Skip to main content
ICS Summer Academy

Homepage

Applications for Summer Academy 2026 Now Open

Apply today

Empowering Tomorrow's Innovators

The ICS Summer Academy equips high school students with essential technical skills in fields such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, computer science, game development, and software engineering. The program offers two 2-week and one 4-week commuter sessions where students collaborate with peers and UC Irvine faculty advisors on real-world projects.

Participants engage in hands-on coursework that delivers practical experience, benefiting from an innovative curriculum crafted by academic pioneers and industry partners. Each session concludes with student groups presenting their findings and solutions to peers, parents, and faculty through a capstone presentation.

Collaborate with Trailblazers

Interact and engage with university faculty, staff and college students and visit research labs in the School’s three departments.

Discover Campus Culture

Experience campus life at UC Irvine and gain insights into what it is like to be a student.

Cultivate Essential Skills

Work in teams while emphasizing the essential skills required for scientific research, including communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration

Discover Your Potential at UC Irvine's ICS Summer Academy 2026!

We invite motivated high school students to participate in our ICS Summer Academy, which will be held this summer in person on our beautiful UC Irvine campus.

Led by distinguished UC Irvine professors and high-achieving undergraduate and graduate students, you’ll gain hands-on experience and get a taste of college life.

Courses include:

  • Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning 
  • Cybersecurity & Cryptography
  • Data Analytics
  • Game Development & Design
  • Intelligent Robotics
  • Software Engineering

A 10% discount applies to returning participants, second-course registration, and UC Irvine staff.  For inquiries, please email icssummeracademy@uci.edu.

Check out the Sessions page for more details about the content that will be covered and a sample schedule.

Applications are now open. The deadline for application submissions is April 12, 2026.

Hear from Past Participants

Sehaj Sethi

"I truly enjoyed working and creating a project with my peers. The reiterations and feedback truly helped me as a person to become a much better coder and problem solver in my environment. I hope to take these skills in my future path as a data scientist."

Nathaniel Mbatha

"This is my favorite session – making a filtering app for Instagram – because it extends the creativity. And we’re able to make our own designs. One thing that surprised me is that in making an app, there are so many different parts that I had no idea about. It has opened my mind to see there are so many things that I can learn about for software development."

Waqas Islam

“It’s good to break into these subjects like AI, data analytics. These are really hard things, but I was able to benefit from these classes.”

Sophie Alguilera

"I really like how the teachers are able to explain things thoroughly and that there’s many college students that come and help you out as well."

Kenji Schroeder

“I think coming here is really useful if you need to get a taste of the college experience, which is very different from the high school experience."

View more photos