About

The Statistics & Data Science Camp at Carnegie Mellon University is a free, one-week commuter program for high school students, open exclusively to students within Pittsburgh and surrounding school districts. Applications from outside the immediate Pittsburgh area are not considered. For students who do qualify, it is one of the few programs in the country that introduces statistical thinking and data science methods on the campus of a university consistently ranked among the top institutions in the world for these fields — at no cost, with a stipend, and with a bus pass provided so transportation is not a barrier.

The 2026 program runs June 22–26 on CMU's Pittsburgh campus, Monday through Friday from approximately 9:30am to 1:30pm daily. Each day combines faculty presentations on statistics and data science fundamentals with hands-on computer labs in R, the statistical programming language used by working data scientists and academic researchers. The five-day arc moves from foundational concepts — what data are and how they are generated — through text analysis and natural language processing, linear regression modeling, and a final session on career pathways and next steps. A Thursday field trip to Duolingo's Pittsburgh headquarters provides direct exposure to how a major technology company applies data science in production, at scale, every day. Two additional CMU campus tours are built into the schedule. No prior experience in statistics or programming is required; a solid understanding of algebra is sufficient preparation.

Students receive a stipend and a free Pittsburgh bus pass for the week. The program is funded by the PPG Foundation. Admission preference is given to rising juniors and seniors, though rising freshmen and sophomores may apply; students who have already applied to college are not eligible unless they have not yet enrolled. Full attendance across all five days is required. There is no application fee and no tuition. The application deadline for 2026 was March 15; future cycles typically open in late winter with a similar spring deadline.

CMU's Department of Statistics and Data Science has a legitimate claim to being among the most research-productive statistics departments in the world, and this program gives Pittsburgh-area high schoolers direct access to its faculty and facilities at zero cost. For a student who has enjoyed mathematics, is curious about how data drives decisions at companies like Duolingo, and hasn't yet found a program that takes those interests seriously as a career path, this is one of the most precisely calibrated introductions available anywhere.