Wright Fellows was founded by admissions counselors who have read thousands of applications. That is why the first two weeks are spent deciding what you should build, not how to build it.
Anyone can generate a working app in an afternoon now. That means having one is worth very little. What still takes judgment is choosing the right thing to make, proving it works, and being able to defend it when someone pushes back.
So Wright starts before the building does. A counselor reads your whole picture, what you have actually spent time on and where your interests genuinely sit, and works with you across two sessions until you have a project that is unmistakably yours and small enough to finish.
Then an engineer signs off that it can actually be built in five weeks. Nobody starts something they cannot finish.
Every week has a checkpoint. Miss one and your mentor knows before you do. The sequence is fixed because the six weeks genuinely are one.
Two sessions with an admissions counselor to find the project. Then you pitch it to the committee. It has to be accepted before you start building.
Tools working, deployed empty, interface designed. An engineer signs off that it is buildable in five weeks. Talk to five people who might use it.
The component everything else depends on, taken first, while there is still time to recover if it does not work.
Public, usable, and being measured. A stranger can reach it and their visit is counted. Web apps report traffic.
Do the unscalable things. Recruit your first users by hand, one at a time, and watch them actually use it.
Ten minutes, live, to outside judges. Your metrics on the screen. Questions afterward, and they are real questions.
It stays live and hosted for twelve months, the numbers keep climbing, and we check in at three, six, and twelve months. We keep a calendar of the competitions and venues worth submitting to, by field, and we time cohorts so demo day lands a few weeks before the deadlines that matter. Most student projects are never submitted anywhere. Yours will be.
The fellow page is the part that matters most. It is public, it carries your live traffic numbers, and a stranger can verify in five seconds that you built the thing you say you built. That is the whole credential.
If you meet every weekly checkpoint and your project is not live, working, measured, and used by at least one person who is not a friend or a relative, we refund your tuition in full.
Every fellow gets a weekly one to one with a working engineer, plus async code review between sessions. Mentors are named here before applications close.
Placeholder. Cohort 01 mentors not yet announced.
Cohort 01 has not run. When it does, every fellow gets a permanent page here with their project, what they shipped, and live traffic numbers piped straight from analytics. Until those numbers are real, this section stays empty.
| Award | Tuition | Seats |
|---|---|---|
| Founding Fellow | $0 | 1 |
| Fellowship | $2,250 | 3 |
| Merit | $3,000 | 6 |
| Partial | $3,825 | 3 |
| Full tuition | $4,500 | 2 |
Every application is scored on the same four criteria. Your award follows from that score. There is no appeal and no negotiation, which is the only way a published ladder means anything.
Nine of the fifteen seats carry an award. Beyond tuition, fellows need a Claude Pro or Max subscription and we cover your domain. There is nothing else.
You are not buying a course. You are being backed to ship a product, and the guarantee above is what we put behind that.
Applications are reviewed by our selection committee. We accept fifteen fellows per cohort and we turn people down.
Students in grade 10 and rising grade 11. Seniors are not eligible. There is no technical prerequisite and you do not need a project idea before you apply.
Five things: your grade and school plus a line on your interests, 150 words on what you would build and why it has to be you, something you finished, a ninety-second video, and a parent signature acknowledging the ten-hour weekly commitment.
Every application is scored on the same four criteria and your award follows from that score. The full ladder is published above, before you apply. There is no appeal and no negotiation.
Cohort 01 dates are to be announced.
No. There is no technical prerequisite. You do need a Claude Pro or Max subscription, and you need to put in ten to fifteen hours a week.
One cohort class, one one-to-one with your mentor, recorded lessons you work through on your own time, and async code review between sessions. Every week ends on a checkpoint.
Yes. Fellows work solo, in a pair, or in a team of up to three. A cohort of fifteen usually forms six to eight project teams.
Whatever survives week one. A counselor works with you to find it and an engineer signs off that it is buildable in five weeks. Most projects are web apps, which report traffic. We only approve iOS where the project genuinely needs it.
Yes. Cohort class, mentor sessions, and demo day all run remotely.
Yes. It is your project. We host it for twelve months and cover the domain.
Your project stays live, you get a permanent fellow page with your numbers, a signed letter confirming your selection and what you built, and the alumni channel. We check in at three, six, and twelve months.
If you meet every weekly checkpoint and your project is not live, working, measured, and used by at least one person who is not a friend or a relative, we refund your tuition in full.