to explore. Our most popular tracks in the health sciences are our Horizon Labs courses in CRISPR & Gene Editing, Machine Learning & Biotechnology, Neuroscience, Psychology, and Protein Biophysics. Our Horizon Seminar classes in Data Science & Machine Learning and Clinical Psychology & Emotion Regulation are also relevant since the pre-approved topics touch on issues in psychiatry, protein classification, and genomics. Lastly, our Theoretical Mathematics class may be useful in understanding additional biophysical concepts.

• Protein Biophysics: AP Chemistry or equivalent
• Advanced Theoretical Math & Knot Theory: AP Calculus A/B or equivalent (B/C is also accepted)
• Fluid Dynamics: One year of Calculus and one year of high school Physics (Mechanics)

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. We are proudly partnered with the Journal for Emerging Investigators, a leading high school research journal, and our students have been published in other journals including The National High School Journal of Science and Low Carbon Economy. Other students 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.