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Everything We Know So Far About The Andreessen Horowitz Academy, The New School for Young Builders

Admissions Team
Sep 28
5 min read

Updated: Oct 1

One of the biggest venture capital firms in the world is starting a school unlike anything currently available to students fresh out of high school.



On September 22, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) made a massive announcement - the opening of the Horowitz Andreessen Academy. It's a $42 million, San Francisco–based program for young builders, with Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, Stripe, Palantir, and Nvidia signed on as founding partners and more than forty additional companies lined up to hire out of it.

Applications are already open, so our goal is to catch you up on answers to some of the questions already coming up.


Highlights


  • Where: Full-time residential program in San Francisco

  • Who's Eligible: Graduating high school seniors, first- and second-year college students, and international applicants

  • Size: ~50 students in the founding class

  • Cost: Founding class is tuition-free under the Founding Class Fellowship; a longer version to follow at roughly $68k/year

  • Extras for founding students: $50k+ in compute credits, $5k travel and research budget

  • Selection: Proof of work (i.e. what you've 'built, shipped, or earned')


Who Founded The Andreessen Horowitz Academy?


Marc Andreessen, Erik Torenberg, and Gagan Biyani, among others came together to found HAA. Gagan Biyani serves as the CEO, after previously co-founding Udemy and, later, Maven, both education bulwarks. However, the founding partner company list is even more impressive: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, Stripe, Coinbase, Palantir, Nvidia. These partner companies host co-ops, and their people teach. More than forty companies beyond the founding group have signed on as hiring partners as well.


As a16z' put it: "Instead of learning from the people who write your textbooks, you'll learn from the people that your textbooks are written about."


Who can apply to The Andreessen Horowitz Academy?


The academy takes students after high school. Stated priority goes to graduating seniors, and it's also open to students already one or two years into college, plus international applicants. Admitted students can defer a college acceptance and use the year as a gap year.


TechCrunch read the launch as a deliberate response to Silicon Valley's drop-out mythology. Essentially, the whole premise is that young builders deserve real structure instead of being told to figure it out alone.


What do you actually do at AHA?


The program runs on three primary components.


Pursuits are the core: student-directed projects and startup ideas, which is where most of the time goes.


Courses are short and intense, anywhere from two days to four weeks, taught by founders and operators rather than faculty.


Co-ops send students into partner companies to work for a stretch.


The program is set in the middle of San Francisco, close to the companies involved. Program housing is encouraged, though students can arrange their own.



How will AHA select students?


Applicants are evaluated on proof of work, meaning what they've built, shipped, or earned rather than test scores.


Many of the best opportunities open to young people have been moving this direction for years: research programs, competitions, accelerators, early-stage hiring. More and more of them are asking some version of show me something you made. a16z taking this route is both bold and in line with where industry is headed.


How is The Andreessen Horowitz Academy Unique?


Programs that take teenagers seriously as professional builders are quite rare, and programs that put them in a room with the people actually shipping frontier technology are rarer still. A sixteen-year-old today can use the same models, the same tools, and the same infrastructure as a senior engineer at any of these companies. The gap that's left is mostly access and mentorship: who will look at your work, tell you what's wrong with it, or open a door.

It is this very gap that the academy is aiming at.


What does The Andreessen Horowitz Academy cost?


Founding class: free, through their Founding Class Fellowship. Students also get more than $50,000 in compute credits and $5,000 for travel and research.



After that, a two-year version is planned pending regulatory approval, with tuition reported at roughly $68,000 a year. The free year only applies to the founding cohort.


Outstanding Questions & Unknowns


Exact start date. a16z's announcement points to the founding fellowship beginning in fall 2027, with the two-year program targeted for fall 2028. Some outlets reported fall 2028 for the fellowship itself. Worth confirming directly on a16z's site before planning around it.

Application deadline. Applications are open; no closing date has been published.

Financial aid. Nothing announced yet for the paid version.

Outcomes. The first cohort hasn't started, so there's no results data to look at yet.

Accreditation. The two-year program is described as pending regulatory approval. As things stand, students earn no degree and no transferable college credit.


The Andreesson Horowitz Academy High School Alternative


The Academy only accepts students who have finished high school, so current ninth, tenth, and eleventh graders can't apply yet. However, the standard it uses to judge applicants, proof that you built and shipped something, is one you can start meeting now. A project you finish at fifteen or sixteen gives you two or three years to improve it and to show how your thinking developed before you apply to the Academy or to college.


The Venture & Tech Summer Program (VTSP) is a six-week virtual program for high school students interested in entrepreneurship and technology. Each student is placed on an internship project with a startup in Silicon Valley or beyond and works on a live problem for that company. Guest speakers working in technology, innovation, and venture capital join throughout the session. By the end of the summer, you have finished work you can write about in a college essay, list in the activities section of the Common App (the online application most US colleges use), or walk an interviewer through.


The program runs over a single summer and is fully online, so you can join from any country without leaving school or changing your post-high school plans. Start building the kind of record that the Academy looks for, now.


FAQs

Who can apply to the Andreessen Horowitz Academy?

The Academy is open to students who have finished high school. It gives priority to graduating seniors, and it also accepts students who have completed one or two years of college. International students can apply.


Can high school students apply to the Andreessen Horowitz Academy?

Only seniors in their graduating year can apply. Ninth, tenth, and eleventh graders aren't eligible yet, but they can start building the kind of proof of work the Academy uses to select students.


Is the Andreessen Horowitz Academy free?

The founding class is tuition-free through the Founding Class Fellowship. Founding students also get more than $50,000 in compute credits and $5,000 for travel and research. A two-year version planned after that is reported to cost about $68,000 a year, and no financial aid has been announced for it yet.


Can I defer college to attend the Andreessen Horowitz Academy?

Yes. Admitted students can defer a college acceptance and treat the Academy as a gap year. In the US, a gap year is a year between high school and college, and many colleges let admitted students push their start date back by a year if they ask for it.


Does the Andreessen Horowitz Academy give a degree or college credit?

No. Students don't earn a degree or transferable college credit right now. The two-year program is still waiting on regulatory approval.


When is the Andreessen Horowitz Academy application deadline?

Applications are open, and no deadline has been published yet. a16z's announcement says the founding fellowship starts in fall 2027, but some outlets have reported fall 2028. Check a16z's site before you make plans around either date.


Where is the Andreessen Horowitz Academy located?

It's a full-time residential program in San Francisco. The Academy encourages students to live in program housing, but students can arrange their own.


Sources

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