Summer Leadership Program for High School Students, California

Abbey Road Programs:
Based in Palo Alto CA, Stanford University's Leadership Academy (in association with Abbey Road Programs) provides high school students with the opportunity to take a 2-week Academic Summer Program at one of the world's top universities. Available for students from around the globe in Grades 9-12, courses include International Relations, Environmental Studies, and High-Demand Foreign Languages, and more.

2-week Academic Summer Programs for High School Students (Grades 9-12)

Leadership Academy Curriculum:
Stanford has an academic legacy that has inspired generations of some of the world’s most innovative minds. Our Leadership Academy curriculum seeks to follow in this tradition. Every participant on the program takes the following classes led by Stanford graduate students, researchers, and visiting scholars:

International Relations, International Policy-Making, Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Public Speaking, Global Leadership, and Water Scarcity. You can expect to have 2-3 classes each day (of about 1 to 1.5 hours in length) leading up to the program’s final two-day Model U.N. summit meeting.

Program Schedule
When you’re thinking about the daily and weekly schedule at Stanford keep these three things in mind: class days, campus visits, and day-trips. Because our program starts on a Monday and ends on a Tuesday for a total of 16 days we ignore the standard Monday through Friday schedule to make sure we can maximize our time. Here is how we do it:

Class days
On class days we get going around 8:30 with breakfast and classes at 9. Then, there is a midday recess for lunch and homework (as needed). Classes pick up again around 2 and end for the day by 5. We’ll give you some down time before dinner followed by organized evening activities with your peers (you’ll have at least two options to choose from).

Campus Visits
We’ll make two campus visits during the program to U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Santa Cruz by private charter bus. You will have a campus tour, get to eat lunch on-campus and have free time to explore the surrounding area.

Day-trips
During our two all-day excursions to San Francisco we play tour guide while you snap photos in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, try the caramel corn on Fisherman’s Wharf, explore the exhibits at the SF MOMA, hop on a street car at Union Square, and chill-out in Golden Gate Park after walking through the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Who knows, we may even squeeze in a Giants baseball game (or two). We slow down the pace while on our trip to the beaches of Monterey and Carmel and finally channel our inner thrill-seeker for a day at the Great America theme park.

Residential Life at Stanford
Palm trees, Spanish architecture, parks, stadiums, sun, cafés, and the “ring, ring” of bike bells are just a few of the reasons we love the Stanford campus. While at Stanford you will live in campus housing with your Abbey Road peers (along with our staff).

From football, late-night pizza, and study sessions in the common room to using your Stanford meal card for the first time, this living experience is an authentic window into college life. After classes each day you will have a variety of activity options to choose from or free time to explore the campus and surrounding town.