PRIMES: How to Apply

PRIMES is a free, year-long after-school research program for high school students. PRIMES includes three sections: MIT PRIMES, PRIMES-USA, and PRIMES Circle.

MIT PRIMES is a year-long program that offers research projects and guided reading to high school students living within driving distance from Boston. Program participants meet weekly with their mentors on the MIT campus to work on exciting unsolved problems in mathematics, computer science, and computational biology. The deadline for applications is November 18. See How to Apply to MIT PRIMES

PRIMES-USA is a year-long distance mentoring math research section for high school juniors and sophomores from across the United States (outside of Greater Boston). Program participants meet with their mentors online once a week, working on research projects in mathematics. Computer science or computational biology projects are not available at PRIMES-USA. The deadline for applications is November 18. See How to Apply to PRIMES-USA

PRIMES Circle is a math enrichment section for high school students living within commuting distance from Boston. Program participants meet weekly with their mentors on the MIT campus during the spring term for creative problem solving outside high school curriculum. The deadline for applications is November 30. See How to Apply to PRIMES Circle

PRIMES is available only to students who reside in the United States. International students are welcome to participate in CrowdMath, a massive online collaborative year-long research project open to all high school and college students around the world.

PRIMES also has an affiliate program for local middle schoolers:

PRIMES STEP is a year-long math enrichment section for middle school students from Greater Boston. Program participants meet weekly with their mentor on the MIT campus for creative problem solving and possibly research. The deadline for applications is usually in late May. See PRIMES STEP webpage

Academic Integrity Rules

PRIMES expects its participants to adhere to MIT rules and standards for honesty and integrity in academic studies. As a result, any cases of plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, cheating, or facilitating academic dishonesty during the application process or during the work at PRIMES may result in immediate disqualification from the program, in the sole discretion of PRIMES. In addition, PRIMES reserves the right to notify a participant's parents, schools, and/or recommenders in the event it determines that a participant did not adhere to these expectations. For explanation of these expectations, see What is Academic Integrity?

Contact

With questions, contact PRIMES Program Coordinator Yufei An at