Linguistics Programs for High School Students
EC Finder currently lists 51 linguistics programs for high school students. Of these, 30 are free to participate in and 30 offer virtual participation. Examples include 7EDU Global Academy NACLO Site (Bay Area), Berkeley Linguistics – Prospective Student Information, and BYU NACLO Site.
- 51
- listed
- 30
- free
- 30
- virtual
- 51
- with a listed deadline
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are linguistics programs for high school students?
- Linguistics Programs for High School Students are curated extracurricular listings for high school students interested in linguistics. Each listing includes eligibility, cost, and deadline details where known, so you can compare options and find the right fit for your college application profile.
- Are any of these programs free?
- Yes — 30 of the 51 programs listed here are free to participate in.
- Can I participate virtually?
- Yes — 30 of the 51 programs listed here offer virtual or online participation.
- Are linguistics programs good for a college application?
- Yes — linguistics programs are a common way for high schoolers to show sustained interest and initiative in linguistics on college applications.
Related Categories
51 activities found·Browse by category
7EDU Global Academy NACLO Site (Bay Area)
Only public Bay Area high‑school NACLO site; good option if your school doesn't host the competition.
Berkeley Linguistics – Prospective Student Information
UC Berkeley Linguistics department resources and information for prospective undergraduate students.
BYU NACLO Site
Brigham Young University NACLO competition site; host information and registration for students in Utah and surrounding areas.
Columbia University Pre-College – Exploring Topics in Linguistics
An in-person Columbia Pre-College summer course introducing high schoolers to phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntax alongside topics like dialects, language and the brain, and the internet's impact on English.
Harvard Linguistics – Resources & Problem Sets
Harvard Linguistics department resources including problem sets and introductory materials for prospective students.
Harvard Summer School Secondary School Program — Linguistics
Within Harvard's selective, credit-bearing Secondary School Program, students can take Linguistics as one of 200+ college-level subjects.
International Linguistics Challenge
Multi-round virtual olympiad where students of all experience levels solve linguistics problems, with junior, youth, and senior divisions and a supervised online final.
International Linguistics Challenge (ILC)
International competition with multiple rounds of linguistics/logic problems; closer in style to math/science Olympiads but focused on language.
International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL)
Global olympiad in linguistics and language puzzles; you reach it by performing well in your country's qualifying contest (e.g., NACLO for US/Canada).
International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) - U.S. Teams
One of the 12 International Science Olympiads, with the U.S. sending two four-student teams selected via top NACLO performance to compete in individual and team analytical linguistics contests.
Johns Hopkins CTY – Linguistics: The Science of Language
An online Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth course analyzing language as both biological instinct and cultural artifact, covering phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics along with subfields like psycholinguistics and computational semantics.
Language Bits and Bytes: Computational Linguistics Coding Camp (UNT)
A five-day in-person summer camp at the University of North Texas introducing high schoolers to computational linguistics through Python programming, natural language processing, and machine learning, with no coding experience required.
Language Log
Popular linguistics blog covering diverse language topics, research, and current events; great for curious language learners and aspiring linguists.
Linguistic Society of America (LSA) – Student Resources
Official linguistics society's student page with career information, recommended reading, and links to competitions and programs.
Lumiere Education – Linguistics Research Mentorship
A selective, fully virtual research program pairing high schoolers with a PhD mentor in linguistics for a 12-week, one-on-one independent research project culminating in an original paper.
MIT Linguistics – Resources for Prospective Students
MIT Linguistics department's page with introductory readings, puzzles, and guidance for exploring linguistics as a field.
MIT Splash — Linguistics Classes
Weekend of 150+ one-off classes at MIT taught by MIT students for high schoolers, with multiple linguistics offerings each year.
NACLO
Pencil-and-paper contest where high school students solve self-contained linguistic puzzles across world languages; top scorers advance toward the International Linguistics Olympiad team.
NACLO – Montclair State University Site
A regional NACLO testing site at Montclair State University serving New Jersey high schoolers, hosting the Open Round and Invitational Round of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad.
NACLO – Ohio State University Site
A regional in-person testing site at Ohio State University for the North American Computational Linguistics Open Competition (NACLO), open to any high schooler who registers, requiring no prior linguistics background.
NACLO – University of Maryland Site
A free regional NACLO testing site hosted by the University of Maryland's Language Science Center, open to students in grades 6-12 (mainly 9-12) to solve linguistics and computational-linguistics puzzles requiring no prior background.
NACLO – University of North Texas Site
A regional NACLO testing site at the University of North Texas open to North Texas high schoolers, offering optional practice sessions before the pencil-and-paper linguistics puzzle competition.
NACLO Problems (Archive)
Complete archive of all past North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad problems; excellent for self‑study and practice.
National Greek Exam (American Classical League)
An annual Ancient Greek exam across six levels testing grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and translation, with top scorers on the Attic Prose exam eligible for a renewable $2,000 scholarship.
North American Computational Linguistics Open Competition (NACLO)
Flagship North American contest where students solve linguistics and computational linguistics puzzles; top scorers can make national teams for IOL.
Online Olympiad in Linguistics (OnLing)
Fully online international linguistics contest with a dedicated school‑age division; problems look like IOL/NACLO style puzzles.
Penn State Language and Linguistics Day
Free annual on-campus event where nearly 100 high schoolers attend hands-on linguistics workshops and compete in a linguistics competition.
Polygence – Linguistics Research Projects
A one-on-one online research mentorship matching high schoolers with a linguistics-focused mentor (covering topics like applied, cognitive, and sociolinguistics) to design and complete an independent research project resulting in a paper, website, or podcast.
r/linguistics (Reddit Community)
Active Reddit community for linguistics discussion, resources, and Q&A; good for exploring linguistics topics and connecting with others.
Reed College Linguistics Resources for High Schoolers
Overview of linguistics resources and competitions (NACLO, OnLing, ILC, IOL, etc.); includes past puzzles and problem sets.
SKILLS (School Kids Investigating Language in Life and Society) – UCSB
A social-justice-centered linguistics outreach program run by UC Santa Barbara faculty and graduate students in partnership with Santa Barbara County high schools, where students conduct original linguistic research and language-activism projects in their own communities over a 20-week curriculum.
Splash at Yale — Linguistics Classes
One-day Saturday program at Yale where middle and high schoolers take short classes taught by Yale undergraduates, with linguistics classes appearing regularly.
Stanford Linguistics – Undergraduate Resources
Stanford Linguistics department page with information about studying linguistics and available resources.
Stanford Pre-Collegiate Summer Institutes – Introduction to Natural Language Processing
An online Stanford Pre-Collegiate course for students in grades 10-11 that teaches Python and the Hugging Face Transformers library to apply pretrained language models, covering how GPT-style systems are trained and issues of bias and data quality in NLP.
Stony Brook Linguistics Outreach Programs
Collection of Stony Brook's linguistics outreach activities (SYCCL camp, guest lectures, workshops); strong presence in New York.
Stony Brook Pre-College Computational Linguistics Course
A tuition-based pre-college summer course at Stony Brook University where high schoolers work with linguistics faculty and graduate students on morphology, syntax, phonetics, and language-technology projects like speech recognition and parsing.
Summer Linguistic Institute for Youth Scholars (SLIYS)
Ohio State University's live virtual introductory linguistics course covering phonetics, morphology, syntax, and language documentation, including fieldwork with native speakers.
Summer Linguistic Institute for Youth Scholars (SLIYS) – Ohio State
One‑week online summer program introducing high schoolers to the scientific study of language; includes lectures plus fieldwork/experimental components.
Summer Youth Camp for Computational Linguistics (SYCCL) – Stony Brook
Summer camp introducing students to linguistics and computational linguistics via hands‑on activities and projects at Stony Brook University.
Summer@Brown Online – Introduction to Linguistics
An asynchronous/blended online Brown University pre-college course introducing high schoolers to the fundamentals of linguistics, part of the Summer@Brown Online catalog for students completing grades 9-12.
Trinity College Cambridge Languages and Cultures Essay Prize
International essay competition open to students in their penultimate year of high school, asking entrants to respond critically to a prompt about language and culture.
UC Santa Cruz Summer Session (Linguistics)
High schoolers can enroll directly in UC Santa Cruz's undergraduate Linguistics courses over the summer, earning real UC credit.
UCLA Linguistics – Introduction & Outreach
UCLA Linguistics department resources including introductory materials and information about studying linguistics.
University of Chicago Linguistics – High School Resources
UChicago Linguistics department page with resources, puzzles, and information for high school students.
University of Michigan Linguistics Dual Enrollment
Motivated high schoolers who have exhausted their school's language offerings can dual-enroll in University of Michigan Linguistics courses for college credit.
University of Pennsylvania Pre-College – Introduction to Linguistics
An online, credit-bearing Penn Pre-College course covering the biological basis of human language and the sounds, forms, and meanings of the world's languages, taught alongside Penn undergraduates for college credit.
University of Washington Linguistics Summer Courses
High schoolers who have completed 8th grade can enroll directly in real UW undergraduate Linguistics courses over the summer.
University of Washington NACLO Site
Local NACLO competition site at University of Washington; provides on-site support for students in the Pacific Northwest region.
Vocabulary Bowl
Free, global vocabulary mastery competition on Vocabulary.com where individual students or entire schools compete to master the most words.
Wikitongues Youth Language Documentation Volunteering
A volunteer opportunity with the nonprofit Wikitongues, where students help record, transcribe, and archive oral histories and interviews with speakers of endangered and minority languages for a permanent public video archive.
Yale Linguistics – Introduction to Linguistics
Yale Linguistics department resources including introductory materials and information about the field.
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