Five prestigious programs and competitions for juniors

A number of the most selective academic programs in the country are aimed specifically at juniors, not seniors, and they're worth knowing about a year before most students start looking.

The John Locke Institute Global Essay Prize is an international writing competition built around genuinely difficult questions in the humanities, and it rewards original argument over polish.

National History Day is a year-long academic program centered on historical research, organized around a different annual theme each year, that culminates in state and national competition.

Telluride Association Summer Seminars is an extremely selective academic program in the humanities and social sciences where students take fully college-level classes, tuition-free, alongside a small cohort.

Genes in Space is a biotech design competition co-sponsored by NASA and Boston Children's Hospital. Winning experiments are actually sent to the International Space Station to be run by astronauts.

The Stanford Mathematics Camp (SUMaC) is a residential program where students work through advanced mathematics, and it's regarded as one of the premier math programs in the world.

If you're a junior, this is the year to apply to at least one of these. Several only take applicants who haven't yet started their final year of high school.