Team Projects
Share the joy of research with friends old and new.
The Polygence Admissions process
Complete online application
Deadlines on the 15th of every month
Interview
Acceptance & Mentor Match
Team Application and Program Structure
Polygence Team Projects consist of 10 sessions between a group of students and their mentor. The best way for students to engage in Polygence Team Projects is to apply as a group from their school or community with a team project in mind, indicating the names of the other students they wish to work with on the application. It is also possible for individual students to indicate they are open to being placed on a team with students exploring similar subjects by checking the appropriate box on their application, but this route does not guarantee the student will be placed on a team. If a student is interested in connecting with like-minded researchers, a great place to find team members is the Pre-Polygence Discord server .
Based on the students' written applications and video interviews, the Polygence admissions team assesses whether the project is a good fit for the program. If so, their application will be sent to our cohort of available mentors for review. It is ultimately up to a mentor to accept a student’s project. When a mentor accepts a project, the student will be accepted into the program to work with that specific mentor. Note that at the time that a student accepts their mentor, they will also be enrolling in the program.
The program is structured around 5 Milestones in addition to regular assignments to ensure students make steady progress on their project. We know and celebrate the fact that Polygence students work on a wide variety of different products, ranging from podcasts to research papers to docuseries to creative portfolios. Given the diversity of projects, these milestones are designed to be as flexible as possible to accommodate any and all types of projects. Throughout the program students are offered two rounds of feedback through an External Project Review.
Here is a typical team project journey based on five milestones.
*We recommend students submit these two drafts to the Project Review Program for detailed feedback
External Project Review Program
All students enrolled in the Polygence program are offered two (2) rounds of External Project Review by selected Project Fellows. For students looking for detailed writing feedback, the review can take this format for relevant projects (e.g. papers, podcast scripts, artist statements, screenplay, etc). For projects with less of a writing emphasis, students may receive feedback on visual design, code-health, or other relevant aspects of their project. We recommend submitting your work for review at Session 6 (draft of half the project) and Session 9 (draft of the entire project).
Through Polygence’s in-house Project Review Program, all Polygence students receive:
- Thorough, targeted feedback for their project no matter what stage they're in
- Detailed, in-line annotations
- General comments on the overall structure and flow of the project
- If applicable, specific guidance on citation style
Team Project Pricing and Examples
One advantage of working with a team is it can reduce the program cost for individual students. The following is a breakdown of tuition per student depending on the number working on a project:
With a Polygence Team Project, students create original projects and learn techniques for effective collaboration. Some examples of recent projects include:
- A team of 3 students is designing a floating robot that collects trash from retention ponds and small lakes
- A team of 2 students is writing a paper that uses data about several sponsored Twitch streamers and YouTubers to inquire into the factors that have the greatest impact on a consumer’s purchase intention.
- A team of 2 students are looking to predict angina using various machine learning algorithms and compare how different methods work a dataset.
Ready to get started? Click the button below to begin!
Questions before you jump into the application? Email [email protected] or fill out the contact form below.