I just got accepted into the Horizon Academic Research Program. I still have to decide whether I want to join or not. Since it’s $5,000, I wanted to know if the program is actually worth it or not.
The topic that I chose is CRISPR and Gene Editing. I also got admitted into this other research program that is much cheaper than Horizon. The program is called the Aspiring Scholars Directed Research Program and is much cheaper than Horizon. I was wondering if you had heard of this, and if you have, which one should I choose?
Hey Bangtan!
I’ve had some of my students take part in the Horizon Academic (the Economics program and the Biotech and Machine Learning one). They had a good experience overall. One did a paper on economic decisions in the presence of uncertainty, and he talked about some of his readings from the Horizon program in his college personal statements. A few months ago, he got into UPenn and UChicago. He had plenty of other things going for him (good grades and test scores, lots of wins in debate and some service activities), but it seemed to help him decide he wanted to study economics and get a better handle on what college research was like. The program definitely isn’t for everyone though…you’re writing a 20 page paper in your free time, and it’s only worth the $5,000 fee if you take it seriously. Also, it’s all online (probably not so much a factor now since everything’s cancelled or online this summer), but if you want to do research that requires a wet/physical lab space then it’s not a good choice.
-Fan
Hi Fan, I am concerned that I can’t find any real reviews of Horizon outside of this forum…can you let me know a little bit more about your students’ experience? Did they get their papers published? Thanks for any help you can give me!
Horizon is one of the biggest scams, and all the positive reviews you see on this forum are written by someone who works for the program. Stay away from it!! Believe me. You don’t t want to waste your money on this! I rarely write negative reviews online, but as a parent, I don’t want to see any students/parents get scammed by these shady education companies.
Hi Michael (?), as a program admin of Horizon, I have to say I’m a bit puzzled by your response. What aspect of our organization do you find shady? We pair students together with professors and researchers to do research projects. It’s all pretty clear and transparent on our website, so I’m a bit confused as to what you take issue with. Perhaps you’re mixing us up with another program of a similar name, since there are no parents of any current or former students with the first name Michael.
Hi Fan,
I got accepted to the Horizon Academic Research Program for the Fall 2020 Semester. I would love to get connected with your students, who have attended this program, to know more about their experiences and get some tips.
Thanking you,
I had two students apply. One got in and said that the workload is pretty heavy. He managed to pull off a nice project, but he said that if he hadn’t taken an intro to neruoscience edx class in advance, it would have been a big challenge. Seems better matched for students who have basic familiarity with the subject they want to research first.
-Ruchika
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I second this. For the more specific courses previous knowledge is highly recommended. I had a classmate in my Seminar that had little to no experience and yeah, he had a rough time, but still possible tho. Good luckk 
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