Our Honest Review of Veritas AI’s Programs
Artificial Intelligence is reshaping industries from healthcare to finance. High school students interested in STEM should consider learning more about the growing fields of AI and machine learning. Research programs focused on AI can help you develop technical skills, explore potential career paths, and even strengthen your college applications by demonstrating intellectual curiosity. If you’re thinking about launching your own startup someday, an AI program can give you the coding and technical skills you need to run a tech-focused company.
If you're thinking about doing an AI program, you may have come across Veritas AI, a virtual mentorship program founded by Harvard graduates. In this review, we'll examine what Veritas AI offers, how its programs are structured, what it costs, and whether it delivers on its promises. We'll also look at what alumni say about their experience and help you determine if it's the right fit for your goals.
What Is Veritas AI?
Veritas AI is an online program that offers mentored AI projects for high school and middle school students. According to their website, the program was founded by Harvard graduates and pairs students with mentors who are PhD candidates or graduate students from top universities. The program is project-based, meaning students learn AI and machine learning fundamentals while working on a topic they choose. By the end of the program, participants produce a final project or research paper. All Veritas programs are taught virtually.
What Programs Does Veritas AI Offer?
Veritas AI runs multiple cohorts throughout the year: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Deadlines typically fall a few weeks before the start of each cohort.
Veritas AI offers a range of programs for high school and middle school students, each with a different focus. Let’s take a look at their programs:
1. The AI Scholars Program
The AI Scholars Program is a 25-hour introduction to artificial intelligence and machine learning. Depending on the cohort, it can run over two weeks in the summer or up to ten weeks during the school year. The curriculum covers key concepts like linear regression, convolutional neural networks, and ethics in AI. The program ends with a group project, where teams of three to five students apply what they've learned to a practical challenge.
Best for: Students new to computer science who want to build a strong foundation before attempting an individual project.
2. The AI Fellowship
The AI Fellowship is a 12–15 week one-on-one mentorship program where students create an original AI project. The first few weeks focus on exploring interests and narrowing down a project idea. Students engage in data exploration and feasibility testing before building and refining their projects. The program includes publication and showcase support, meaning students can submit their work to a high school or college-level journal or present it in competitions.
Best for: This program is best for students who already have some coding experience and want to complete an independent project. A basic understanding of Python is required.
3. Deep Dive Programs
Veritas AI offers specialized tracks for students who want to see how AI affects the finance and medical industries, respectively. The AI + Medicine Program introduces you to applications like medical data preparation, image segmentation, and the fundamentals of clinical evaluation. The AI + Finance Program examines how AI influences financial markets through concepts such as risk management, efficient frontier theory, and clustering techniques. Both tracks follow a similar structure to the AI Scholars Program, culminating in a group project that showcases your skills.
Best for: Students interested in how AI intersects with healthcare or finance. For students interested in entrepreneurship, the AI + Finance program offers an excellent way to explore startups through the lens of data-driven technology.
4. AI Trailblazers (for Middle Schoolers)
AI Trailblazers adapts the AI Scholars program for students in grades 6-8. Over 25 hours, students learn the fundamentals of Python programming, regression models, and neural networks. The program emphasizes interactive coding sessions and concludes with a team project.
Best for: Middle schoolers who want an early introduction to coding and AI concepts.
Here are some sample projects past students have worked on:
Detecting pump-and-dump activity in micro-cap stocks using an LSTM network.
Using natural language processing to identify Tweets related to disaster events.
Designing efficient neural networks for natural language processing tasks.
Analyzing Starcraft 2 gameplay data to predict competitive performance rankings.
Developing a uniform method for diagnosing early-stage Parkinson’s Disease.
Who Is Eligible to Participate?
Students from all over the world are eligible for Veritas AI programs.
For the high school programs, students must be currently enrolled in high school or preparing to enter college as a freshman in the fall. The AI Scholars program requires no prior coding knowledge, but the AI Fellowship requires either completion of the AI Scholars program or some coding experience.
For the middle school programs, students in grades 6 through 8 are eligible to apply. The AI Trailblazers program has no prerequisites, while the AI Junior Fellowship requires completion of the AI Trailblazers program or a basic knowledge of Python.
What Is the Cost?
Program costs depend on the track:
AI Scholars Program: $2,490
AI Fellowship (with publication and showcase support): $5,900
Combination Program (AI Scholars + AI Fellowship): $7,900
Deep Dive Programs (AI + Medicine or AI + Finance): $2,490
AI Trailblazers: $2,290
Veritas AI provides need-based financial aid across all its offerings. Aid can cover up to 100% of tuition for the 10-week AI Scholars, Deep Dive, and AI Trailblazers programs. However, it's unclear from their website how many students receive financial aid or what percentage of applicants qualify for full tuition waivers.
How Do I Apply?
To apply for a Veritas AI program, students complete the following steps:
Online application – Fill out the online form with your background and areas of interest.
Interview/assessment – Some students may be asked about goals or coding/math background.
Decision and placement – Accepted students are matched with a mentor from a top university based on their interests.
Is Veritas AI Selective?
Veritas AI does not publicly disclose its acceptance rate, making it difficult to assess how selective the program is. The AI Scholars Program is open to students without prior coding experience, suggesting it's relatively accessible. The AI Fellowship and Deep Dive Programs include an evaluation process, which may make them more selective.
The program's alumni have been admitted to top universities like Princeton, Stanford, Cambridge, UPenn, and UC Berkeley. According to their website, students highlight their Veritas AI projects in their college applications and resumes. However, it's worth noting that correlation doesn't imply causation—students accepted to elite universities may have had strong profiles independent of the program.
While Veritas AI isn't as competitive as some of the most prestigious STEM programs (like MIT's RSI), it can add value to a student's application through its mentorship structure and final deliverables. The program claims that its mentors come from top universities in Computer Science, such as Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. Based on the mentor profiles shown on their website, this checks out. You can see some of their mentors below:
Let's Take Stock of the Claims Up Until Now
✅ Founded by Harvard graduates - The team profiles on their website support this claim.
✅ Mentors from top universities - Mentor profiles show affiliations with Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Oxford, and other well-regarded institutions.
❓ Selectivity - Unlike some programs, Veritas AI does not publish acceptance rates or average GPA/test score data for admitted students, making it difficult to assess how competitive admission truly is.
✅ Alumni outcomes - The program lists impressive university acceptances, though it's unclear what percentage of students achieve these outcomes.
💲 Cost - At $2,490-$7,900, depending on the track, Veritas AI is quite costly. The availability of up to 100% financial aid for some programs is a positive, though details on how many students receive aid are not provided.
What do Alumni say about Veritas AI?
We reviewed Veritas AI's ratings on TrustPilot and Google to get a sense of student experiences. The program has a 4.4/5 rating across 56 reviews on TrustPilot, with students frequently mentioning the mentorship model, flexibility, and the opportunity to produce practical projects. On Google, the program has an average rating of 5/5 across 23 reviews.
It's worth noting that online reviews can be self-selecting, as satisfied customers are often more motivated to leave reviews. Additionally, some reviews mention that the quality of the experience can vary depending on which mentor you're assigned. Many positive reviewers highlight how mentors guided them not only on technical skills but also on shaping research questions.
You can see past students’ TrustPilot reviews below:
We also checked out Veritas AI’s reviews on Reddit to get a less formal perspective. Overall, students reported that the program delivered on its promise of mentorship and project completion, though experiences varied based on mentor assignment. You can see Reddit comments from students who’ve completed the program below:
Pros and Cons of Veritas AI
Pros
Expert Mentorship: Students work with PhD candidates or graduate students from universities like Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, or Columbia. According to some reviews, students have received recommendation letters from mentors for their college applications, though this likely depends on the individual mentor relationship.
Freedom to Choose Topics: In the Fellowship program, students can explore an area within AI that genuinely interests them rather than following a predetermined research question.
Tangible Outcomes: Every track ends with a group project or research paper, which can be added to your college applications or submitted to competitions.
College Credit Offered: Students can elect to receive college credit from the University of San Diego's Extended Studies school. However, it's important to research whether credits from UCSD Extended Studies will transfer to your target universities, as transfer policies vary widely.
Multiple Cohorts: Veritas AI programs run several times a year, allowing students to choose a session that works best for their timeline.
Financial Aid Available: The program offers need-based support that can sometimes cover full tuition.
Cons
No In-Person Experience: The fully online format means students miss out on meeting peers and mentors face-to-face, which some students value for networking and the campus experience.
Group Projects in Scholars Program: The AI Scholars program culminates in a group project with 3-5 students rather than individual work. This means students share credit for the final output, which may be less impactful on college applications compared to individually completed projects.
Unclear Selectivity: The program does not publish acceptance rates, average GPAs, or test scores of admitted students. This makes it difficult to assess how competitive the program is or how it might be perceived by college admissions officers. The AI Scholars program appears to have relatively open admission for students without coding experience.
Variable Mentor Quality: As with any mentorship program, the quality of your experience may depend significantly on which mentor you're assigned. Some online reviews mention inconsistency in mentor engagement and responsiveness.
Our Review—Is Veritas AI Worth It?
Veritas AI offers a structured pathway for high school students to gain experience in artificial intelligence and machine learning. For students who know they want to pursue AI or Computer Science in college, Veritas AI can provide a practical introduction to the field. The ability to choose your own project topic in the Fellowship program is particularly valuable. The online format makes it accessible to students worldwide, though it does mean missing out on the networking and campus experience that in-person programs offer.
However, there are some considerations to keep in mind. The program's selectivity is unclear, which makes it harder to assess how the program might be perceived by college admissions officers compared to more competitive research programs. Although financial aid is available for qualifying students, the program’s cost is significant.
Whether Veritas AI is worth it depends largely on your goals and alternatives. If you don't have access to similar opportunities through your school or local universities, Veritas AI can be a worthwhile investment. The value of Veritas AI lies primarily in the structure, accountability, and credentialing it provides—elements that can be especially helpful for students who benefit from external guidance.
If you’re looking for an incubator program that helps you build a startup in high school, consider the Young Founders Lab!
The Young Founders 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 real-world problem. You will also have the opportunity to be mentored by established entrepreneurs and professionals from Google, Microsoft, and X.
You can access the application link here!
Image source - Veritas AI