Institute Blog

Program news, faculty spotlights, admissions insights, and practical guides to doing real research in high school.

Latest · Programs & Faculty

UCSF, Notre Dame or Emory: which winter research field fits you?

Pharmaceutical chemistry with UCSF's Jason Sello, foreign policy with Notre Dame's Sebastian Rosato, or math and economics with Emory's David McMillon: how to match a broad interest to the right winter field.

September 21, 2026Read article

Programs & Faculty

September 18, 2026

The 2026 Winter Online Research Program: ten days from question to finished paper

Professors from UCSF, Notre Dame and Emory lead this December's live online program. See who teaches, how ten class days turn a question into an English paper, and who it suits.

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Inside CRI

August 24, 2026

What is CRI? How student research grows into projects, competitions and startups

At CRI, a student and a professor turn an interest into a research question and see it through to a finished paper. Here is why that paper is a process rather than the goal, and how it can lead to a competition, a service or a startup.

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Programs & Faculty

July 30, 2026

How much of a research paper can a high school student finish in 10 days?

Follow one Seoul Research Program student from a broad interest in music and the brain to a full draft, a research poster, and a revised manuscript for the professor.

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May 12, 2026

Is a longer research program better? 10 intensive days vs. 10 weeks online

Weeks on a calendar matter less than hours with a mentor. See how the Seoul Research Program's 50 in-person hours over ten days compare with a typical ten-week online program.

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Programs & Faculty

April 23, 2026

Building wearable health sensors with Northwestern professor Nabil Alshurafa

How Northwestern's Nabil Alshurafa guides students to build ECG, PPG and motion-sensor prototypes, turn their own questions into hypotheses, and defend a research poster in ten days.

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Programs & Faculty

April 21, 2026

From morphine to medicine: organic synthesis and drug design with Caltech's Brian Stoltz

What Caltech chemist Brian Stoltz teaches in Seoul: stereochemistry, reaction mechanisms and synthesis design, built around students' own questions and a final poster defense.

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Programs & Faculty

April 20, 2026

Studying how memory forms and fails with Harvard professor Samuel Kunes

How Harvard's Samuel Kunes guides students from classic memory research to their own hypotheses, a group paper on memory and Alzheimer's disease, and a Day 10 poster defense.

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March 27, 2026

Ivy Day 2026: Yale applications rise 9.4% as SAT and ACT requirements return

Yale's applicant pool grew 9.4% and Penn required test scores for the first time since 2020. Here is what the Class of 2030 results say about standing out when top scores are the baseline.

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March 18, 2026

What RSI at MIT looks for: independent research, not just perfect scores

RSI admits roughly 80 students a year, free of charge. Here is how the program works, what the application asks for, and why independent research is the real bar.

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March 13, 2026

UC fall 2026 applications hit a record, but international interest has stalled

UC drew a record 251,907 applicants for fall 2026, a rise driven mostly by transfers. Here are the campus-by-campus numbers, the international slowdown, and what two admitted students say set them apart.

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Admissions Insights

March 12, 2026

Why assembled portfolios fall flat, and what a connected research story looks like

An app from one academy and a paper from another rarely add up to a story. Learn why admissions officers see through patchwork portfolios, and how one research question can tie it all together.

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Admissions Insights

March 11, 2026

When should students start research? The case for ninth grade

Why ninth grade is the right time to start research, what younger students should do first, and how one student turned math and basketball into an AI prediction website.

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Looking for student outcomes?

Read how CRI students turned their questions into publications, conference talks, awards, and admissions.

Student Success