15 Investment & Trading Summer Programs for International High School Students
A lot of international students think about studying in the US, but a four-year degree is a huge decision. Summer programs make it easier. If you’re interested in finance, investing, or trading, a short program can help you explore the field and experience the US academic system without the long-term cost.
What do investment & trading summer programs involve?
Investment and trading programs usually cover topics like stocks, market behavior, risk, valuation, and portfolio strategy. Many also include simulations and market analysis work, so you are not only reading concepts, you are applying them using real examples and real data.
How can investment & trading summer programs be helpful for international high schoolers?
For international students, these programs also help in a second way. You get to experience how classes are taught in the U.S., how faculty interact with students, and how learning is handled in a more discussion and application-based style. It can help you decide if you want to apply to US universities later, and it gives you something real to write about in essays and speak about in interviews.
If you’re looking to improve your investment & trading skills, you can do so by participating in investment competitions, many of which are open to international students. Additionally, for more options, you can check out international business programs.
With that in mind, here are 15 investment and trading summer programs for international high school students!
15 Investment & Trading Summer Programs for International High School Students
1. Wall Street Stock Market & Investment Experience - West Coast Connection and New York Institute of Finance
Cost: $3,899 (one week); $6,699 (two weeks)
Location: New York City, NY (in-person; commuter option available)
Program Dates: July 6–11; July 12–17; July 6–17
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions until sessions fill
Eligibility: High school students in Grades 9–12; open to international students
Wall Street Stock Market and Investment Experience by Westcoast Connection and the New York Institute of Finance is built around learning finance in New York City, with instruction coming from senior professionals. You cover how different parts of finance work, including stocks, wealth management, hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, and even crypto, without keeping it limited to one track. A big part of the program is discussion-based, with market talk, group work, and guided time in the Financial District, so you see the setting where these decisions happen. The structure is closer to a finance immersion week than a classroom camp.
2. Young Founders Lab
Cost: Varies depending on program type. Full financial aid available.
Location: This program is 100% virtual, with live, interactive workshops
Program Dates: Multiple cohorts throughout the year, including summer, fall, winter, and spring
Application Deadline: Varies according to cohort. You can access the application link here!
Eligibility: The program is currently open to all high school students
The Young Founder’s Lab is a start-up boot camp founded and run by Harvard entrepreneurs. In this program, you will work towards building a revenue-generating start-up that addresses a complex problem. You will also have the opportunity to be mentored by established entrepreneurs and professionals from Google, Microsoft, and X. You will learn about finance, the basics of investing, and understanding the financial aspects of running a business. The program is an excellent opportunity to delve into the world of business in high school and have a space to explore multiple theoretical as well as practical frameworks that lead to a successful business. You can check out the brochure for the program here.
3. Finance and Investing Institute - Wake Forest University
Cost: $3,500; scholarships may be available, but international students are not eligible for need-based aid
Location: Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC (on-campus, residential)
Program Dates: June 14–19; June 21–26
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions; priority recommended before popular sessions fill
Eligibility: High school students in Grades 9–12; fluent in English; good academic and disciplinary standing
In this institute, you explore how investing works by stepping into the role of an aspiring investor and analyst. You learn how financial markets operate, examine stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, and apply fundamental analysis to understand valuation and risk. Through workshops and guided sessions, you practice building and discussing an investment portfolio while connecting market concepts to real-world financial decisions. You participate in mock investment competitions and group projects that emphasize stock selection, analytical reasoning, and clear communication. Faculty members and industry professionals provide exposure to finance careers and professional expectations, helping you understand how investing fits into broader personal and institutional finance contexts.
4. Ladder Internship Program
Location: Remote! You can work from anywhere in the world.
Cost: Varies by the program. Financial aid is available
Application deadline: Deadlines vary depending on the cohort
Program dates: Multiple cohorts throughout the year
Eligibility: Students who can work for 10-20 hours/week, for 8-12 weeks. Open to high school students, undergraduates, and gap year students!
Ladder Internships is a selective start-up internship program for ambitious high school students! In the program, you work with a high-growth start-up on an internship. Start-ups that offer internships range across a variety of industries, from finance, investing, and AI/ML to fintech, marketing, journalism, consulting, and more. Ladder’s start-ups are high-growth companies on average, raising over a million dollars. Past founders have included YCombinator alums, founders raising over 30 million dollars, or founders who previously worked at Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. Though you won’t be enrolled in an investment course, you will learn investing, trading, and finance skills, if you pursue an internship in these fields. In the program, you work closely with your managers and a Ladder Coach on real-world projects and present your work to the company.
5. Wharton Global High School Investment Competition
Cost: Free (travel and lodging for the Global Finale are not covered)
Location: Online; Global Finale at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (optional virtual participation available)
Program Dates: Late September – early December (trading period); Global Finale in April
Application Deadline: Advisor registration closes mid-September
Eligibility: High school students in Grades 9–12 worldwide; teams of 4–6 students with a required teacher or advisor
During this program, you work as part of a small investment team managing a $500,000 virtual portfolio using Wharton’s proprietary Investment Simulator (WInS). You are responsible for developing a long-term investment strategy based on a real-world client case, conducting company and industry analysis, and justifying portfolio decisions through written reports. Over the trading period, you practice risk assessment, diversification, ETF and equity selection, and strategic communication while collaborating under defined roles within your team. Your performance is evaluated on the clarity, logic, and rigor of your strategy through midterm and final reports, not portfolio growth alone, which differentiates this competition from return-driven simulations.
6. Young Investors Society — Stock Pitch Competition
Cost: Free (no participation fee); optional scholarships and investment matches are available through YIS programs
Location: Online (global participation); select events and summits hosted in the U.S.
Program Dates: Varies by competition cycle
Application Deadline: Rolling; deadlines vary by competition cycle
Eligibility: High school students worldwide; no prior investing experience required
In this program, you take on the role of an equity analyst by researching a publicly traded company and building a structured stock pitch from the ground up. You analyze business fundamentals, competitive positioning, valuation drivers, and long-term risks before presenting a clear buy, sell, or hold recommendation to finance professionals. Along the way, you use standardized pitch templates and intrinsic value models to structure your thinking and communicate investment logic clearly. As a participant, you also gain exposure to virtual fireside chats, finance knowledge events, and optional pathways like the CYIA™ designation, which help contextualize investing careers and next steps.
7. Finance Institute: Wall Street in the Classroom
Cost: $1,300
Location: Fordham University, Rose Hill Campus, Bronx, NY (in-person or virtual)
Program Dates: June 15–19; June 22–26; July 20–24; July 27–31
Application Deadline: Priority registration before April 1 (applications accepted until sessions fill)
Eligibility: High school students; international students eligible for virtual participation
In Finance Institute: Wall Street in the Classroom, you step into the role of a finance student exploring how Wall Street concepts work in real markets. You study core investment topics, including stocks, bonds, asset allocation, risk management, monetary policy, hedge funds, private equity, and cryptocurrency through structured classroom sessions. You work through market scenarios that connect economic theory to investing decisions, while building comfort with concepts like time value of money and portfolio diversification. Guest speakers from finance firms and Gabelli School of Business alumni give you direct exposure to industry perspectives and career pathways.
8. Global Finance - Fordham University – Gabelli School of Business
Cost: $1,300
Location: Fordham University, Rose Hill Campus, Bronx, NY (in-person or virtual)
Program Dates: July 6–10
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions; priority registration before April 1
Eligibility: High school students in Grades 10–12; international students eligible to participate virtually
Global Finance at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business focuses on how money moves across borders and why global events can shift markets overnight. You work through foreign exchange basics, trade imbalances, tariffs, and how multinational companies manage risk when currencies and policy change. The sessions push you to think like an investor looking at the world, not just one country. Guest speakers from finance firms and Gabelli alumni add the practical side, like how people actually work in global markets and what they watch day to day.
9. Wall Street Academy - University of San Francisco – School of Management
Cost: $2,150 (Commuter); $3,025 (Residential)
Location: University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Program Dates: June 22–26; July 13–17
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions until cohorts fill
Eligibility: High school students; open to international students
Wall Street Academy at the University of San Francisco puts you in an investment lab environment where you practice how analysts actually work with market data. You spend time using tools like Bloomberg Terminal, FactSet, Excel, and PowerPoint, which are a big part of how finance work is done in real firms. The sessions focus on reading financial information, testing investment ideas, and presenting your thinking clearly, the way you would in an investment memo or pitch. You also interact with faculty and finance professionals, including CFA charterholders, and the program includes company visits, so you get exposure to how investment roles look outside a classroom.
10. Introduction to Investments - University of California, Los Angeles – Summer Sessions
Cost: Approximately $3,150 (includes program fee and campus fees)
Location: UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (Session A: commuter) or Online (Session B)
Program Dates: July 13–July 31
Application Deadline: June 12
Eligibility: High school students in Grades 9–12; minimum GPA 3.2; must be at least 15 years old; international students must meet English proficiency requirements
Introduction to Investments through UCLA Summer Sessions is closer to a real academic course than a workshop. You study how markets function, how different asset classes work, and how valuation is approached across stocks, bonds, and private markets like venture capital and private equity. Instead of only focusing on stock picking, the course spends time on how banking systems, interest rates, and economic cycles shape investment decisions. You also work through risk and opportunity using both numbers and judgment, which is what makes investing hard in real life. The format is lecture plus discussion, so you are expected to follow ideas carefully and apply them in cases.
11. Wall Street 101 – Bentley University
Cost: Online: $1,490; Commuter (5-day): $2,450; Residential (5-day): $3,380
Location: Bentley University, Waltham, MA (in-person and online options available)
Program Dates: Multiple one-week sessions from June 8 – July 24
Application Deadline: Rolling admission; applications accepted until June 1 or until sessions fill
Eligibility: High school students; must be 16 years old by September 1 to live on campus. International students are eligible; English proficiency is required if you have not completed at least two years of U.S. high school.
Wall Street 101 is a competitive, one-week experiential finance program where you step into the role of an analyst exploring how capital markets, investing, and financial decision-making work in practice. You can choose from five focused courses, including Stock Market and Investment Research, Macroeconomics and Financial Markets, Global Finance and Trade, Personal Finance, and FinTech for Startups; each taught by Bentley faculty with academic and industry backgrounds. During the program, you work in teams on stock pitches, valuation exercises, macroeconomic simulations, and policy debates while building comfort with Excel or Google Sheets for financial analysis. If you attend on campus, you gain hands-on experience in Bentley’s state-of-the-art trading room using professional tools like Bloomberg and FactSet.
12. Young Equity Analyst (YEA) Program — New York Institute of Finance
Cost: $1,990
Location: Online (Live Virtual Classes)
Program Dates: August 10–21
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions until cohort fills
Eligibility: High school students aged 15–18; no formal prerequisites required
The Young Equity Analyst Program from the New York Institute of Finance is a valuation-heavy program where you practice how equity research works. You go through financial statements, time value of money, and simplified free cash flow modeling, then use that work to estimate what a company is worth. The program also makes you look at competitive advantages, industry cycles, and capital structure, because valuation is not only math; it is also context. Classes are live and taught by Wall Street professionals, so the examples and exercises are built around how analysts actually think when they write research or make recommendations.
13. Young Finance Scholar (YFS) Program — New York Institute of Finance
Cost: $1,990
Location: Online (Live Virtual Classes)
Program Dates: July 20–31
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions until cohort fills
Eligibility: High school students aged 15–18; open to international students
The Young Finance Scholar Program from the New York Institute of Finance is a broader finance foundation program that mixes markets, economics, and corporate finance. You study how inflation, interest rates, and GDP connect to real decisions, then move into how companies raise money, manage cash flow, and structure debt and equity. The program also covers how Wall Street institutions work and how IPOs and capital markets function, with space for newer areas like fintech and sustainable finance. The format is live and discussion-based, so you are expected to follow ideas, ask questions, and connect concepts across topics instead of treating finance as memorization.
14. Boston Leadership Institute – Investment Banking
Cost: $699 tuition (residential option available at additional cost)
Location: Boston Leadership Institute partner campuses, Boston & Waltham, MA
Program Dates: July 20–24 or July 27–31
Application Deadline: Rolling admissions until sessions fill
Eligibility: High school students; open to international students; interest in business, finance, or mathematics recommended
Boston Leadership Institute Investment Banking is a short program focused on how investment banks value companies and structure major deals. You learn the logic behind mergers and acquisitions, IPO preparation, and why capital structure matters when companies raise money or plan a transaction. The sessions break down core ideas like present value, future value, and strategic advising, and then connect them to what bankers actually deliver to clients. It also touches the real ecosystem around deals, like regulators, lawyers, and corporate leadership, so you understand how many moving parts sit behind a single headline.
15. Finance and Investing 1-Week Intensive Virtual Bootcamp — Stevens Institute of Technology, School of Business
Cost: $1000
Location: Online (Live Virtual; U.S.-based program open to international students)
Program Dates: August 3 – August 7 (International students must be able to attend the live synchronous sessions)
Application Deadline: Typically in June
Eligibility: Rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors entering the fall academic year; open to international students (Virtual track requires no visa; Residential track requires B-2 Tourist Visa)
Stevens Institute of Technology’s Finance and Investing 1 Week Intensive Virtual Bootcamp is built like a short portfolio management sprint. You spend the week doing equity analysis, checking risk, and building a diversified portfolio using the S&P Capital IQ academic platform, so most of your work is based on real market data. A big part of the program is the S&P certifications, including Capital IQ Pro 101 and 201, Banking 101, and Ratings Direct 101, which you earn alongside the portfolio work. The schedule is structured with live lectures first and then daily breakout sessions where teaching assistants walk you through the practical exercises, so you’re not left alone with the tools.
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