About

The Meta Summer Academy, formerly known as Facebook Summer Academy, is a six-week paid summer program placing high school sophomores from Meta's surrounding Bay Area communities inside one of the world's largest technology companies. Founded in 2012, the program runs June 15 through July 24, 2026 at Meta's headquarters in Menlo Park and has served roughly 150 students per cohort over its history. Participation is free, and students receive a stipend for the six-week, 30-hour-per-week commitment.

Eligibility is strictly geographic: applicants must be full-year residents of East Palo Alto, Belle Haven, North Fair Oaks, or Redwood City. Only current sophomores may apply, and no prior technical experience is required — the program's minimum GPA threshold is 2.0, reflecting an intentional design to reach motivated students who may lack conventional academic credentials rather than to recruit the already-credentialed. The application requires a transcript and a single recommendation from a teacher, counselor, or community leader.

Over six weeks, participants work 30 hours per week on projects spanning software engineering, artificial intelligence, and social technologies, with VR coding instruction provided by a UC Berkeley professor. The first week is orientation; by the second, students are embedded in project work alongside Meta mentors. The experience is supplemented by career seminars, technical workshops, resume-building sessions, and networking events with Meta employees. The program culminates in a final project presentation to colleagues and managers, and students often leave with mentor relationships and letters of recommendation.

Meta Summer Academy is explicitly a social mobility program — its geographic targeting is a structural commitment to the communities that existed in Meta's backyard before the company arrived. Alumni have gone on to return to Meta as full-time employees, build their own apps, and pursue STEM degrees at universities including MIT. For a tech-minded sophomore living in one of the eligible communities, it is one of the most distinctive and consequential summer opportunities available anywhere in the country.