About

The Chemistry Research Academy, part of Penn Arts and Sciences' three-week Summer Academies portfolio, gives current 10th and 11th graders — rising juniors and seniors — structured access to a working chemistry department at one of the country's leading research universities. The program runs July 5–25, 2026 on Penn's campus; tuition is $10,050, covering housing, meals Monday through Friday, and program activities. Philadelphia residents attending a School District of Philadelphia public or charter school may be eligible for a full scholarship. Summer Discovery manages residential logistics; Penn handles all academic content and admissions. The program is fully residential with no commuter or online option, and applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until capacity is reached.

Applicants must have completed at least one year of high school chemistry. A minimum 3.5 GPA is required, and the application includes essays and a transcript; no letter of recommendation is required. International students are welcome.

The daily structure runs six instructional hours plus a lunch break, Monday through Friday, with no more than an hour of homework most evenings. Roughly half of instructional time takes place in Penn chemistry labs, where students work with analytical instruments including spectroscopy and gas chromatography equipment, tackle open-ended experiments, and practice optimization of synthetic methods. Specific topics shift year to year based on departmental research priorities — a design choice that keeps the curriculum tied to what Penn chemists are actually working on rather than a fixed survey. The remaining time is spent in lectures and classroom sessions with Penn faculty and affiliated researchers, giving students direct exposure to the range of research happening across the department.

A capstone project runs throughout the three weeks: students are guided through Penn's research resources to identify a topic and develop a plan for an independent research project they can pursue afterward — structured explicitly for science fair submission or independent research requirements. This is an honest framing of what the capstone is and isn't: students leave with a plan, not a completed project or original data.

Penn Chemistry is consistently ranked among the strongest chemistry departments in the country, and the academy's direct connection to departmental research — with faculty and graduate students accessible throughout — gives it more substance than a standard lab skills course. For a 10th or 11th grader who has taken chemistry and wants to go meaningfully deeper before committing to a research internship, this is a solid bridge between high school coursework and university-level chemical science.