Our goal is to be the most responsible, ethical and trusted Mentored Research provider globally.
As such, we make this commitment to our students, mentors and the academic community.
Polygence Statement on Academic Integrity
Polygence's mission is to help students prepare for the future by building essential skills through project-based learning. To that end, we are steadfastly committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards at every stage of the student experience. Families joining Polygence deserve full transparency into our commitment to cultivating authentic learners. The following outlines our commitment to academic integrity.
Our programs are designed to provide students with an intellectually-deep, guided experience in scholarly inquiry. Students are paired with experienced mentors who guide them through the research process—from formulating a research question, to investigating and applying analytical methods, to preparing findings, sometimes for presentation or submission to a publication. In every single project, our students do all of their own work.
Students are responsible for the intellectual labor of their projects.
We support them by offering guidance, feedback, and educational scaffolding. For that reason, we do not condone nor offer ghostwriting, pre-prepared papers, or guarantees of publication.
Plagiarism within our program will result in project termination.
Mentors support students to responsibly use AI models not as shortcuts, but as tools where appropriate. Using AI irresponsibly or as a shortcut will result in project termination.
The progress and quality of the project is entirely dependent on the student.
Polygence mentors make recommendations of where the student should submit their outcome, and will choose whether or not to allow the student to list them as a coauthor based entirely on the quality of the student’s work.
Therefore, outcomes of our program—whether a finished paper, podcast, nonprofit startup, art portfolio, docuseries, or otherwise—are not guaranteed.
Instead, our program emphasizes process over product. We believe that true educational value comes not from the final product alone, but from the skills developed, the questions explored, and the resilience built through challenges and revisions.
Our program is tuition-based because we believe in fairly compensating our mentors.
Our mentors are subject-matter experts in unique and diverse disciplines, whose time and expertise are incredibly valuable.
These mentors are researchers, educators, and professionals who dedicate significant time to guiding students through a demanding and personalized experience. By compensating our mentors, we ensure that they are not exploited and are given the space to be committed educators invested in student growth.
In short, our program is about real learning.
It is about helping students develop as thinkers, researchers, and problem-solvers. We welcome questions about our process, our mentors, and our approach. Our commitment is to honest communication and to supporting students who are genuinely curious and motivated to explore the world.
